#i got into this series knowing nothing except that it was enemies to lovers | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

steddieas-shegoes · 2 months ago

Text

coming in clutch

@starrystevie asked two days ago for someone to write enemies to lovers Steddie on the same hockey team and one of them gives the other his stick from the bench and so I volunteered and yesterday afternoon started writing this and it got to almost 6000 words by this morning. Oops?

This is therapy for me, as a Bruins fan, who is suffering tremendously this season. I can't believe some people live like this all the time. I am so, so sorry. I promise you fixing it with Steddie helps ease the ache a little. It's bitch4bitch, what's not to love?

rated e, minors dni | 5801 words | also on ao3 | cw: mention of injury, hate making out for the drama | tags: modern au, hockey au, enemies to lovers, feelings realization, sorta love confessions, anal fingering, anal sex, handjob, life is a series of connections

🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒

If there’s one thing Eddie Munson knows, it’s that Steve Harrington will steal the show.

With less than two minutes left in the game that will determine if they clinch the wild card spot for the playoffs, it could still go either way. They need a goal to tie it, and the point will be enough to get in, even if they lose in overtime.

The Rangers don’t even get anything if they win this one except a pat on the back, yet they’ve pulled their goalie in hopes of ruining the only chance the Bruins have of getting into the playoffs. If Eddie wasn’t seething with rage about potentially starting his offseason much sooner than expected, he’d respect the hell out of them for it.

How they got into this much of a mess is beyond him…or really it isn’t. It’s well within reach.

He knows from the beginning shit was hitting the fan and then it just…kept hitting the fan.

They started bad and they don’t play well from behind in games, so how could they catch up when their entire season went to shit so early on?

It should never come down to one win, not for them.

But he knows that some of the issues are that Steve was handed this captaincy before he was ready, and Eddie’s done nothing to truly help him. He wears an A, but it’s more for Asshole or Annoyance than Assistant. He knows it, Steve knows it, the team knows it.

It’s making everything harder.

Coach already lit him up a few times over stupid shit this season, things he can’t get away with for much longer. His time will be cut short on this team if he can’t-

The whistle blows and there’s a penalty on Hargrove. Not surprising, but it’s enough to get Eddie out of his own head and focus. There’s barely a minute left and they’re facing a long offseason if they don’t get their shit together.

He won’t see more ice time today. He’s third line right now, a demotion from his usual first line after a string of shitty, stupid penalties. Coach will send the first line back out for the last minute to increase their chances of scoring.

The puck drops and they make the fastest line change they’ve managed the entire game.

Steve’s skating to the puck, eyes on the prize. He’s good at it, despite Eddie hating that he feels constant competition with him. They don’t even play the same position. Eddie’s a defenseman for fuck sake. Steve’s a center. The only competition is what’s made up in his own head.

Steve gets there first, manages to pass it to Sinclair, who passes it to Hagan. It’s beautiful, but it’s not enough.

The puck is cleared out and they have to rush to it to start setting up again.

They don’t have time.

And then Steve tries to shoot it to center ice and his stick breaks. It’s the worst timing. Eddie feels his heart sink in his chest at the realization that this is it. They’re done.

Steve’s skating to the bench, yelling about needing a replacement when he should just get off the ice, let someone else out there. They’re gonna lose anyway.

Eddie throws Steve his own stick. It’s not the right curve, and not the right length. It’s not even the same brand.

But if there’s one thing Eddie can respect about Steve, it’s that he’s a damn good player. He makes shit happen, even when no one else can. He’s been their saving grace this season, arguably the only reason they’ve managed to even have a shot at the wild card spot.

He may hate his guts, and he may be annoyed that he got picked as captain, and he may also find him impossible to be around most of the time, but he can see that he’s one of the best players in the league.

Steve’s never skated harder than in this moment, and Eddie can’t feel his face as Steve sneaks the puck between the legs of Wheeler, winds back, and shoots.

None of their players get to it in time.

It goes in their empty net.

The bench is so loud, Eddie can’t even hear himself think.

They’ve tied it up.

The clock says 24 seconds.

It’s as good as done.

They’ll have overtime, of course, but they squeaked in the playoffs. They get at least four more games.

Steve skates to the bench and hands Eddie his stick, but doesn’t say anything.

That irks Eddie a little.

“Not even a thank you for getting the assist on that one?” Eddie asks because if he’s one thing, it’s a shithead.

“Shut up, Munson. Could’ve scored an empty net from the locker room,” Steve replies with an eyeroll, his smile dropping in annoyance.

A for annoyance, after all.

“With a broken stick?” Eddie pushes because he loves to push and because Steve always pushes back.

It’s their game.

Steve sits on the bench, catches his breath for a moment while the arena celebrates his goal.

“How about a thank you for getting us to the playoffs?” Steve says back.

It’s unlike him to be self-centered like this. It throws Eddie off.

For once, he doesn’t have a damn thing to say.

The goalie gets back in the net and the Rangers finish off the regulation game with their tails tucked between their legs.

Eddie doesn’t get sent back out, but neither does Steve.

Coach leans down to say something in Steve’s ear and he grits his teeth together, jaw clenching painfully.

When they’re about to start overtime, Coach taps his back and tells him to go.

“But it’s first line?” Eddie asks.

“I said go, Munson!” Coach says, leaving no room for argument.

So Eddie goes. He’s not gonna argue with the coach, and he’s damn sure not gonna be the reason there’s a delay in starting.

He skates to the blue line and sees the focus on Steve’s eyes.

This game can end either way to him and he won’t care, but Steve wants this win. He wants the two points, not just one. He wants to say they overcame a shitty game to pull off a win.

He would never admit it, but his effort is for Steve. His speed and hits during the first shift are to give Steve every opportunity to pull off this win.

If Steve wins, they all win.

Eddie should have had that mindset for every game. Maybe they wouldn’t have had to fight for their lives just to get a shot at the playoffs.

It’s not a great shift, but they manage to shut the Rangers down a few times.

Steve is red-faced on the bench, watching the second line move with a fire they were lacking for much of the first 60 minutes. That’s been a pattern this season, something Eddie isn’t sure they’ll get over with this group.

It ends during the third line’s shift.

The Rangers get a breakaway and score.

It’s a loss, but they’ve still won something. They aren’t leaving completely empty-handed.

The walk down the tunnel is interrupted by the broadcast person yelling for Steve to stay back to do the post-game interview and accept third star of the game. It always sucks accepting a star away from home ice, but Steve’s used to it by now.

He’s the guy who comes in clutch. He’s always a star.

Eddie’s only a little jealous over it.

The rest of the team is pretty quiet despite their playoff spot.

Coach stands in the center of the room.

“We got lucky,” he says. His tone is calm, but there’s something hidden beneath it that Eddie can sense is anger. “We won’t get lucky in the first round. Get your shit together before next week or you might as well start scheduling your tropical vacations.”

He leaves the room.

No one says anything as they get undressed. No one speaks when Steve comes in the room and wordlessly undresses. No one utters a word when he’s the first to leave, even though that’s the first time that’s happened in the history of ever.

Eddie follows him.

He should give him space. Now isn’t the time to work him up more.

Now is the time to be a good teammate, a good alternate captain. Behave and follow the rules and be a good example off the ice. Leadership saw something in him to give him the A in the first place, now’s his chance to prove he respects them for it.

“Since when do you walk out without a speech?” Eddie calls after him when they’ve exited the building. This arena is relatively normal, but there’s a lower level of parking just for VIP. He doesn’t see anyone else yet, but that’s not surprising. Their bus is parked a few rows away, doors up to start loading equipment for the haul to the airport.

“Since there isn’t a damn thing I can say to get this team motivated and I’m done trying!” Steve yells back without turning. “If you’d like to try, go right ahead.”

“Doesn’t seem like something a captain would do.”

Steve freezes, turns.

His face is bright red and Eddie knows immediately he pushed too far.

“Maybe you should be the captain if you know so much about what it takes, hm? Maybe instead of passing me your stick to score you could score one once in a fucking while. Maybe,” Steve takes a shaky breath, exhales it right into Eddie’s face. He didn’t even notice how close he was before. “You could start acting like a leader and less like a fuckin’ nuisance.”

Eddie scoffs.

