YOU ARRIVE IN Daerim before Jungkook does. 

He has to go home, grab his bike, do whatever. You're on a city bus, blending into the crowd before he even reaches his banjiha. 

Back at your apartment, his side of your bed is still warm. You imagine it still smells like him. Imagine you're still there with him. Together.

But you aren't, and it's stupid to think of such thoughts.

It's wet beneath your feet as you trundle down the back alleys towards the Daerim apartment. Your feet splash in the small puddles that form where the road needs resurfacing, but you pay it no mind, glancing over your shoulder instead. You're paranoid, only a few blocks from where Jungkook was jumped. It's the middle of the day, but the shadows are dark; the looming presence of a date with the devil even darker.

Daerim is a dive at night, but it's even fucking worse in the daytime. There's squalor on every street corner, trash piles untouched because, apparently, no one knows how to recycle properly round here, and middle-aged men lurk with nothing better to do than intimidate pretty young girls.

You're chancing your luck, seeing if your sugar daddy is gonna be in the apartment. You know he must have been there this morning if he was arranging hits on Jungkook.

You didn't tell Jungkook this, but you know that's what must have happened. 

You've seen your sugar daddy arrange hits before. Seen his M.O.

And it infuriates you. 

In a way, it feels like Jungkook is being baited. The fucker who stole his stash is Holangi. Has to be. You know your sugar daddy's role. 

You know he's The King. 

He won't have hired from outside the firm. Holangi money keeps within Holangi circles, he's told you before, when telling you that you couldn't do your grocery shopping at HomePlus anymore. 

If anything, Hobi - or whoever it is calling Jungkook to The Zoo - should be after the fucker who carried out the hit on Jungkook, instead. 

Surely stealing from Holangi is worse than Holangi being stolen from? You want to ask.

But you don't know that Jungkook isn't Holangi. You don't know that he's just working under contract. He's not affiliated. You don't know that this - his job - is temporary. 

You also don't know that the hit was never a hit.

The King had called Hobi, got him to get Jungkook on the streets, and then he'd sent one of his men to steal the stash. Kook's fucked up face was just a little bonus.

He might have just been a dirty old man in your eyes, but Holangi's King didn't get to the top without being strategic about it.

He was putting Jungkook in debt that he wouldn't be able to escape; making him Holangi's newest bitch whether he liked it or not. 

Not like it wasn't always going to happen. 

There's been eyes on Jungkook for years now, ever since he applied for the Holangi Honour scholarship. Didn't know what the fuck Holangi was back then.

He was hand-selected by The King for the scholarship. One to watch, he thought. 

The scholarship kids always interned for one of Holangi's 'legitimate' business partners. It was a stipulation of their scholarship allocation. 

Holangi needed someone new in the media department, someone to spin stories for them, and a filmmaker seemed like a good choice. Get him in with a broadcasting station, and Holangi would have no issue playing the press.

But the stupid kid had started fucking with Holangi business a little too early on for The King's liking. And then he'd started fucking The King's latest squeeze, and that absolutely couldn't do.

You're ignorant of this. Aren't aware. Simply think it's all personal. Think it's all your fault.

Punching the security code into the door of the Daerim apartment, you're on edge. The light is on, sound coming from the kitchen. He's here. Ideal.

Except for the fact it isn't, because you're soon greeted with an unfamiliar face.

Strong is your first thought. Broad, your second. Danger, your third.

While you don't know his face, you also sort of do. He's the spitting image of the man you normally meet here.

And then it dawns on you; that The King's kids aren't exactly kids. 

He looks you up, down. Once, twice. And then his lip begins to push upwards, his teeth showing as he grins to himself. "Who are you supposed to be?"

"No one important," you reply quickly. Gotta get out. "Just work here, that's all."

He's well dressed. Suit and tie. Hair slicked back. When he laughs, it's heavy and throaty. Suffocating. 

"Sounds like bullshit. Ya see - " he runs his finger along the shelving unit next to the sofa, then inspects it in the dim light. "It's fucking filthy in here, so you can't be a cleaner. There's no food here either, so you aren't a cook. But-" the heels of his leather shoes click as he walks towards you, his stature intimidating, only softening when he reaches the small carpeted entrance by the front door. He doesn't stop until he's so close you can feel his warm breath as he speaks. "You're young."

