──  ❝ 𝑪𝑯𝑨𝑷𝑻𝑬𝑹 𝑭𝑶𝑹𝑻𝒀」

❝ 真実の省略;
. OMISSION OF TRUTH ❞

KARMA IS STARTING to believe Taehyung likes being in the darkest, dankest, fishiest places he can find. She regrets wearing the fur coat Taehyung got her because she knew it would take forever to get the smell of raw seafood out of the fabric. Her nose scrunched the moment Namjoon opened the door to let them out. Taehyung slid out first, then offered out a hand covered in rings of lapis lazuli and sapphire.

"Why can't you ever do your interrogating in like- a field of roses or tulips?" Karma's distaste for the smell of fish and seawater was written all over her face. She had her arm looped in with Taehyung's as he begins to lead her through the shipyard to their destination. They were just along the Korean straight where many cargo ships come and go between Busan and Japan.

Taehyung hummed, humoring her obvious hatred for a place like this. "Yeah, I'll be sure to  find a nice field to shoot someone in the head next time. Maybe I'll have bees sting them to death." She'd have to get used to the unsavory parts of being in power if she would remain by his side. He'd rather not be here either, but he was doing what he must to ensure that he got his diamond back safe and sound.

They round the corner and at the end of a particular dock sits four men. Two are standing to the side under the few sparse lights that allow them to see. The two angels, Jimin and Jungkook, who have done a deed of the devil, and two men sitting in old, wooden chairs with their hands bound behind their backs and their feet bound to the legs of the chair. Also bound to the chair is a cinderblock, she can only imagine what he plans to do. Taehyung is always quite creative.

The two men, Yongjin and Jaewon, are both gagged, beaten bloody. They were pretty much naked as well. Only wearing their underwear in the frigid air of the shipyard. Karma can still see the faint remnants of dried blood and bruising on Jungkook's knuckles. He was the brawns, after all, she presumed Jimin was meant to be the brains in the duo.

"Good work, boys." Taehyung commended them for their work, reaching into the pocket of his suit. He was a man of style, even in the grimmest of situations. He had decided to make quite the statement in a bright yellow, three-piece suit with a blue undershirt and a pink tie to top it all off. A rather unusual combination of colors, but they all came together well on him. "Take the gags out of their mouths." He took out a sleek, silver cigarette container and flipped it open to pull out a cigarette to light.

Jungkook and Jimin removed the gags from the mouths of the battered delinquents. Unlike the last few, they didn't wail, cry, or beg for forgiveness, for mercy. Through their blackened eyes and bloodied noses, their stares are cold, unyielding. It might take a bit more work to pry information out of them.

Karma felt she was becoming far too comfortable with situations like this, with the violence, blood, and gore of it all. Anything short of bashing someone's brains in, she was sure she could handle. They were freezing already. She was sure she would be if she weren't wearing her coat to protect her from the cold.

Taehyung removed himself from Karma's hold, taking a drag of his cigarette as he walked forward to gaze at the two. "You two have been very hard to find." He chuckles, kissing the whisps of grey as they leave his lips and dissipate into the air. "But you couldn't have thought you would have avoided me forever, right?" A stupid thought to think that anyone could hide from him. Everything in the darkness will eventually come to light.

Always.

"I'll make this easy for you two. Very easy. Just tell me a name or names and I'll make sure your skeletons aren't found at the bottom of the straight." Taehyung waved his cigarette around with a placid smile, pacing in front of the two of them. It was hopeful for him to think they may just surrender without pressure. The things he's done to people were ungodly, renowned, infamous for their brutality and straight-up uncivilized methods of torture. Sometimes, just the knowledge of what horrors he can create in that mind of his is enough to have people singing like birds.

Yongjin and Jaewon weren't those people. Either the person who hired them was paying them a large sum of cash, or the dirt they had over their heads was so atrociously bad, they refused to speak. They screwed their lips tight and refused to utter a single word from their chattering jaws.

Taehyung placed his cigarette between his lips and took another drag. The embers burned hot as he wandered his way closer to the two men. Plucking the cigarette from his lips, he pointed the tip at them. Hopping back and forth between him, he began, "Eenie, meenie miny moe, catch a tiger by its toe, if it hollars let'em go. Eenie. Meenie. Miney. Moe." He landed on Jaewon and then looked to Yongjin, grinning.

It wasn't like Yongjin could do much to stop Taehyung from waltzing up to him and prying his eye open. He held his eyelids open and without even a moment of hesitation, he pressed the tip of his cigarette right against his eyeball. If Taehyung could say he had one talent, it was getting people to scream. Sometimes in terror, sometimes with pleasure, most times in pain.