“I’m sorry I helped? Was I supposed to let the opportunity to score go? Would you rather have not tied the game? Do you wish we were going home for the summer instead of just the next few days?”

Steve’s chest is brushing against Eddie’s.

Neither of them showered, so there’s a faint scent of sweat clinging to his nostrils, but Steve must’ve freshened up with deodorant and cologne before getting changed. Cedar and pine overtakes the locker room smell as Eddie’s eyes dart down to Steve’s lips.

“Did you want me to do all the work for you?” Eddie grins.

It’s painful, when their lips crash together. Eddie doesn’t care.

Steve’s mad, he’s loud, and he tastes like victory. It has nothing to do with their game.

“C’mon,” Steve says against his lips, and Eddie isn’t sure exactly what he wants. They’re kissing in public, in a place that could be filled with their teammates any second. Steve’s hands are against his chest, pulling him impossibly closer by his shirt. “More. You want more out of me, take it.”

Eddie’s not always the smartest guy in the room. He’s, like, smart, but sometimes he misses some obvious shit. Unobservant, his uncle calls him.

But he can read people pretty well if he has a second to really see them and he thinks he’s seeing something Steve didn’t mean to show. He knows what Steve’s really asking and he knows he can give that to him.

“No.”

Steve stills. He pulls away, hurt clear on his face before he manages to school his features. It’s eery how quickly he was able to do it.

“Knew you weren’t up for it, anyways,” Steve mutters, but Eddie doesn’t let him walk away.

His grip on Steve’s wrist is tight enough to cut off circulation, tight enough to bruise. Steve doesn’t react at all.

“I’m not taking anything from you. You’re gonna take what you need from me.”

Steve’s brows furrow, and Eddie allows himself a moment— just one— to think that he’s cute like this. If they weren’t teammates, and if Eddie could stand him for more than a few minutes at a time, maybe they could do something.

“What are you talking about?” Steve asks. “I don’t need anything from you.”

“No? Like how you didn’t need my stick to score earlier?”

Steve’s mouth snaps closed, but Eddie doesn’t feel as smug as he normally would. He can hear voices coming and he knows that if they leave here now without something worked out, it’ll be like none of this ever happened.

“When we get back, come to my place,” Eddie orders.

“And if I don’t?”

Eddie laughs.

Steve likes to win. He’s gonna come just to see what his prize will be.

He boards the bus and ignores his half-hard dick in his slacks.

