"Get those fucking handcuffs off me and we'll talk."

Yoongi's grin was crooked, his pale lips curled in an unpleasantly abnormal way, reflecting his twisted state of mind. Jimin found himself becoming increasingly uncomfortable at the sight as his anger slowly subsided, making room for the uprising surging perplexity. His arms still rested at the backrest of the chair, pressed against his chest, cold sweat building up between his fingers.

He was by no chance foolish enough to fall for Yoongi's deceitful nature, but he had to admit – the fucking dirtbag had managed to strike a nerve.

Admittedly, Jimin had very few weaknesses in his life, one of them Aera and the other two - his younger sister Nana and his grandmother, who up until that moment he believed to be dead, passed away in a tragic incident he had little recollection of. In the last few minutes, Min Yoongi had managed to cause significant distress to Aera and defile Jimin's late relatives' memory by speculating about whether they were actually deceased or not.

Unexpectedly, this didn't make Jimin mad, nor sad.

It just made him feel lost.

"It's very unwise of you to think that you can manipulate me with such tricks," Jimin mumbled, lips stretching in a cruel sneer. "It would never work."

"Wouldn't it?" Yoongi gave an incredulous gasp, feigning surprise. "From what I'm seeing you're still here, so I'd beg to differ."

"I'm still here only because I'm debating on which part of your body to cut off first." Jimin snarled fiercely. For the first time in his life he felt powerless and exposed, even though he'd never show it. Yoongi's eyes bore through him mercilessly, his face practically glowing with badly concealed elation.

This was exhilarating for him, he found thrill in terrorizing people emotionally, finding his own sadistic satisfaction in it.

"Again with the threats?" he pressed his lips into a line, sounding disappointed. Jimin was rattled, assuming that this hostile demeanor did little to prevent from Yoongi seeing right through him. If he showed even in the slightest bit that the black-haired man's words affected him in any way, he'd definitely come across as vulnerable.

And he couldn't let that happen.

"I've said what I had to say," Jimin stood up swiftly, still contemplating the plausibility of Yoongi's suggestions. "Enjoy your stay here, because to me it seems like you're going to have to get used to these four walls. Considering they'd be the last thing you'll see before you die."

Yoongi's long, dramatic sigh stopped him in his tracks as he headed for the door and Jimin cursed himself on the inside for allowing his body to operate out of his control.

"Look, I realize I'm not deserving on your trust. I just want to help you get your family back, Jimin."

Playing on his heart strings, the bastard knew what he was doing. He even called him by his first name, something that had never happened before. Jimin was conflicted, his thoughts wrestling with one another, caught in a vicious grip.

Family?

The word awakened emotions that had previously been deeply buried somewhere within, feelings Jimin had forgotten ever existed. Through the swirl of sickening thoughts came his grandmother's voice and his baby sister's face. He barely had any recollection of what they looked like. In a way, he thought this was a mercy. There was no room for sentimentality in his life, and no time to sulk over something he had no power over. Life had taken his dearest ones from him, and he had accepted it with the resiliency cultivated in him from a very young age.

Family. Aera was the only person in his life who carried any resemblance to the meaning of this word.

"You think you should be thankful to the Lee family for getting you out of that orphanage, don't you?" Yoongi spoke quietly, interrupting Jimin's train of thoughts.

"It's not any of your business what I think."

"I see. Perhaps you're right. The only reason I'm telling you this is because I think you deserve to know. The truth has been kept away from you for far too long, Jimin."

"Don't pretend that you have my best interests at heart." Jimin twirled around, his eyes hard and rigid. This was the oldest trick in the book. Yoongi pretending to have good intentions towards him wouldn't move him. He knew better than that.

"Then, let me ask you a question. Just one simple question."

"What?"

"Do you really think Aera's family could have modeled you in this perfect human shield programmed to protect her and only her, if you had other people in your life to distract you from that purpose?"

Yoongi's words hung in the air like poison. They seeped into Jimin's blood and paralyzed his brain. What he was suggesting was ludicrous, and if it were to end up being true, tremendously cruel.

"If there's something you want to say just say it, stop being so fucking cryptic." Jimin's fury reemerged, slowly crawling under his skin.

"Oh, me?" Yoongi exclaimed softly, bottom lip buckling upwards in an innocent expression. "I'm not saying anything, I'm just asking you a question."

"No, you're not. You're deliberately steering my thoughts in the direction of concluding that Aera's family may have harmed my sister and my grandmother on purpose, to rid themselves of any hindrance in the process of training me to protect her." Jimin stated pointedly, arms crossed against his chest. He'd never give Yoongi the pleasure of thinking that he'd fool him that easily and control him.

"Here I was, thinking there'd be no brains underneath these muscles." Yoongi laughed. It wasn't a sly chuckle, it was a full-blown laugh which resulted in only making feel Jimin even more unsettled. "Making you doubt Aera's benevolence was never my intention. I'm just trying to spice up the conversation."