The scream Taehyung carved out of this man made Karma instinctively shiver. Overwhelming dread and terror settled in the pit of her stomach. She knew Taehyung would never do something like that to her, at least, not now. He didn't suspect her, not that he had a reason to. But his threat to kill her when they first met still lingered on her mind.

Taehyung held the cigarette to his eye until a satisfactory amount of burning occurred, finally he removed the cigarette and flicked it to the side. "Jimin, you got that cup of saltwater I asked for, right?" He momentarily turned to Jimin. His voice still carried behind the bone-chilling screaming coming from Yongjin.

Jimin nodded, bending down to take the cup of seawater he had set down on the ground beside him. He handed into Taehyung and returned to his stationary position beside Jungkook.

Just for an added measure of pain, Taehyung once again held Yongjin's burned eye open and poured the water right into the wound. Somehow, his screams amplified, echoing off the walls of the man docked boats around them, but they never reach the ears of someone who can help him.

As much as it is physical torture for Yongjin, it's psychological torture for Jaewon, having to sit there and watch, listen to his partner's screams while the threat of his own punishment looms over him like a shadow. It doesn't take long for the waterworks to come, the screaming, the pleading. All the same, nothing Taehyung was in the mood to hear.

"All you guys have to do is either tell me who's at the very top of this or tell me where my diamond is. I'll take either." He pretends to be innocent, a saint, like they brought this upon themselves and he's only seeking divine justice. Karma knows better than to say he enjoys hurting other people despite the smile on his face, but he was certainly good at it. He was a tortured artist. A man who hates his craft but has a specific talent for it.

Yongjin can't possibly fathom to create words with the unimaginable pain so it was up to Jaewon to decide. To be stuck between a rock and a hard place was child's play, the worries for someone who wasn't facing imminent death. The only real options were to tell him what he wanted and be pushed into the sea or face such unimaginable pain that they would wish they were dead, better yet, never even born in the first place.

Turns out, they were a lot easier to crack than Taehyung initially thought.

"J-Jung Hoseok!" Jaewon yelled. "He's at the head of this whole thing! He hired us to put this all together because he had dirt on us, okay!"

Karma's blood ran cold, so cold she thought that her veins had frozen over. Her heart stopped beating in her chest. Maybe she just had a stroke, but she felt as though she couldn't breathe.

Yoongi.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Yoongi was in danger. If Hoseok was in charge of all of this, then there was a good chance he either wrapped Yoongi up in this or Yoongi was simply within blast radius and he would be atomized in the process.

Taehyung, pleasantly surprised by how easily he managed to retrieve just the information he needed, grinned rather genuinely. He was in a good mood. Finally, this all would be resolved. He'd get his diamond back and in addition, he'd have a Queen by his side. What more could he ask for?

"Well, I'm very glad you two came to your senses." But that wouldn't save them from death. They still required proper punishment for committing such a heinous crime in the first place. He turned his back on the two, and with a single glance to Jungkook and Jimin, they stepped into action, going to throw them into the water as per originally planned.

Taehyung adjusted his suit jacket, carefully tugging at the sleeves and dusting himself off as he made his way over to the petrified woman standing beside his right hand. He only momentarily glanced at her, the heavy splash behind him was quite distracting. The only thing left behind by the two men were mere bubbles surfacing to the top of the water.

Taehyung slid his arm beneath Karma's coat, placing his hand against her back and pulling her close. "Do you have any idea who that is? Recognize their name from somewhere?" Karma knew it was just standard for him to ask. After all, she was there to assist him, but for a moment her world stopped.

Omission of truth is still lies.

She couldn't put Yoongi in danger. She would never put Yoongi in the line of fire, even if he was involved in this. If Taehyung did anything to him, Karma would simply die.

So she forced herself to get a grip. She looked up at him and shook her head. "Nope, never heard of him in my life."

*.✧ Kᴀʏs Eɴᴅɪɴɢ Nᴏᴛᴇs

WE'RE APPROACHING OUR CLIMAX Y'ALL. Karma and Yoongi will be coming together again soon and I'm so excited to write Abt their reunion. We might also be getting a in person face off between Yoongi and Taehyung. Ooou, I'm so excited.

I'm actually still not sure how this book is gonna end. I've had a lot of time to think about it but I still haven't officially decided. I don't wanna do polyamory because it feels like a cheap copout so that I won't have to chose one over the other (also they fucking hate each other's guts so I don't see that working out). I could write two separate endings for both of them but at the same time, that would defeat the purpose of choosing.

Thank you all for reading. I hope you guys enjoyed and I wish you all a wonderful day/night.

사랑해

~Kay (=｀ェ´=)