Steve always finds a way into his brain. And now he’s found a way into his bed.

~~~~~

The bus ride is quiet, but most of the guys are busy texting significant others and coming down from the adrenaline of the game. The flight is silent, everyone taking a power nap before they have to get back home. They’ll have a day off tomorrow, but most of these guys are married and have kids, or fiancées who haven’t quite figured out that a day off is needed for recovery, not for filling the calendar with other events.

Steve is far away from Eddie, barely even visible unless Eddie leans into the aisle and squints.

He doesn’t do that more than once, doesn’t wanna draw attention to whatever it is that’s happening between them.

Eddie is the first off the plane, but he walks slow enough to his car that a few teammates catch up and tell him his quick reaction saved their asses. He laughs and thanks them, tells them they’ve got some work to do if they’re gonna win the first round, and gets in his car.

Somehow, Steve’s already at his door when he gets home.

“Eager?” Eddie asks.

“You tell me,” Steve grabs Eddie’s hand and places it over his crotch. He’s already hard.

“Did you touch yourself on the way here?” Eddie feels like he’s been struck by lightning, energy zapping through him at the speed of light. Realizing Steve’s into this is rewiring his brain.

“Obviously,” Steve rolls his eyes.

Eddie unlocks his door and pushes Steve inside. He pushes him down the hall and right onto the bed. He pushes until Steve pushes back.

“I thought I was taking from you,” Steve says as he sits up, taking his shirt off and throwing it to the ground.

“You are. But only when I’m ready to give. I need a second,” Eddie says as he strips his own shirt off. He walks to his bathroom to throw some water on his face and pretend for a second that the sweat dripping down his spine isn’t a ridiculous reaction to Steve.

“It’s been a second!” Steve calls to him.

Eddie smirks at himself in the mirror before heading back to the bed.

“Sorry to keep you waiting. I assume you’ve got something specific in mind?”

Steve eyes him up and down. “Take everything off.”

Eddie does as he says. Steve’s surprise that he didn’t argue is obvious.

“Get lube and condoms.”

Eddie reaches into his bedside drawer and gets out his unopened bottle of lube and the only three condoms he has that may or may not be expired. He doesn’t have time to fuck around much, and most of the time he does, it never gets far enough to need a condom.

His traitorous stomach swoops at the thought of Steve being inside him.

Steve looks at him like he’s starving and Eddie’s a five course meal on a table in front of him, and Eddie likes it. He likes that Steve wants to devour him.

He’s pulled into a bruising kiss, can taste blood on his tongue when he swallows spit that’s just as much Steve’s as his own. Eddie knows if they kiss like this for long enough, Steve will barely have to touch him at all to get him there.

As if reading his mind, Steve’s hand is on his dick, stroking it slow enough to drive him insane. Eddie blushes, but doesn’t let it hold him back from pushing Steve more.

“You gonna take your clothes off or are the lube and condoms just for decoration?”

Any hand is better than his own, but Steve’s hand might be the death of him. He tightens his grip around him, leaning in to bite Eddie’s collarbone.

He’s sensitive there and somehow Steve knows it, and Eddie might die tonight, but he can’t let Steve know he’s making him feel this fucking good. He wants Steve to take what he wants, but he doesn’t wanna give it easily.

“You like this with everyone or am I special?” Steve asks before he licks a stripe up Eddie’s neck.

It’s gross. It’s hot as fuck. Eddie’s lightheaded.

“Just you, sugar. Or should I call you Captain here, too?”

Steve pulls back like he’s been burned.

“I’m not your captain right now.” He’s glaring at Eddie, making him wish he could shrink into the mattress, down through the floor. “I’m Steve. Got it?”

“Got it,” Eddie’s nodding along, but he feels like he’s teetering into uncharted territory, some kind of rough terrain that most people don’t get past the fence to explore.

Steve starts taking and Eddie lets him.

First, it’s rough hands pushing him around until he’s in the position Steve wants him: face down, arms under the pillows, legs spread so Steve can see him.

Then, it’s teasing touches, laughing when Eddie gasps and moans, nipping at his skin after a soft brush of his fingers.

It’s hot and cold, it’s hard and soft, it’s push and pull.

It’s the first time Eddie feels like he understands who Steve is.

The lube is cold as Steve spreads it around his entrance, more teasing, more taking. Eddie doesn’t mind. He’s always loved the build-up as much as the finale.

Steve’s quiet, focused, as he works his fingers into him. He’s meticulous about it, looking for the best reactions.

When Eddie whines into the pillow, spreading his legs further apart to make more room for whatever Steve wants from him, he realizes that this will change everything. He should’ve realized it sooner. He may regret it tomorrow. He may not.

“You ready?” Steve asks.

Eddie feels empty. Steve’s fingers aren’t there anymore, aren’t stretching him and prodding every sensitive part of him. He whimpers pitifully at the loss.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Steve’s cock is pushing against his entrance, and Eddie thinks he was severely mistaken about Steve before.

Because why is Steve being gentle? Why is his hand rubbing Eddie’s spine as he pushes into him slowly? Why are his lips against Eddie’s shoulder, not kissing so much as resting there, his hot breath a comfort that he’s right there paying attention to everything Eddie’s doing?

Why is this the best Eddie’s ever been fucked and why does it feel less like getting fucked and more like making love with every passing moment?

Steve’s big, which Eddie knew already. There’s just a difference between seeing it and feeling it. He fills him up, makes him wonder if he’ll be sore tomorrow.

Kind of hopes he will be.

“Take it,” Eddie mumbles against the pillow.

Steve grabs his hair, strong grip, but gently pulling. “What?”

“Take me.”

Eddie’s not sure where those words come from, but he feels the way Steve responds. His cock twitches inside him, his hands grip his waist harder, and Steve moans against his shoulder.

His own cock is trapped against the sheets, but it’s fine. He’s in no rush. Steve will take what he wants and Eddie will wait. He’ll wait all night if he has to.

He feels good like this, at Steve’s mercy.

He didn’t think he’d be able to relax under him. He thought the fight he always has to assert his own dominance with Steve would carry over here, too.

But it’s easy to let Steve have this.

He knows that Steve needs this just as much as Eddie needs to be used.

“You’re quiet. Everything okay?” Steve whispers against his skin. A check-in to make sure Eddie doesn’t need to stop.

“I’m good. Feels good. Keep going.”

The softness never goes away, but Steve’s moving faster, breathing heavier, putting more weight on Eddie’s back. It’s almost too much, the pressure inside him, surrounding him. The scent of Steve, the scent of both of them mingling together and staining his bedsheets.

He’ll have to wash them tomorrow. He won’t.

“God,” Eddie says as he fists the pillow under his head. “Right there.”

Steve’s nailing his prostate, almost more than he can handle. It feels like when they reach their groove on the ice, like despite their disagreements and different styles of play, they’ve meshed together for this moment to make something happen.

“Yeah? You like letting me have you like this?” Steve asks.

It feels out of place here, but Eddie’s allowing it all. If this is what Steve needs, if this will help, then he’ll let Steve have everything.

“Mhm. C’mon, want you to come,” Eddie begs.

He doesn’t want this to be over, though. He finds it shocking how much he wants Steve to keep fucking into him for hours, finding new positions and ways to make Eddie question his existence. He wishes Steve wasn’t wearing a condom, wishes he could fill him up with his cum, plug him up so he stays filled until morning.

He doesn’t know why he’s thinking these things. He’s never wanted that with anyone, let alone Steve.

Steve’s hand covers the back of his neck, applies just enough pressure that Eddie knows it would be hard to move.

He’s coming before he even realizes the tug in his belly is there, moaning into the pillow as Steve’s hips meet his ass with every thrust. It’s too much, but Eddie’s giving himself.

That’s all this is.

It’s everything now, but tomorrow it’ll be nothing.

And the day after that, when they have team meetings to review tape for their first round matchup, it’ll be even less than nothing. It’ll be like nothing ever happened and Eddie never let Steve fuck him into his mattress. It’ll be back to tolerating each other for their job, and Eddie poking at him until Steve is riled up and the coach is yelling at both of them to get their shit together.

And then when they inevitably lose in the first round, they’ll go all summer without speaking and Eddie may get traded to a team that will put up with his antics.

Eddie sniffles.

“Eddie? Shit.” Steve pulls out, which is wrong and terrible and not at all what he wants. “What’s wrong? Did I hurt you? Was it too much?”

“No,” Eddie’s voice is shaking and he feels stupid. How did this happen? How did he get to this point? Over Steve Harrington? “Sorry, I’m okay.”

“You’re clearly not okay.” Steve turns him over so he’s on his back and that makes everything so much worse.

His release is sticky across his stomach and the head of his cock, and he’s flush from his cheeks to his toes. Tears have fallen, leaving tracks down his face.

He doesn’t paint a pretty picture.

“What’s this about?”

“I didn’t expect this,” Eddie admits.

It can’t hurt. Honesty is only a small vulnerability compared to letting a man fuck you.

“Expect what?”

“This. You to be soft and caring. You don’t even fucking like me. I thought you’d be quick, come on my back, and then find a reason to leave,” Eddie says, covering his face with his hands. It sounds even dumber out loud. Jesus.

“The thought did occur to me,” Steve says.

Eddie peeks through his fingers to see Steve smiling with an eyebrow raised.

“What the fuck is happening.”

Steve snorts. “You threw me your stick during the play so I could score the goal that sealed us a shot at the Cup. I’ve been hard for, like, six hours now, dude.”

“Don’t call me dude while you’re staring at my dick!” Eddie argues.

“You annoy the shit out of me,” Steve rolls his eyes. “More than anyone else I’ve ever played with.”

“Okay. My dick’s already soft, you don’t have to talk me down, Steve,” Eddie groans, covering his face again.