"No, you're starting fires in a place you have no power over," Jimin shot back. "No matter how much you try, you can't come in between us. My relationship with Aera is bigger than anything you can imagine and even though you're trying to hide it behind that smug mask, you're still salty that you're never getting her back."

This seemingly managed to send a sharp sting through Yoongi, confirmed by the slight wince that laced his slack expression. At the end of the day, a big part of his malevolence came from his bruised ego, very much the result of Aera's constant denial of his affections.

So it really was that simple to get to him, wasn't it?

Seems like he and Jimin were rendered vulnerable by the same weakness. At the end of the day, it all came down to her. The same girl.

The only girl.

It didn't take too long for Yoongi's aggravation to be blanketed again by the mask of his indifference, mixed with disdain.

"Something bigger, huh?" the arrogance was evident in his voice, a tinge of spite glistening in his dark orbs.

"Something your wicked mind will never grasp and your cold heart will never know." a shiver slithered its way down Jimin's back as the last words escaped him. The little patience he had left was hanging by a fragile thread. Suddenly staying there in that dark concrete box with Yoongi didn't make sense to him. He had to be next to Aera, what on Earth was he still doing there?

"I see," Yoongi hummed, his gaze casting over the floor, visibly defeated. "You're talking about the Red thread."

Jimin could barely contain his shock. "How do you know about the Red thread?" this whole ordeal was suspiciously starting to resemble a police interrogation. Yoongi was going back and forth from being cooperative, hostile and remorseful, staying true to his dishonest ways and playing all kinds of mind games, resulting in Jimin feeling weary and exhausted. Was it all power play?

"I know a lot," Yoongi smirked darkly. "I also know that it's total crap."

"Bullshit," Jimin was quick to call his bluff again. He saw with his own eyes the thread of energy connecting Aera's heart to his own. They both saw it, it wasn't an illusion.

"No, really. That's just gibberish made up by old demented witches. It's all fake. Truthfully, I'm surprised you believed it, I thought you were smarter than that."

"Who are you to say what's fake and what isn't?" Jimin grumbled menacingly.

"I can safely say I know a lot more about these things than you do. And frankly, I advise you to just think about it. If you and Aera were sooo written in the stars as this stupid prophecy claims you are, would she have fallen in love with me many years ago?"

"This wasn't love," Jimin retorted right away. "It was an abusive, co-dependent relationship that was unhealthy more for her than for you. You used her for your own personal enjoyment, finding pleasure in abusing her over and over again and treating her like shit. Didn't you see the result of your disgusting wrongdoings, just some minutes ago? Was it not enough for you to see her suffer like this?"

"You say it's abuse, but all I see is love. Aera loved me, that's why she took me back many times and kept forgiving me. She's incapable of having this with anyone else except me."

"This was many years ago. She's not the scared little girl starved for your affections anymore, and I'll make sure she never goes back to that dark place again."

"So chivalrous," Yoongi scuffed. "Why don't you just stop and think; hasn't she slipped back there already?"

The words echoed in Jimin's head, having the effect of a slap on the face. Flashbacks of Aera's sobbing resurfaced in the back of his mind. Apparently whatever Yoongi told her triggered something in her. Was it her withered love for him?

"Doesn't matter," he huffed, placing his hand on the doorknob, his face stretching in a fake ear-splitting grin. "As I told you, you're never seeing her again."

Yoongi's face fell. His body visibly stiffened, slightly jerking forward, the handcuffs clacking against the chair with the movement.

"You'll see," he spat out, finally breaking out of his poised composure. "I'm going to be right about everything, you'll see! You'll be back, begging me for some information about your grandmother and your sister," desperate, he was apparently grasping at straws right now, driving the conversation in a totally different direction. "When you find out what they've done to them, you'll hate your precious Aera and her whole family, mark my-"

In a swift and precise motion, Jimin whipped around and grabbed the free chair, twisting it in his hands and ripping one of its legs. Promptly, he turned the pointy end towards Yoongi and pressed it at his chest, provoking a pained hiss from the immobilized man.

"The next time," he breathed out, chest heaving with fury. "I hear her name escape your lips, I'm driving that stake so deep inside your chest, it's going to come out from your back with your heart on its tip."

Bloodshot bulging eyes drilling through Yoongi, he applied even more pressure to the point where a small bloody line appeared on Yoongi's torso.

"Am I clear?" Jimin barked, fingers wrapped around the stake so tightly that his own hand was about to start bleeding.

With a sharp groan, Yoongi squeezed his eyes shut and gave an almost indistinct nod. Jimin drew back, jaw tightened and nostrils flaring.

"Good." He growled, tossing the bloody stake at the floor and marching towards the door hastily.

Min Yoongi had chosen the wrong person to mess with.