He clasps your jaw, tips of his fingers digging into the bottom of your cheeks, inspecting you. Takes a moment to assess the little graze on your face. You're looking only at his eyes. They're so smokey you think you might choke. And then he drops your chin with more force than you expect. 

His hands don't fall to his sides, though. 

They grab your chest, instead. 

It's hard. Aggressive. Has you pulling away from him in disgust as he laughs.

"Real, too," he judges from the feel he's just had. "Just his type."

Your hands are crossed over your chest now, cheeks flamed, embers licking at the corner of your eyes. How fucking dare you?! You want to shout. 

But you're a Daerim nightcrawler, so you do what you do best: 

You spit. 

Right at his shit-eating grin.

It lands on his cheek just beneath his eye. His cheeks are still rounded from the smug smile that had been plastered on his stupid fucking face. Drips a little. Bullseye.

It's undignified and it's unrefined, but you don't give a fuck, and he can see that as he wipes your spit from his cheek with his fingers. He jerks them, the clear liquid not making a noise as it splatters to the carpet below. 

He stills for a moment, tall and brooding - and then his hands are tangled in your ponytail, dragging you down so that your face is pressed against the floor. He's about to talk you down, about spit right back, but then things start making sense.

And he laughs. 

"So that's how you got your graze, huh?" He twists his hand in your hair so that your unscathed cheek is now facing the ground instead. You hide you whimper well, gritting your teeth as you try to reach for his hand. He's pulling. Hurts like a bitch. He pulls tighter. "Stupid little bitch get a little too big for her boots, huh?" He hisses through gritted teeth, tiny specks of phlegm hitting your cheek as he does so. "You talk to Daddy dearest like that, huh?" He readjusts. Pushes you further into the carpet. It's burning again. Exactly like it did when Daddy dearest had done it. Like father, like son. "What did you do to piss him off? You spit on his face instead of his cock?"

He doesn't wait for a response. Just pushes you away, grip revoked, as the door clicks behind you. 

"Who the fuck is this, Tae?" A female voice questions.

You're frozen, still a little shell-shocked from the interaction. The man across from you shrugs his shoulders.

"Dad's latest hooker, by the looks of thing."

Tapping you with her foot as she walks on by, the woman laughs. "And she's here, because...?"

He glances down towards you, arrogance all over his mature features. "Probably trying to write herself into the will."

"Eesh," the woman grits her teeth sarcastically. "He's been cold, what? Four hours?" She looks at you. Smirks just like Tae did. Looks identical to him, if only a little older. "Gotta appreciate the hustle, skank." 

She crouches, elbows resting on her black denim-covered knees, head tilting as she pouts. 

"But Daddy dearest popped his clogs this morning. Bad batch of ket. All very sad." She leans in closer, and you can smell the toke she'd just taken on her assistant's cigarette before entering the room.  You've never seen anyone look less affected by the death of a parent. "You ain't getting shit from Holangi."

"I don't want anything from Holangi," you lie, as if you weren't about to ask your sugar daddy for a revision on the offer he had made during your last visit. You weren't lying when you told Jungkook that you didn't have a deadline, but you also wanted to earn that money back as quickly as you could.

"How long has he been lining your pockets for?" She quips, but Tae answers instead.

"There's a receipt for a cash withdrawal in the kitchen from about two months ago. She's been digging for long enough."

"How much?"

"Half a mil."

The woman whistles. Her eyes are vacant as she stares you down. "Ouch. You must be a real good fuck."

You don't bother telling her that half a mil isn't your price - or at least it wasn't back then - and that fucking isn't what you do. What's the point? 

"You one of the Zoo girls?" The man asks. He hasn't seen you there. Thinks he probably would have recognised you. Then again, he's always in booth number one with the girl he's most familiar with. Doesn't bother straying. He doesn't do it for pleasure. Doesn't do it for business either. Just does it. Doesn't really think too hard about it.

"Like I said," you smile, pulling yourself out of the position you're in. "Don't want anything from Holangi, let alone to work for them. I came here to resign." Another lie, but who's counting? "Didn't know he was- yanno."

Dead felt like a little bit of a harsh word to use given the circumstances. 