Steve pulls his hands away, laces their fingers together, squeezes. Eddie’s stomach flutters.

“But you’re good. And you know you’re good. That’s why you’re as frustrated as I am about how this season’s been. It has fuck all to do with me being captain, and everything to do with nothing going right for us.”

Steve’s right. He’s always right, even though Eddie rarely acknowledges it.

“Does this kind of talk get you off or should I do something for you?” Eddie tries to joke, to push.

But Steve doesn’t push back this time.

He cups Eddie’s jaw and leans in, kisses him soft, so gentle it feels like a whisper of something Eddie’s absolutely terrified to name.

“Let me take a little more,” Steve says against his lips.

He lifts Eddie’s legs and slides back into him, and Eddie moans at the overstimulation. He’s definitely gonna be sore when he wakes up, but he doesn’t mind so much right now.

“That’s it,” Steve groans as he moves in and out, holding Eddie’s legs apart so he can make sure he gets as deep as possible. “Let me have it.”

Eddie’s never come twice like this, without his cock even being touched properly. But here he is, barely even hard again, and cum is leaking onto his stomach as he whimpers his way through another orgasm.

“Fuck, so good.” Steve’s hips stutter as he tenses his hands around Eddie’s thighs. “That’s it, baby. Let me fill you up.”

It’s not real, but for a second Eddie can picture it. He pretends he can feel it inside him, and his cock twitches, but otherwise doesn’t act like it can do anything else tonight.

Steve lets his legs drop as he pulls out, and Eddie winces at the feeling of emptiness it brings.

Eddie closes his eyes, tries to figure out how he’s gonna ask Steve to stay.

“Is it okay if I stick around?” Steve asks before he can think of something.

“Yeah, of course. Shower’s all yours if you want it,” Eddie offers, sounding breathless still. His heart is pounding in his chest and he feels like the world around him is spinning.

“You wanna join?” Steve asks him, seriously.

“Showering together doesn’t seem like a teammate thing to do,” Eddie replies.

“Neither is watching a teammate come twice.”

“Point made.” Eddie groans as he turns on his side, reaching a hand out until he makes contact with skin. He thinks it’s Steve's thigh, but he can’t be sure with his eyes closed. “Go on without me. I can’t feel my legs or my…anything.”

Steve doesn’t get up, and he doesn’t say anything. After at least a minute of silence, Eddie blinks his eyes open to see Steve staring at him.

“Are you gonna be fucking creepy all night? I rescind my permission to stay if you are.”

Steve shakes his head. “No, it’s just. I’ve seen you mostly naked so many times, but I never noticed this scar.”

Steve gently brushes a finger across the scar on Eddie’s abdomen. It’s barely an inch in length, and you can’t even see it unless the light hits it just right.

Eddie looks down at it, at the way Steve’s fingertips graze the outer edges. He doesn’t think about it much anymore, but he remembers when it happened.

“Junior hockey. Kid’s skate got me just as I was falling. My chestie rose up too high and didn’t protect the spot,” Eddie shrugs. It could’ve been a lot worse. He was back on the ice within three days. “Accidents happen.”

Eddie watches Steve’s face morph from curious to confused and then shocked.

“That was you?” Steve asks.

“What do you mean?” Eddie leans up on an elbow, looks back at Steve as if he’s lost his mind.

“I…holy shit. They never told me the player’s name. Just said he was getting stitches in the locker room and would be fine,” Steve is rambling, gesturing wildly and shaking his head. “They wouldn’t let me check on you. I tried as soon as the game was over.”

“I’m still confused.”

“It was my skate. I tripped over a player’s stick as you were falling. I didn’t even realize it actually hit you until I saw the blood on the ice.” Steve scoots down so he’s eye level with the scar and then he does something that changes Eddie’s DNA.

He presses his mouth to the scar, his lips parting just enough for his hot breath to cause goosebumps to break out across Eddie’s skin.

“Why did you give me your stick?” Steve whispers.

Eddie swallows. He feels heavy, weighed down by whatever this is.

“You had a chance. You just needed a stick,” he whispers back.

“Eddie. You would rather lose than help me any other time.” Steve tilts his head to look up at Eddie. “Why did you pass me your stick?”

“I-” Eddie breathes in. “I wanted to do something right. I wanted you to look at me and not see someone failing for once. I wanted to be good enough to wear the A.”

Steve’s forehead drops to his hip, and it takes a moment for Eddie to realize he’s laughing.

“What’s funny about that?” Eddie’s ready to pull away, kind of wants to make Steve leave now that he’s feeling like he’s being made fun of.

“I just cannot believe that you would think you aren’t good enough.” Steve looks back up at him, grinning, eyes shining with amusement. “Who do you think chose you for the A?”

Eddie thinks about it. He always assumed that the coaches just picked the guy with the most NHL experience out of the few options they had. He never thought he’d be A or C material professionally, so he accepted the offer, grateful to be given the chance.

He felt like an idiot for wasting the opportunity this season.

He didn’t produce the way he knows he can, and he let his stupid jealousy of Steve get in the way of everything. It’s not like he wanted the responsibility of being captain. He knows now he probably isn’t cut out for any type of leadership role with the team.

“I thought the coaches?” Eddie frames it as a question because now he isn’t sure.

“They wanted to name Hagan. I suggested you instead.”

Eddie’s breath catches. “You suggested me? Why? You fucking hate me.”

“I don’t hate you,” Steve raises a brow and gestures at their current state. “I don’t sleep with people I hate.”

“I thought it was spur of the moment! Like you were so mad at me that the only thing you could do to get it out of your system was fuck me!”

Eddie’s head is spinning.

“I mean, it was spur of the moment. I never had any intentions of acting on anything I felt for you.”

Eddie’s head is going to explode.

“Harrington. You’re really making my head hurt. Like, I have never felt this confused after getting fucked.”

Steve laughs, which doesn’t help anything. It almost makes it worse.

He crawls back up so he’s only inches from kissing Eddie.

“I chose you. They said I had to pick someone who would compliment me on and off the ice and you were the first and only choice I could make. You’re an incredible player and the only defenseman I trust on this fucking roster,” Steve leans his head forward, resting his forehead against Eddie’s. “If I’m annoyed with you, it’s because I’m annoyed at myself. I’m making your job harder by losing the room. I don’t even know how it happened.”

“You haven’t lost the room,” Eddie interrupts, placing his hand on Steve’s hip. “They love you. You’re the hero.”

“I don’t wanna be the only guy who comes through, though. I want everyone to succeed.”

“They will. It’s just not our year. It happens. We started off bad and we never got back on track.”

Steve huffs out a breath. “It’s my job to make it work.”

“It’s everyone’s job to make it work. You can’t do it by yourself. They don’t hand Stanley Cups to a player, they hand them to a team.”

Steve smirks. “They do hand them to a player first, though.”

Eddie smacks him. “Don’t argue with me. I’ve had my brains fucked out of my head.”

They stare at each other, both of them smiling fondly.

It’s such a stark difference to everything they’ve been this whole season. Eddie doesn’t know how to handle the electricity between them. He thought it would fade once they were done, once Steve cleaned up and they got dressed. In the morning, he’d leave, and they’d go back to being a mediocre team and he’d probably end up traded or losing the A.

But now, he’s looking at Steve with something he’s pretty sure is affection, maybe even love. It’s ridiculous, which is why he isn’t gonna say anything.

“So, are we good?” Steve asks.

It’s such a jock thing to say. It throws Eddie off yet again.

“Um. Yeah.” He pulls away slightly, considers turning around and getting under the blankets. “We’re good. Hit the showers or whatever.”

“Can I kiss you again?”

Eddie has got to figure out how to get a read on this guy. Seriously, the whiplash he’s getting from Steve’s words and actions might break his neck.

“You want to?”

“I don’t kiss people I don’t want to kiss.”

“Alright, then.”

It’s so soft, it practically melts what little brain Eddie has left. He’s not sure he’s ever been kissed like this, like he’s precious and like this moment needs to be cherished.

“Are you still gonna be a bitch?” Eddie ruins it.

Or, he thinks he does. But Steve is just smiling at him, amused, like he wants nothing more than Eddie’s attitude.

“Depends on if you’re gonna keep giving me problems.”

“Oh, so this is like a thing for you.”

“What?”

“You like disciplining me. Oh, this will be so fun.”

Steve shakes his head and falls against the pillows. Eddie turns his own head to smile at him.

“You didn’t answer me,” he says after a minute of just watching Steve exist in his bed.

“You answered yourself.”

“You’re irritating.”

“So are you.”

“It’s not a competition.”

“Everything is a competition,” Steve turns his head to look at Eddie, smirking. “And I’m winning.”

“We’ll see about that.”

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things #steve harrington x eddie munson #hockey au #modern au #enemies to lovers #love confessions #feelings realization

129 notes · View notes

minhosimthings · 1 year ago

Text

Heaven

Symphony Smut Series Day 7: Julia Michaels' Heaven

Lyric: They say all good boys go to heaven, but bad boys bring heaven to you

Pairings: Badboy!Jeongin × goodgirl!fem!reader

Warnings: SMUT MINORS DNI, loss of virginity, virgin!reader, sub!reader, dom!Jeongin, p in v sex, degradation, praise, hair pulling, overstimulation, corruption kink, Jeongin calls reader 'darling' and good girl, reader wears skirt, mentions of masturbation, implied abused reader, fluffy at the end, sorta enemies to lovers, college au

A/N: I mean I couldn't not include this iconic song in this series so did it for day 7 with our Innie because I don't know corruption kink just hits different with him.

THE SYMPHONY SMUT SERIES MASTERLIST

People pleasing. Wasn't it so fun? To have a person complement you for something that you was poison to yourself.

But people pleasing always got out of hand one way or the other and now, here you were, crying to your worst enemy about how much you felt like not existing anymore.

Jeongin was completely antagonistic to you. It was much like the bad boy, good nerd trope, except this time, you liked the bad boy first and he basically hated you. Romantic right?

