Chaeyoung let out a long sigh as she undid the back of her apron. Her shift at the coffee shop had gone on for too long but she was happy that she was finally done with her responsibilities for the day and could head home to relax.

Damn those jerks...

She groaned as she gently massaged her aching neck with her left hand. She had been put in charge of a celebrative party of eight and she had wanted to strangle every single one of the people for giving her such a hard time. Usually, she was a very level headed person but they were doing every little thing to tick her off. She sighed once again and looked down at her clothes that had been soiled with all sorts of drinks and food.

Chaeyoung slowly raised the apron she was holding in her right hand, glaring at the piece of cloth as if asking for the apron to apologize. "What good are you if you weren't going to protect me from the food and drinks those people kept purposefully spilling?"

Did I just talk to an apron?

She glanced at a clock that was hanging on a nearby wall and gasped, "uh oh, it's so late already."

Chaeyoung headed to the back room for the employees and opened her locker, quickly putting her notepad safely inside and taking out her belongings. She stuffed her apron inside her small backpack, then placed it on her back once her coat was on. Once she exited the back room, she made one final check on the shop before turning the lights off and locking down. Chaeyoung placed the lanyard with the shop keys around her neck then turned away from the shop doors to face the darkness that awaited her, praying for a safe journey home as she usually did.

To a normal girl, walking to her home at that time of night would be really dangerous. She could have easily gotten a ride back home, especially when she had a boyfriend with a car that could take her. However, Park Chaeyoung was not the kind to depend on others easily as she would much rather brave out the darkness so she didn't have to bother her boyfriend, Yugyeom. Besides, she was used to taking the same route home everyday and it wasn't her first time getting out at the time she had anyway. She wasn't in the mood to be messed with so if anyone did try anything on her then they would get to know the real Park Chaeyoung.

She placed her hands in the pockets of her coat, looking both ways before she stepped onto the street to head into a different sidewalk. Spring was almost coming but the nights were still so cold so she huddled into her coat as much as she could, making a tiny jump once she reached the sidewalk that would lead her closer to home. She took long strides, cursing herself slightly for forgetting to bring her earphones since she usually listened to music on her way home. It was a way of destressing after a long day at work.

She passed in front of many businesses that were closed for the night, rapidly approaching the more abandoned part of the area. It was just a section full of alleys that usually contained roaming cats eating out of garbage cans. Chaeyoung was taking in the silence of the night, all sorts of random thoughts filling her mind as she began to walk past the alleys she hated so much. She was almost completely past all of them until something within the darkness grabbed her and dragged her in.

Chaeyoung was flustered by the sudden action, her instincts kicking in as she started pulling back but whoever was holding her was too strong. Not one to give up easily, she continued struggling to get free, pain suddenly invading her body when she crashed into a wall in a moment of victory. Having found momentary freedom, she tried to run but her body was once again pulled back.

She wanted to scream but was unable to produce a sound due to the knot that had formed in her throat. The hands that were holding her back by the arms suddenly grabbed onto her shoulders and turned her around so she could face her captor.

"I-I'm not here to hurt you." She heard a male voice say in a whisper-like tone.

Yeah right.

After a moment of silence she decided to look up, finding a male that appeared to be young in age, face partially covered by the black hoodie he was wearing. Chaeyoung scoffed, unable to comprehend what exactly he could want with her other than the usual alley dragging trope. The male was not saying anything and she couldn't see the full features of his face so she didn't know what he was planning. The fear she once felt vanished and feeling of irritation she had felt earlier due to her work replaced it. This man was about to get to know Park Chaeyoung.

In a set of quick movements she lunged herself at the male, grabbing his waist and snaking one of her legs around one of his own to trip him from behind, both falling to the ground as a result. They both groaned at the hard impact, the male taking the hit for the most part in addition to Chaeyoung landing on top of him. Chaeyoung lifted herself, palms pressing against the man's chest; the rest of her weight pressing on the guy's stomach. Despite having the opportunity to leave, she stayed put when the male's breath labored.

"Pl-please g-get off me." He begged her, voice raspy from forcing it out.

He raised his head to look at her, the hoodie that had been covering his face now having fallen off.

"P-please...it h-hurts too m-much." He stuttered out and Chaeyoung immediately moved away, eyes widening when she got a closer look at the male's face.

It was all covered with bruises, the most distinct being the one he had on his left eye that was barely managing to open. Chaeyoung's face was close to his as she leaned in to observe the rest of his injuries. Besides the nasty bruises he also had various scratches, some appearing to be deeper than others like if they had been created with a sharp object. She was so caught up in his injuries that she didn't realize she had moved her left hand to gently touch his face, her fingers staining with blood from scratches that seemed recent.

