The room was quiet, save for the soft, dreamy tune of a piano playing that echoed from the very walls and down over the Victorian, ornate lounge space with a small wooden bar, matching billiards table, and series of plush seating suitable for an expensive photoshoot or a museum.

Shae leaned against the billiard table, her hands gripping part of the edges of it and arms pressed in tightly against her sides. She wasn't often one for dresses and frill, but today she wore a simple powdered blue knee-length dress with a sweetheart neckline and her blue eyes carefully accented with a dusting of makeup that made them look more profound than usual. Her short hair was pinned back on one side with a glinting silver hairpin, and the tips of her sandaled feet fidgeted nervously up and down in a messy rhythm.

She thought she'd been meeting Joon for lunch, but that wasn't quite so.

"You could have just said you wanted to talk to me about something," Shae said, confused and a bit hurt by the deception.

Taehyung was leaning against an opposite wall, his eyes closed, his face a chiseled fixture of concentration. He wore pastel pink pants, a barely-blue collared shirt that hugged his features, and tan shoes. He, too, looked dressed for an early afternoon picnic—but that wasn't what he was here for.

"Tae."

He opened his eyes and looked at her with the sternness of an older brother, annoyed at their sibling's unwanted interruption.

His naturally low voice was laced with sternness. "The thing is, Joon is failing to address with you the situation that the two of you find yourselves in. It's not as simple as it may seem. For the sake of Noon Mool and everyone in it, and for the sake of my friends, sometimes it's my duty to protect them from their own blind stupidity. So, here we are."

Shae was quiet. She had no idea what Kim Taehyung was talking about.

Tae went on, no irony in his voice as he said, "You're a good girl. I'm confident that once you stand to reason, you'll be fully compliant with my proposition."

"And what proposition is that, precisely?"

"That you take a step back from," he gave a vague gesture towards her appealing appearance, "all of this. And consider a more platonic relationship to Kim Namjoon than a romantic one."

Shae's cheeks flushed at such directness. She and Joon had hardly become anything! What was Tae's angle all of a sudden?

"You're wondering why in the world I've invited you into this conversation in the first place."

"And why you tricked me with a note, pretending to be Joon, in order to get me to meet you on the freaking other half of this fortress." Shae folded her arms. Her features were uncharacteristically cold and guarded. "I mean, I almost got lost trying to find this room by myself."

"My apologies. My intent was not to offend you, but to protect you and Joon. Just hear me out. Please."

"I'm listening," she grumbled.

"Look, you're a nice girl. But Joon needs more than just a nice girl. He needs someone who's not going to put his position in jeapordy. And what, with your against-the-law rune, and us not really being able to figure out what it is you are... that makes you a liability. A liability to all of us."

"How exactly is that?"

"What if, let's say, you don't just cause a mini earthquake next time someone holds a knife to your throat? What if next time they burn up in a flash of lighting?"

"That's ridiculous."

"So is you having that rune in your arm in the first place. But you are whatever you are, all the same. And this is a problem."

"I don't have the problem. Why are you really having this conversation with me right now, Kim Taehyung?"

"I told you. I'm trying to protect you, Shae. Protect you and Joon both."

"From what?"

"From each other. Like I said, you're nice and all. Pretty. But Kiara was nice too, and look how that turned out."

Those last words hung heavy over the room.

"What are you insinuating?"

"I'm not insinuating anything. Kiara and Joon were what they were...and then she was gone. Just like that. That kind of thing plays with a man's mind, even if he isn't willing to admit it."

Tae was glaring into the floor now, and the angry glint in his perfect features was terrifying for Shae to behold.

"Why are you telling me all of this and Joon is not?"

Tae pushed himself up from leaning against the wall and walked across the room to stand nearer to Shae, his hands in his pockets and his shoulders back. The tall man's chin was tilted up, proud and gallant and perceptive, with his eyes bearing down slightly on hers.

"Love is blind. That universal truth, no?" Tae pursed his lips and closed his eyes, his face genuinely betraying melancholy as we went on, "As much as I harp on him, sometimes hate him, and often find him the biggest idiot of an ego to ever wear cargo shorts...Noon Mool needs Joon. We all do. Far more than you might, I'm afraid. So, I'm asking you nicely— this time—to back off. It's what's best for him. And for all of us. Do you understand everything that I am saying to you right now, Shae?"

The door to the room opened. Dread sucked the air out of Tae and Shae both, hoping against hope that it wasn't the leader of Noon Mool stumbling in upon them.

The golden head of Chim's hair peaked into the room, his face soft with concern. It was like he could smell their angst through the entire fortress and he had gravitated towards it like a buoyant, comforting satellite.

"What's going on?" Chim asked innocently, concern curbing his every feature.

Tae looked down at Shae.

"I'd like to leave now." Shae was more than finished with this conversation.

Tae jerked his head towards the door, and she took the hint. She pushed herself up from the billiard table that she'd been leaning on to steady herself, her face ghostly pale as she glided from the room.

"What did you tell her?" Chim asked, his normally bright eyes now soul-piercing, and his usually glowing voice tearing at his words as he looked across the room at Kim Taehyung. "What did you say?"

"I told her the truth. That she's a threat to the safety of Noon Mool, and that's she's walking a precarious line with Namjoon. She needed to know."

Chim seethed, "Couldn't you have kept your big mouth shut this one time?"

The flash of dark intensity from his typically cheery friend made Taehyung take a physical step backwards from the open doorway in surprise. Then Chim's golden head of hair and paralyzing glare disappeared down the hall, chasing after Shae. Tae started to massage the headache in his temples and whisper to himself that he really hoped he had done the right thing.

Shae felt so overcome with confusion. She thought Tae was her friend. She thought that she and Joon might be becoming something more.

But Joon lied to her. Or at least, he wasn't being honest with her, and somehow that hurt just as much if not more.

Maybe Tae's right? But why does it hurt so much, why do I hate this feeling so much?

"Slow down, sunshine," Chim's voice chimed somewhere behind her. She felt his hand on her bare arm, startled as he pulled her around to face him in the grand, sweeping hallway. "Just a second."

"Please let me go, Chiminie," Shae said, her voice betraying the hurt she felt.

"Don't listen to all of that fear mongering, Tae Tae's just being shortsighted."

"...Chimin, let me go...."

His hurried words continued, "He's overreacting, it's really not a big deal! No one's going to find out about your rune, I've already talked with Lilith about making sure your armor designs are able to conceal the rune well, so that if in combat no one will see it if it reacts again and you'll stay...."

"...Chim. Please."

He stopped speaking over her, sighing heavily through his deeply set frown. His hand fell from her arm. "It doesn't have to be this way," he said, his voice breaking. "You don't have to give up, Shae. Please don't give up on Joonie-hyung just yet."

"I'll see you later." She flashed him a melancholy smile, then continued her way down the hall, leaving Chim behind.

His features settled once again into that sharp, fierce look he'd flashed Taehyung as he stared down the hall at the back of Shae's head. Chimin began rolling up his white cotton sleeves, his mouth twisted to one side in a slight snarl.

This wasn't how his perfect plan was going to end, he thought. Not if he could help it.