"So wait, what you're telling me is you willingly let yourself be used by other people and you get nothing out of it?" Jeongin questioned, looking you up and down, his eyes filled with what seemed to be pity. It was as if you were a wounded dog, who still trusted so foolishly.

"I know." You tried to fight back. Having him as a chemistry partner suddenly seemed okay. Now, his aura was one of comfort as he ran a hand down your back in circles, comforting you as the tears you've held onto for so long started falling down.

"Hey hey hey." Jeongin panicked, seeing you cry. It had been the first time he'd seen you do that. In everyone's eyes you were little Miss Perfect, unbreakable and able to endure a lot of pressure. But diamonds crack someday don't they? And when they are subjected to enough heat, or in your case, enough comfort, they crack with a lot of force.

"I'm here, I'm here don't worry." Jeongin pressed you to his chest, engulfing you in warmth. The hug felt genuine, something you hadn't known for a long time.

"I-Just can't Jeongin, I just don't want to do it anymore." You gasped, tired from all the crying.

"Calm down darling, we still got all these dumb carbon atoms to balance!" Jeongin tries to cheer you up, successfully earning a giggle from you.

"There we go." Jeongin pulled you back to wipe your tears, "Now shall we work on this project, or should we work on how to set your boundaries?"

"But how do I do that?" You asked, listening intently to him, "How the fuck do I give up this stupid habit of mine which people have been praising me for so long?"

"Let's practice then!" Jeongin said in a cherry voice, immediately shutting his book close, "Let's say.... I'm someone who wants you to help me out with my homework, but in reality, you're gonna do all my homework. What do you say?"

"Yes..?" "No Y/N." Jeongin sighed, pressing a hand to his forehead, "You say no, cause you're not gonna help some dickhead complete his work when he's the one who needs to do it."

"Alright another scenario, what if... Your best friend wants you to come to a party with her just so you can play her wing woman, what do you say?"

"No, cause she needs to get her pussy inside some dick?" Your uncertain answer made Jeongin's face light up.

"Yeah good job! You're getting the point!"

After some more scenarios, in which much laughter was involved and your chemistry book lay depressed by the side, you got to know a lot more about Jeongin. Beneath all that dark leather jacket aesthetic, he really was an adorable little fox who apparently really liked fashion.

"Alright alright last scenario." Jeongin laughed after you told him the story of your childhood cat, Potato, "And this is important for you, as a woman."

"As a woman? Alright then." You said, still laughing.

"If a man ever asked to fuck you for his own pleasure, would you let him?"

"I mean unless it's you, no."

The silence that filled the room was unnerving, deadly almost. Jeongin stared at you, and you stared back.

"You want to do what to me now?" Jeongin smirked, adjusting his posture, which made him look slightly bigger.

"I-I didn't mean-"

"What didn't you mean, darling?"

His voice never failed to make you wet. And yet you didn't have your vibrator with you right now.

"I mean it's not like I want to fuck you, I mean I do! But I-"

"You're so adorable." Jeongin chuckled, leaning back against the bedframe, spreading his legs a bit further. You could clearly see his erection pulsing through the fabric of his pants, "Does my good girl need dick in her pants?"

Good girl.

One simple nickname and you wanted to be devoured by him, carnally, brutally as he could.

"Fuck me then." You stated, not breaking eye contact with his beautiful eyes, "Fuck me and show me how it feels to break the rules for one time."

"If you say so." Jeongin chuckled, placing his hands on your hips and leaning in close. Your noses almost touched and you could feel his fingers tightening around the fabric of your skirt.

He stared at you hungrily and took in your figure which was clothed in a normal shirt and your skirt, his eyes flicked down to your chest.

Jeongin passionately pulled you in for an open-mouthed kiss, you were taken by surprise and put your hands against his chest, to pull back slightly, but Jeongin held you possessively and deepened the kiss to taste your tongue with his tongue.

He broke the kiss with a chuckle and playfully pushed you back onto your pillow, he peppered your neck with kisses and warm sucks.

"Ah fuck Jeongin." You whimpered, feeling his bulge press against your pussy. He hadn't even done anything and yet the simple gestures turned you on like a sinner in church.

"Already darling?" Jeongin chuckles again, feeling positively elated at how innocent you were, "It's alright we'll take it slow."

Jeongin rests his hands on your hips more tighter and lays you on the bed, taking in your sweet perfume. "Your roomate isn't home is she?" Jeongin asked, wigh uncertainty, his fingers toying with the waistband of your skirt. You simply nodded no, too distracted by the impact his fingers had on your waist.

"Good." Jeongin ripped off your skirt with one tug of his skirt, making you gasp loudly, "Then this'll be easier."

He cups your tits and let’s out a deep groan. You move to grab at his shirt and pause, nodding a question at him. He nods back at you and his godly chest is revealed. You then move to grab at his belt buckle and after that your clothes get removed pretty quickly.

He leaned down, kissing along your chest and the swells of your breasts. His teeth nipped at your skin, biting down hard enough to leave hickeys behind.

Jeongin chuckled at your reaction. He lightly rolled your nipple in between his metal thumb and index finger. You gasped loudly when his fingers pinched your nipple, sending a new sensation through your body. Both of his hands went down to your sleep shorts and pulled them down your legs, exposing your wet lacy panties to him. His fingers on his right hand rubbed your clit through your panties causing you to buck your hips against his hand, only for you to receive a smack on your inner thigh.

You squealed in surprise when he pinned you to the bed. He spread your legs, getting in between them. He rubbed his cock through your wetness before lining his tip up with your entrance. His tip alone stretched your pussy. He sinks his cock inside of you inch by inch. Your jaw dropped.

"Ah-ah big." You moaned, feeling him sink into you. You had never felt pleasure like this before. And you sure as hell loved it.

"Is that okay, darling?" Jeongin asked, raising a brow at you. He didn't want to hurt you or do anything that was out of his boundaries. But oh, did he love this.

“So fucking tight.” Jeongin groans, tilting his head back. Fuck, if only he had had this pussy before.

He whines and buries his head in your neck, alternating motions on your very stimulated clit, acting like he’s the one about to completely fall apart.

Once he was deep inside of you, he gave you a moment to adjust. You nodded your head, giving him permission to start thrusting. He starts thrusting pretty slowly, probably wanting to make sure you’re getting used to it, but his hand in your hair shows you that things aren’t going to be so tame for long. He pulled his cock almost all the way out, only leaving his tip inside of you and then thrusted back inside of you all at once.

“Oh fuck!” You moaned, trying your best not to be loud.

“Such a little slut.” Jeongin says, amused that someone like you, someone so pure, could be like this.

His thrusts got more rough. The sound of skin slapping filled the room. His tip hit that one spot inside of you repeatedly. You wrapped your hand around his wrist and squeezed it every time he hit that spot.

He doesn’t need another invitation, and you realize immediately he is not going to hold back as he grabs your hips with more force than before and slams inside you. His balls hit your clit over and over again, and you moan even louder, tilting your head so he can get the hint you want him to pull your hair. But he ignores it.

"Who knew a good little girl like you could be such a slut eh?" Jeongin whispers in your ear, making your cunt itch for him even more.

You whimpered in response. You slid your hand down to your clit and started to rub it in fast circles. Jeongin noticed and smacked your hand away, making you whimper.

Your cunt clenched around his cock, feeling your orgasm build up a second time.

“Jeongin, I’m— mhmm fuck!” You moaned, not being able to finish your sentence.

“Cum for me, darling.” Jeongin whispers in your ear, "Like the good girl you are."

His fingers gave your now sensitive clit a particular rough rub to help you chase your high. Your eyes rolled to the back of your head as you came harder than ever before. Jeongin’s thrusts became sloppy, feeling his orgasm approaching him.

You’re screaming before he can even finish as the strongest orgasm you’ve ever experienced takes over your body. It’s a blinding pleasure you can feel everywhere: from your pussy to your head and even fingers. And the way he keeps thrusting in and out of you at the same speed prolongs it.

Jeongin couldn’t take it anymore. After a few more thrusts, he came inside of you. His thrusts came to a slow stop. His hand left your throat and went to the back of your head, pulling you into a sloppy kiss. He pulled away and looked into your eyes for a few seconds before pulling out of you. He laid down next to you, staring up at the ceiling and breathing heavily.

"Oh fucking hell." He lets out a breathy chuckle, "That was fun wasn't it?"

"Thank you Jeongin." You pant, still not being able to understand that you just lost your virginity.

"No problem darling." Jeongin whispers, "Good little girls like you deserve the best heaven they can get."

Taglist: @ramenoil @mynameisniya150 @demigodmahash + whoever wants to be tagged send an ask my way!

481 notes · View notes

captain-joongz · 1 month ago

Text

Abraxas; Act 1, Chapter 3 Part 1

Pairing: mafia boss!Min Yoongi x police office!reader

Genre: enemies to lovers, humour, angst, investigation themes, dark themes, eventual smut, slowburn, some fluff

Chapter summary: The summer brings a new challenge - and a new moral failing, it seems. And while Yoongi certainly seems happy to lurk and wait for his opportunity, Minjoon is quite adamant about solving the tension.

Chapter word count: 21.9k words

Warnings: i mean, not much haha, the mc has like three breakdowns every day, some crime happening, yoongi being a menace

Previous part | Series masterlist | Next part

A/N: okaayyyy, so the first part of the summer chapter is here darlings, and while it is important, it's actually just a bridge to the real shit that's going down in the next chapter haha, so you have that to look forward to! enjoy the read and do let me know what you think! <3