The male had his eyes shut, breathing still labored as he tried to fight off obvious pain. Chaeyoung didn't know why but she felt bad for the guy. Even though he dragged her into the alley by force and tried to drag her somewhere; if he had planned to kill her or do something inappropriate then he would have done so already. His face was badly damaged and thoughts of other injuries quickly came to her mind. She sat up, eyes traveling down to his stomach since he had reacted badly to her pressing her weight in that specific area.

Could he have a bad injury there?

After a few seconds of thinking, she decided to just lift his clothing in order to check if he had any bad injuries since his all black apparel wasn't good for spotting blood. "I-I'm sorry for this but I have to check something."

Her hands trembled as she placed them on the hems of both the jacket and shirt he was wearing. Before she simultaneously lifted them up, large hands covered her smaller ones in a prevention attempt.

"I-I'm just fine. G-go. You wanted to r-run away didn't you? N-now is your chance." His voice was weak and if Chaeyoung was any normal sane human then she would have taken his word for it and run away. Luckily for him or unluckily for her, she wasn't normal nor sane at the moment since both her mind and heart were telling her to stay. Chaeyoung shook his hands away, turning her head to look at him with a serious expression that she was not quite sure he could capture in the lack of light.

Is he crazy?

"I think I might be going insane but I feel like I can't just leave you here so please let me check real quick and stay put." With that said, she turned to look at her hands on the hems of his clothing and carefully lifted.

"O-oh my god." She muttered, after noticing the severely damaged state of his torso. She used one hand to keep a hold on the hems of his clothing while the other grabbed her phone from her coat pocket. She one-handedly turned on the flashlight of her phone, directing the light source to the male's torso to further check the damage.

Like his face, his torso was severely covered in nasty bruises and various scratches. He also had several scars that appeared like burns of some kind. However, the most shocking injury was the one located on his lower abdomen. It was a gash that ran right under his belly button but was thankfully shallow and wasn't secreting much blood at the moment.

Why hasn't he gone to a hospital?

"W-what happened to you?" she asked, her right hand lightly touching his damaged skin.
The male flinched at her cold touch, finally gathering enough strength to sit himself up from the ground. Chaeyoung released his clothing from her grasp and moved away from him slightly, still maintaining a close distance but no longer touching him.

The male kept his eyes fixed on Chaeyoung, which made her squirm in discomfort. He lowered his eyes to her hands, groaning when he reached over to gently grab them. He brought them close to his face, examining his blood on her fingers. "Y-you dirtied your hands." Chaeyoung didn't say anything and just watched as he rubbed her fingers on his clothing to clean her hands off.

"Don't worry about my hands. I'm already dirty from work. Getting dirty some more is no big deal. Seriously though, what happened to you? Better yet, let's start with your name. What is it?"

Chaeyoung moved her hands away from his grasp, eyes watching the guy's every move intently. "J-Jungkook...Jeon Jungkook is my name."

Chaeyoung managed to give him a small smile. "Look, I don't know what happened to you or why you dragged me here but we can't stay here forever. Let me take you to the hospital." She began to get up but a hand on her wrist made her stop.

"Please don't. I can't go to a hospital."

Chaeyoung sighed out of frustration and confusion but nodded.

What is wrong with him?

"Alright. Then I guess you are coming with me so that I can take care of those wounds. You seem innocent enough." Chaeyoung fully stood, placing her phone back in her coat pocket and then patting herself clean of dirt.

She bent down to help Jungkook, letting out a groan since Jungkook was pretty heavy. Once he was up, Chaeyoung wrapped one of his arms around her neck as her hand traveled onto his back. She was about to walk towards the sidewalk, where she was originally on, but she didn't budge due to the weight next to her refusing to move. Chaeyoung turned to look up at him but Jungkook only shook his head at her, biting his lower lip before he made swift movements that ended up in him trying to pull her somewhere else.

Chaeyoung was shocked at first but she wasn't having any of Jungkook's dragging actions anymore. She squeezed the hand that was gripping onto hers tightly and pulled herself in the opposite direction, standing her ground for as long as she could. Jungkook stiffened when he felt her retaliation and sighed. Chaeyoung was definitely a strong one and he wasn't in his best state so despite still having plenty of strength to overtake her he just limply held onto her hand as he tried to pull her towards him again. "Please, Chaeyoung."

Chaeyoung instantly froze when she heard her name. She harshly moved her hand away from his grasp and moved to stand in front of him with her hands on her hips. "How do you know my name, Jungkook? I asked for yours but I never told you mine." She moved a few steps closer, silently trying to read Jungkook's expression but he was a tough cookie so his face showed no visible emotion.