"Not an ounce of sympathy," the woman notes, but doesn't expand. She doesn't really give a fuck, either. "Joon?"

You hear the scrub of a shoe against pavement, the smell of cigarette smoke wafting through the front door, and then in enters another man. Well dressed, hair cropped short, he's more put together than the other two. Wiser, he seems. Smarter. You doubt he's any kinder, though.

He raises his brows, and offers a small agreeable 'hmm'. 

"Take her-" she nods towards you "-to the fishery. Don't let her out of your sight."

Joon looks you up and down, running his tongue along the inside of his cheek. He scans your face, and his eyes seem warm as if you're familiar to him. You know you're not. You've never seen him before in your life.

He lifts the side of his blazer to reveal a gun holster, the metal barrel glimmering in the dingy room, and then he knocks his head back. He doesn't say a word, yet you're compelled to follow him out of the door.

"C'mon, Te-te. Hoseok's got an update on the kid who got jumped," you hear the woman say as you exit. "Funnily enough, kid got jumped with a bad batch of ket. What are the odds?"

He knows it's zero. 

But now isn't the time to be discussing quite why Kim Taehyung had intercepted his Dad's hitman and switched Jungkook's stash of coke with dodgy ket earlier that morning.

"You coming with, Nyeo?" He questions. "I can go it alo-"

"I'm coming with you," she responds a little too quickly. The second she lets him take meetings alone is the second that she loses power. That simply can't happen. She's worked too hard not to take over her father's empire. "None of the skanks will be there at this hour. It's fine."

You don't know what she means, but you know that it must be a weakness. She doesn't like Zoo girls.  It half-makes you wanna become one.

But that thought is fleeting.

'Cause all you can think about is 'the kid who got jumped'.

You think about his eyes, and how soft they'd been when he'd been kissing you that morning, whispering sweet nothings as if you'd always been that way with one another. You think about the blood that had stained you, and how grateful you are that it keeps him alive. You think of him, him, him, and nothing else.

You think of him and how terrified you are for him.

Joon can sense it. Figures you're scared for yourself. In your position, he would be.

And so the drive is silent, as he tries to formulate a solution, the pair of you in the back. He has a driver, because of course he fucking does. He's top-level Holangi. Silly to expect anything less.

About twenty minutes pass before he mumbles something to the driver. The car stops just before the empty T-junction ahead.

He sighs deeply, then rolls his head back and presses the base of his skull into his shoulders. It's raining outside, the droplets pelting down without apology. It's almost like the skies are trying to wash the world of its sins, but you're protected by a blacked-out Ssangyong. There's no scrubbing you clean. Not today.

"Take a right," he begins slowly. "And we get to the fishery. Take a left? Incheon."

Namjoon knows your face. Knows who your father is. Knows that if anything happens to you under Holangi watch, there'll be a price on their heads. Metaphorically, at least. Your dad is a man of the law. Clean cut. But with friends in high places. 

Before the King died, Namjoon probably wouldn't have thought about it - but Holangi is weak now.

The King is dead and his children are running riot, drunk on power, high on adrenaline. They've been let out to play without parental supervision, after all. It's all very exciting. 

"Tae and Nyeo," he says, not yet matured to a true consigliere. Not yet aware that he shouldn't be dropping names so freely. "They've just lost their dad. I dunno what the fuck just happened in there, but they've got a lot on their plate."

You stay silent. You don't give a shit what they've got on their plate. Don't give a shit about their dead dad. Boo fucking hoo. 

"You're an inconvenience more than anything at this point," he states all rather plainly, glancing across to you for the first time in a while. You're only a few years younger than him. Both of you are out of your depths - but you can get out. He can't. "So we can take a right, and Holangi has their claws in you - or you can take a left, and never show your face around here again..."

You look at him, and he looks at you. His eyes are kind. Young. Too young for the shit he's embroiled in.

And when he finishes his sentence, he tells you that it's your choice.

But you can tell that he's pleading for you to make a choice that he never could. 

Your eyes are focused on the road ahead. Left or right. Such a simple question. It shouldn't be this hard.

But it is. 

Has you stewing for a lifetime.

When you make your choice, he shuts his eyes solemnly. Nods. "Very well."

And then he tells the driver to start the engine again.