Summer, first year in the force

I sighed, eyes red and watery from staring at my screen for hours already, and clicked on yet another online article about Yoongi’s involvement in some charity event, donating a truckload of money and being hailed as the modern day warrior of justice, scoffing at the ridiculous attempt to hide any links he had to the underworld.

It’s been six days. Six days since I last saw Yoongi, six days since Seungcheol called me panicked that he was last-minute called away to Busan to help with a case related to a possible serial killer they’ve been working on before, therefore he couldn’t make it to our Monday morning debrief, and I’d have to wait for his return or start by myself. Six days since Minjoon left my apartment at 3 AM, both of us guilty yet satisfied. Six days since we spoke properly.

Six days I spent back at my desk, back at square one, and desperately grasping at any straws to take at Hoseok and Jungkook, since I was hesitant to tail them without Yoongi between us as buffer. After all, to them it would be less hassle to kill me without his permission and then grovel to get back into his good graces. I was as expendable as they got.

I tried googling the seven men, but didn’t find anything much interesting. Namjoon won a few gold medals back in high school, so he was probably the kid that always participated in all the competitions. Taehyung was mentioned a few times when he opened new clubs, though there were two very interesting articles about a murder that happened at a seedy bar that fell under him. It went nowhere, but it was interesting to see.

Jimin was mentioned only a few times in fashion related articles when he flitted around fashion shows or partied with models, nothing except for his exceptional charm and charisma mentioned.

Seokjin by the nature of his pedigreed upbringing cropped up quite a few times – mentioned in articles about his family and their legacy, all prestigious successful doctors and lawyers, an old family with ties to old aristocracy. He also won some competitions, archery among them, and he was mentioned in an article about saving a man’s life, but nothing that linked him to anything uncouth.

Jungkook had none. Hoseok had a single one – when his fighting ring was busted and he ended up in a holding cell for three days before getting released, bond paid by Mr. Kim and Mr. Min, back then two unknown names, now giants towering over all of us.

The two that stood at the beginning of it all.

Yoongi himself had a barrage of articles about him, so many in fact that I quickly got tired of going through all of them. Most were from the last few years, when he was already sucking up to the higher class and fighting his way to belong with all the young, spoiled chaebols, who really made the best kind of clientele for him.

There were three articles from when he was about eighteen or so, detailing some petty crimes he got busted for and spent six months in jail, and the only reason he was mentioned at all was purely by association to his boss who was the actual target of the raid.

Except for Namjoon and Seokjin, none of the men were mentioned before they hit adulthood, and I had a sneaking suspicion it was due to the protection of privacy of minors law. When I pulled their records, I hit a few obstacles there as well – all of the reports about juvenile crimes got sealed and courts rarely gave permission to unseal them. So what was happening before then, we could only guess.

That didn’t stop me from my sleuthing though.

I had to remind myself periodically that this wasn’t about Yoongi. No matter how much the man occupied my thoughts, awake or not, night or day, he wasn’t my current target.

So, once again, I went through the information available for Jungkook and Hoseok, this time more diligently, comparing it to things I was already able to deduce.

Both men still had their addresses set to their home cities – Hoseok in Gwangju and Jungkook in Busan. A quick search revealed what no doubt were the houses they were born in and at least to a certain point grew up in, but it quite clearly wasn’t where they resided currently.

Namjoon had a little flat close to the office he spent most of his time in, and Taehyung and Jimin according to the records lived together. Seokjin’s and Yoongi’s addresses were clear. The only address associated with Jungkook was his security company, and Hoseok didn’t even give me that luxury, as elusive as ever.

If I had to guess, Jungkook probably lived with the other two youngsters and Hoseok definitely slept hanging upside down from a cave ceiling like a bat.

Currently my best bet was to stake out Jungkook’s office building and see whether I see him around a suspicious amount.

A movement caught my eye and I looked up from mindlessly scrolling through news reports in time to see Minjoon carefully slinking towards my table, unsure and awkward. I straightened and gave him a polite smile, taking all the wild emotions trying to burst out and stuffing them back into my chest, back into that little closet where they belonged, where they caused no havoc. Right next to Yoongi’s dark eyes, warm form and spicy scent from last Friday.

“Park’s bringing Namjoon in,” Minjoon informed me, keeping his voice steady and matter-of-fact, nodding my way when I thanked him. I had completely missed Park even leaving, too engrossed in my little corner of shame and regrettable choices. To be completely honest, what the rest of the team did in the past few months, unit leader included, I wasn’t too sure about. My tasks ate all of my time and attention, and it was easy to forget that others actually still continued with their jobs as well.

Without thinking I stood up and followed the fellow detective back to his table, leaning on the side that would allow me to keep an eye on the entrance, and tried to pretend I didn’t see how Minjoon looked at me with eyes swirling with hope.

“What is he bringing him in for this time?” I enquired casually, fingers instinctively going to play with the edge of my t-shirt, “I didn’t even know we made enough progress to question him again.”

Minjoon hummed, making it a point to look straight at me with a small smirk, growing more comfortable with each second I spent sitting by his side again. I fought my own amused grin off, but my lips still twitched and his eyes jumped down and back up, grin spreading wider.

“Well, I think it’s more or less the same as last time,” the man finally answered, leaning back into his chair leisurely, “a mix of psychological warfare and an attempt to annoy Yoongi.” I chuckled at that, knowing all too well how that usually went, before promptly freezing, the smile slipping off of my face lightning quick.

Like last time. When I met them for the first time. Already half a year ago, when I was still a nobody that didn’t even talk to anyone in this unit. When Park dragged Namjoon in and in just over two hours Yoongi was storming in to get him. The night I made the first of a long series of bad decisions that led me all the way down here. Yoongi’s going to come here.

“I don’t think he really even has anything, I mean, the informant did bring in some interesting info, but it’s not much,” Minjoon continued happily, “It’s actually annoying how well everything matches up in their finances. We’ve already wasted one warrant and found literally nothing, and the judge is done with our bullshit.”

“What do you mean?” I frowned, never having heard of this before. Minjoon sighed and leaned forward on the table, propping his head on his hand.

“We fucking know that Yoongi’s doing something illegal with his finances, but the fucker manages to make it all look so legit, it’s bulletproof,” the man complained, grimacing with disgust, “we managed to get a warrant to go through his finances after catching him with some other known names in the game, made a whole spectacle of it. We were absolutely sure we were going to bust him for something, but his records were squeaky clean. Namjoon might be a criminal, but he clearly is a genius. The most we found out was that Yoongi drinks dangerous amounts of coffee from a little café near his office.”

I hummed, but my mind was already somewhere else. In the background Minjoon continued grumbling, but I was experiencing something I could only call an epiphany.

Financial records. Of fucking course. The one thing they’ve been focusing on since I came here, I thought I would get around it by doing it more old-school by focusing on the unofficial stuff, but really. What better way to find out what a person does and where they spend most of their time than bank statements?

“Hey Y/N, I was thinking...” Minjoon’s voice filtered back, but I was already pushing myself off of his table, going through my mental catalogue of all the information I had on the Min gang. I turned quickly on my heel, startling the man into silence, and gave him a quick professional smile.

“Sorry Min, I just remembered I needed to look up something for the Moon case, talk to you later?” since I was walking backwards to my table, Minjoon just awkwardly smiled as well, hand abortedly waving in the air in a half wave gesture.

The moment I crashed back into my chair, I was pulling up the database for one Jung Hoseok, scrolling through endless arrest reports, victim statements and court records, painting the whole picture of the kind of violence this man was capable of. I was frantically searching for at least a single confirmation of my assumption – that they all most likely used the same bank.

It took a while, I did have to read through several different court documents outlining violent assaults, but finally I managed to stumble upon a settlement he paid to a guy he beat up in one of Taehyung’s clubs, where bank information was mentioned – and bingo. KEB Hana Bank. The same as Yoongi and Namjoon.

So that now meant I was facing two new problems (awesome) – I would need a warrant I’d never get, and Hana Bank was known for having an impenetrable wall of lawyers and putting them between their clients and anything that could hurt their money, police included. Even with a warrant it would be hard to breach their defences, that’s why rich bastards usually chose them. Client above anything.

If their finances looked as clean and proper as Minjoon said, it’s highly improbable I’d be able to find enough to get that endlessly sought after warrant, plus as was established – someone in the prosecutor's office was paid off by the man. He’d not only get warned, but they’d also most likely shoot any attempts down.

Not even with an esteemed hacker I could get in those statements. Shit. Fuck.

Shamelessly I walked back over to Minjoon’s table, the man curiously looking up as soon as he noticed my absent-minded approach. There was a small smile already playing on his lips and he leaned back, probably very aware of what would come next.