"Answer me, Jungkook. How do you know my name? Better yet, where are you planning on taking me? You seem to know who I am and are so desperate to drag me away. What's your deal?" She kept on pressuring him, actually causing Jungkook to back away from her out of nerves. A nasty cough suddenly invaded Jungkook's body, making him kneel down on the ground.

Guilt started to overtake her body when she saw how bad Jungkook was coughing and she panicked a bit when she saw black liquid, that she could only assume was blood spill onto his hands. She was about to kneel down and help him but her movements came to a halt when she spotted a folded piece of paper that had more than likely fallen from Jungkook. She didn't know why she was so intrigued by a piece of paper and usually she would have thought it was junk but it looked too clean to have been alley trash. It looked like it was in pristine unfolded condition so she decided to go walk towards it to pick it up

When Jungkook sensed her near his coughs came to an end but confusion took over him instead when he felt her kneel down behind him.

"What's this?" she quietly asked him as she picked up the paper with a shaky hand. She didn't know why but she felt nervous as she held the folded paper in both hands. Jungkook instantly turned around to look at her, eyes widening when he saw a paper in her hands.

What's that?

She took a deep breath before she unfolded the paper and began reading its content outloud. Chaeyoung and Jungkook's blood ran cold when she read the first words of the note (A/N: refer to previous chapter to read the full note if you haven't), "Greetings Miss P-Park Chaeyoung..." Jungkook tried to snatch the note from Chaeyoung's hands to look at its content first but she moved away before he could grab it.

Her eyes scanned through each and every word on the note, going over and over its content multiple times. Jungkook was feeling weak after hearing the content of the letter and once again attempted to snatch the letter off of Chaeyoung's hands but she smacked his hand away from her, causing her to lose balance from her crouched position and sit hard on the floor. She scoffed as she thought about the note once again, body rushing with all sorts of emotions. She didn't know what exactly she should be feeling. She was scared, confused, shocked, but more importantly she was angry; furious to be exact.

Her eyes turned to glare at a certain male that stared down at the ground, his breathing more unsteady than it had originally been.

"Bastard?" Her voice held both disbelief and venom. "Is the bastard the note refers to you, Jungkook? Answer me please." Her voice softened at the end when she saw Jungkook's body slump down.

"I-I had no idea, Chaeyoung." Jungkook slowly crawled to her but she moved away from him.

"W-what is this? Is this a joke? This note says that I have to defend myself, Jungkook! Is this a cruel joke? It says that if I tell anyone that people I love will die! People are coming after me to kill me...oh my god." Chaeyoung began to hyperventilate, her body trembling and her mouth opening and closing as she gasped for air.

Jungkook used the little strength remaining in his body to push himself towards Chaeyoung, pulling her head to lean against his chest. "Listen to my heart, Chaeyoung. I didn't know about the note. I'm sorry. I'm being completely honest when I said I didn't know about the note but..." Jungkook paused for a few seconds before he sighed and held Chaeyoung tighter. "I-I do know about 'The Game' that the note refers to. That is why I tried to find you. I was trying to warn you and take you somewhere safe. You have to trust me, Chaeyoung. I promise I will protect you. I-I'm so sorry I got you into this."

Chaeyoung wanted to move away but hearing his soft words and the beating of his heart that was pounding fearfully in his chest calmed her down. She didn't know what was going on but a part of her felt that Jungkook was innocent to everything and was telling her the truth. She didn't know his full story and she couldn't deny the fact that she needed him since he was involved in the mess. Chaeyoung slowly closed her eyes once she released a sigh and raised her arms, gently hugging Jungkook's waist carefully as to not hurt him. "I-I'm so scared, Jungkook b-but I'll trust you."

Many questions ran through her head and she lifted her head to stare at Jungkook who was currently looking down at her with a sorry expression on his face, weakly trying to console her.

"I'll protect you" he said in a much more confident tone and Chaeyoung nodded, her head returning to sink back onto his chest.

Authors' Note:

Hello guys!

This is Yari (justacuriousthingg ) and Gaby (@vjjkjr)!

We are bringing you the first chapter of our collab story and sorry for the wait on it.

I (Yari) had a family matter so I wasn't able to be on wattpad for a bit so the delay was on me.
It's not her entire fault! (Gaby)

However, we are back so no worries now!
We hope you guys like our first chapter, we wrote it with our hearts!

Thanks for being patient with us. We love you guys.❤️

That's all for today!
Oh! Also we are going to update this story every Wednesday but if something happens on the meantime we'll let you guys know!

See you guys in the next chapter!

Bye bye!