“Minjoon, is there any other way to-“

“Get someone’s bank records without a warrant?” the man jumped in, shocking me into a wide-eyed stare, “Yeah, there is.” He was smirking at me cheekily from his chair, all relaxed into the backrest, eyes beckoning me to continue speaking.

Instead, I playfully narrowed my eyes, a grin tugging at my lips while I dragged over a chair from the neighbouring table and sat down heavily with a thud, putting the backrest to the front and leaning on it. I saw his eyes flick down minutely before he looked back to me, and the air between us crackled.

Shit, there was the tension again.

“What, are you side-hustling in fortune telling?” I teased, leaning forward just slightly, just enough to draw the man’s attention to my lips forming into a smirk. He did look, of course, for a second getting lost to his own thoughts before the topic of the conversation resurfaced in his mind and he looked back to my eyes.

“It wasn’t that hard to guess, given the fact you mentally checked out of the conversation the moment I mentioned that,” the teasing sounded very smug from him, and I could tell he wasn’t done just yet, “it also helped that you were mumbling financial records as you walked away.” I physically felt my face burst into flames, cheeks rapidly getting consumed by red as I spluttered for a moment, not really knowing how to respond.

“Okay, let’s leave that behind for now,” I quickly got out, cutting through the detective’s amused laughter as I attempted to school my features and look my part as a hardened police officer, “So, is there a way?” It took a moment for Minjoon to stop his chuckles, and the several slaps I administered to his shoulder definitely didn’t help, but finally he seemed to give up on this and actually answer.

“Yeah, but you can forget about it,” he said good-naturedly, “you’d have to get their written consent to look.” The way my face fell and I sunk back into seriousness wasn’t lost on the man and he immediately matched my mood, a more sombre expression settling onto his face. His fingers started up a nervous little tapping rhythm at the edge of the table and I watched them for a moment.

I hummed. I had no idea what I was doing. I needed those statements. Everything was so muddled.

Well, clearly I wouldn’t be getting that from Jung fucking Hoseok. So… how does one swindle a swindler?

With a big sigh I stood up. “Thanks Min, I’ll think of how to get that warrant,” I told him dejectedly, pulling my lips down into a frown and patting him on the shoulder. I could almost see Yoongi’s amused proud smirk, and I hated that. The police officer was obviously confused by my sudden mood changes but let me go back to my table with an easy smile, hand squeezing my wrist in reassurement.

I was lying to him.

Fuck. Back here we were. I pushed all the thoughts of Yoongi away, pushed away his teasing voice whispering taunts in my head and sat down back to my computer.

There was no getting a fucking warrant, who was I trying to fucking kid? I had to get that consent off of him, no matter how. And legally, there was no way. So, how does one forge official documents? Time to find out.

The same second I desolately looked to my monitor, the door flew open and Park charged in, a terrible déjà vu gripping me as Namjoon got dragged behind, two officers holding each of his arms and speeding through the office towards the back rooms.

Much like last time, he looked completely unperturbed, like he was just taking a walk through the park, like the officers were nothing more than annoying flies buzzing around him and he was simply mildly inconvenienced, not a hair out of place. But this time, he looked at me and smirked. For a moment I was shocked, a terrible feeling like he knew what I was planning from a single glance gripping me, before I turned away and hid my shame.

I told myself that it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter how many laws I broke as long as I brought him down, nothing I did could be worse than what they were already doing.

And it did feel more like a lie every time I tried to make myself believe it.

“Are you going to finish that?”

Yoongi’s voice cut through the blankness of my mind and I realised I had been just sitting there and staring dumbly somewhere slightly above his shoulder, fork hanging limply from my hand. There was a really annoying grin on his face as he pointed towards my half-finished pasta, a nervous looking waiter hovering by his side.

Instinctually my fingers tightened around the rim of the bowl and I fastened a polite smile to my face to quickly shake my head at the waiter. He didn’t linger for a second longer, immediately bowing and high-tailing it out of there.

I felt Yoongi’s eyes burning holes into the side of my face as I started shovelling the rest of my food in my mouth. I hated to admit it, but it really was quite delicious.

“I was just thinking about how inappropriately dressed I am for this place,” I muttered in between bites, washing everything down with coke that Yoongi so graciously let me order instead of a matching wine. The man in question just scoffed and grabbed his own glass from the table.

“Doesn’t matter, you’re sitting with me,” the black-haired man said, smirk colouring his voice into smugness, “Nobody dares to judge.” This time it was my time to scoff at him, and I rolled my eyes so hard there was no way he missed that.

“Humble, are we?” My voice was lacking its usual bite, and I wondered whether he realised that.

“Darling, we’re literally sitting in my restaurant,” he shot back immediately, clearly in his shit-stirer mood. And he was right as well, that was what pissed me off the most.

We were sitting in the Black Swan, the restaurant in the lobby of his fancy schmancy hotel. I was caught by Jungkook while suspiciously loitering around his car and he flew over like a cartoon cat with its ass on fire, prepared to defend his car from my dirty parking-tickets-distributing hands, but that time I wasn’t intending to do that. It was purely a coincidence, not that Jungkook believed me.

In an attempt to break us up before our squabbling got too annoying to listen to, Yoongi came over and invited me inside, which I accepted just to spite Jungkook. Now I found myself here, sitting across a private lounge from the man, the restaurant buzzing with life to our side and the young man staring daggers into me from across the room.

“So, officer, what are your plans for the summer?” Yoongi revived the conversation, doing some heavy lifting today. Ever since I came to the resolution to falsify legal documents, I hadn’t been much in a mood. Minjoon tried as hard as he could to bring my spirits up, bless his heart, but he probably assumed I was being icy because of the whole ‘you shouldn’t fuck your colleagues’ thing, which funnily enough currently was the least of my problems. Cheol was still away and the files lying on my table were collecting dust, my first big case starting off with a crime.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” I grumbled back, moving on from the pasta to the little salad that was brought to me as a side-dish. Yoongi peered over the edge of his wine glass at me, eyes filled with uncharacteristically soft-edged entertainment, and I did my best to pretend we were still at odds with each other, and not sharing a suspiciously normal lunch together.

“Well yes, that’s why I asked,” the man replied smartly and I rolled my eyes at him again, “I wouldn’t want my favourite policeman to suddenly disappear again. I’d miss you too much.” His voice tampered off into something deeper, huskier, towards the end, pulling the rug from under my feet once again with these pesky complicated swirls of emotions I tried to persuade myself I didn’t care enough about to dissect. The bastard was probably having the time of his life teasing me like that, I was just being weird about it.

“How’s Hoseok?” I chanced a cheeky change of conversation, hoping I’d be able to play it off as a joke about our last meeting, and he wouldn’t know that I was currently quite literally losing my mind because of that man. Yoongi tsked at me, leaning back into the cream-coloured chair.

“Still too busy running after my friends?” he teased, “I don’t consider myself a jealous man, but you should be careful lest you hurt my feelings.” Mischief swirled through his eyes together with something harder, much less kind. Stay away, his gaze screamed, or trouble will catch you.

A little too late for that Yoongles, I’m afraid.

“Unfortunately, from a police officer’s standpoint your friends are what’s most interesting about you,” I shot back immediately, feeling no need to keep the suspension.

Yoongi didn’t say anything to that, only watched me with sharp gaze and hummed, taking a gentle sip from his glass.

“Then how about we play a game?” I blurted out suddenly, surprisingly myself as well as the dark-haired man. It was almost time for me to return to the station, but I was feeling reckless enough for a little gamble. I got Yoongi’s attention immediately though, and at the end of the day, that’s all that mattered. He simply gestured for me to continue, but his eyes sparkled under the artificial lighting of the restaurant.

“If you answer one of my questions truthfully, you get to ask me something back and I’ll answer too.”

It was plain stupidity. All he had to do was ask me about something concerning to official investigation and I’d be done, either unable to answer and losing my opportunity, or forced to spill important secrets. The risks were immense, and depending on Yoongi’s attitude there didn’t even have to be that good of a reward. And really, I couldn’t even find it in myself to think up an appropriate excuse.

“How interesting,” the man purred, not even trying to hide his excitement and I did all I could to sit still under his dark roused gaze. He leaned closer on the table, everything about his body language screaming how open he was to this suggestion. “What do you want to know?”

“Where is Hoseok’s office?” the question tumbled out of me in an instant, “And don’t even try to bullshit me, I know it’s not the warehouse in Songhyeon-dong.” I felt slight heat in my cheeks at the way Yoongi giggled with the remainder of that cursed building, but soon his mirth was overshadowed by plain curiousness.

“Why do you want to know?” he asked in return. I scoffed.

“I’m not required to answer that.”

Silence settled over us, a few tense seconds during which Yoongi measured me with his gaze, contemplating, before finally a bit of his resolve lessened.

“He’s in Jungkook’s building,” he answered me in the end and internally I was screaming in victory, attempting to school my expression so the way I was so disgustingly happy with myself wouldn’t show. Yoongi smirked then, and a bit of my joy died down. “I only feel comfortable telling you because you’d be crazy if you tried anything around there. Jungkook has eyes around most of the city, but that there is the centre of his turf. Consider that a friendly warning.” I fought back a shudder at the clear threat in his words and said nothing. There really wasn’t anything that could be said back to that. How does one respond?

But then Yoongi brightened again, and I realised it was his turn to ask. Steeling myself to whatever he wanted to know, preparing to lie my ass off if needed, I gestured for him to go ahead.

“Did you fuck the detective?” his question wasn’t said seriously at all, he actually sounded quite amused, but it still shocked me to say the least (an understatement). I was sure if I was drinking something I’d be choking on it and spitting everything out all over the fancy white tablecloth right about now. The blush was back with a vengeance, and I could even feel my ears heat up. But mostly I was just angry that such a question even crossed his mind.

“Why the fuck do you even want to know that?” I gritted through my teeth, boiling in my seat enough to almost have steam coming off of my head, “You really going to waste your chance like this?”

Yoongi just shrugged, the annoying smirk still firmly sitting on his face, quiet chuckled escaping his lips at my peeved expression.

“Just curious, that’s all,” he hummed mysteriously, and I sighed, figuring this wasn’t the worst thing he could have gotten me to admit to him.

“Yes,” I muttered, voice going uncharacteristically quiet. It was just another one in the long line of rules Yoongi caught me breaking, even after that lecture I gave him about the importance of following the law. I was such a pathetic hypocrite, it was laughable.

“It was that night, right?” he asked, and this time his voice dipped into a strange mix of dark and faux scandalised, gaze probing for something that set me alight for a different reason altogether. If it was possible, I blushed even darker, but attempted to stand my ground.

“That’s a second question, so I won’t answer.” Yoongi’s delighted beastly grin told me that was answer enough to him though, and I decided enough was enough.

Promptly I stood up, rattling the table and sending the chair skittering back with a terrible sounding screech, drawing the attention of most of the room, the grumpy driver included. Yoongi sat in his seat, completely unperturbed and looking like he was having the best time of his life.

I scowled and moved to leave, finally sending the man into action as he leaped to his feet to follow after me.

“In a rush to get back to work?” he teased some more, sounding way too happy for my liking, but I was no longer interested in keeping up conversations with him, a fact which made him chuckle at me.

Jungkook joined us as soon as we walked by him, immediately falling into his place by Yoongi’s side, watching me alert to make sure I wasn’t trying anything.

“Leaving so soon?” the young man joined in on the teasing, though his grin was much more hostile than Yoongi ever looked at me, and I deliberated on whether I should ignore him as well.

“Some of us can’t spend all our days staring broodily off into distance,” I settled on finally, bursting out through the Black Swan entrance door and taking the stairs two at a time. The two men stayed standing on the top, looking down to me with unreadable amused expressions as I sped by their car.

I pointed at it, still parked at the same spot that made me give them all those parking tickets, and wagged my finger at them, before taking off and briskly walking towards my own vehicle.

Nerves uncomfortably rolled through my stomach, a looming sense of unease that lingered in me after the turn the conversation took that I couldn’t fully place or explain. I weaved through the busy Hannam-dong streets, putting as much distance as I could between me and the cursed hotel, somewhat aimlessly wandering the streets in the vague direction of my car, not really ready to drive back to work where Minjoon and Park were currently having a meeting about the strategy the new special team was taking.

I wasn’t invited, of course, and the violent crime unit was absent as well due to their prolonged stay in Busan, making Hwang and Min the only ones involved. They brought in all that they were capable of gathering so far, information of which I had only a surface understanding to my utmost frustration, but I felt bad continuously pressing Minjoon to tell me more, especially since we haven’t been really speaking much lately.

Clearly keeping me up to date wasn’t their priority.

And I knew that some sort of resolve has broken in me. For the second time that day I thought back to my first meeting with Yoongi (well, second technically, but the first in all the ways that counted), when I came to his bar and flew off into a self-important rant about justice.

Yoongi had warned me then, that laws will never be enough, and I called him a monster. And look at me now – cut off from the security of partnership by my colleagues, left to my own devices and pushed to my limits in the face of a seemingly all-powerful demi-god of a criminal, I spent the last few days deliberating on how to get my dirty little hands on Hoseok’s signature so I could falsify it.

I could tell myself all I wanted that I merely had to slip down into illegality to be able to fight Yoongi on an equal ground, but I knew that my ego was also getting the best of me. And that somehow made it worse – I fully couldn’t even say this was about a noble cause.

Just a few months earlier I’d been chastising myself about the same thing, about seemingly forgetting all about the reason I even did all this just to one up Yoongi whenever I could, and I promised myself to keep my distance from such things. And today I was driving back to the station, after having taken lunch with the very man I was hunting, avoiding a colleague I had slept with against the internal rules of the force, and thinking of how to commit a crime to get my way.

But I couldn’t lie – at this point, just good plain taking him down would be enough to quench that uncontrollable fire that roused in me in these past few months. The infallible Min Yoongi, bested by a young police officer. A tale worth of telling.

Maybe I caught more mannerisms from Yoongi than I was willing to admit – illusions of grandeur certainly seemed to be one of them.

When I reached the station and walked back in, Minjoon was already sitting at his table, signalling the meeting has already ended. Discreetly I peeked into the meeting room to quickly look through the picture wall and see if anything has changed, but either it was still the same or it was small enough that I didn’t catch it on the first try.

I also attempted to catch Minjoon’s eye, to see whether he’d call me over to fill me in, but he kindly smiled at me before gathering his phone, keys and badge and swiftly walked off with Hwang. Probably on official business, which left a sour taste in my mouth, and I sat down on the chair with an ‘oomphf’, hitting the seat with more force than I was anticipating.

The black screen of the monitor stared back at me blankly, as if telling me that there was still time to turn around, chase after them, humiliate myself by begging to be included and then silently watched them work. Still time to change my mind and take the righteous route.

Instead I powered the computer on and clicked once more on the digitalised file on Jung Hoseok, full of court documents, warrants and testimony statements.

This time it took me considerably quicker to find what I was looking for – the undecipherable scrawl of Hoseok’s name together with his personal seal, all forever adorning the documents about financial settlements.

Before I could change my mind, I quickly printed out the bundle of papers belonging to the same case, taking care to choose one of the new printers, the pride of our little precinct as it was bought by the meagre grants given to us by the headquarters, and which kept all of us in awe with the quality of the printed papers. It was just two weeks ago that I myself finally gathered courage to use it and marvelled at how real the testimony looked. Now it would come in handy to do the exact opposite of what its purpose was.

Hastily I grabbed the stack of documents and a stapler, stuffing them both in my bag and I rushed out of the building, the address of the specific court scribbled on a little paper clutched deathly in the palm of my hand.

In the car I took a moment to wind down, trying to will away the subtle shaking that overtook my hands and knees, taking in deep breaths and pushing my body down into the coarse fabric of the car seat, grounding myself through the feeling of my heavy limbs pressing into the furnishing, through the feeling of uneven bumps in the foam I felt under my fingers. I wondered whether Minjoon and Hwang went to Yoongi, whether he was still at the restaurant. Whether he already informed Jungkook and Hoseok that he told me the location of his office, so they should keep an eye on me.

I hoped they would be too focused on guessing where I was sniffing around during nights to realise I was messing about somewhere completely different. I hoped Yoongi still didn’t have me followed.

The court would close in an hour, and it was quite the gamble on my part when I breezed through the door like a hurricane, almost running through the modern building towards the archives. I had one hand permanently stuck in my pocket, at first only to make sure I still had my badge with me, but then I grew too anxious to pull it back out, instead closing my fingers around the cold metal, even though it was slowly warming up. The weight of what I was doing had it burning a hole through my palm and I fidgeted endlessly, cold sweat gathering at my back and soaking into the white t-shirt I threw on that morning.

There was an old lady sitting behind a desk, bored and tired of everybody’s bullshit, and I took a long stabilising breath in, before pushing through the door and walking confidently over.

Her attention was on me immediately, torn away from the book spread in her lap by the sound of the opening door, and when she glanced up, there was already annoyance visible on her face, likely at getting interrupted from her read. I plastered on another polite smile, expression admittedly a little wooden.

“How can I help you?” the woman asked, mono-tone and stone-faced. I walked all the way to her, until I was leaning on her table, and gave her another queasy smile.

“I’m here to check out a specific file on Jung Hoseok’s settlement trial from 28th of April 2022,” I recited, more focused on keeping my voice as steady as hers than on the words that I’d been practicing repeatedly in my head on my way over.

“Do you have the appropriate permits?” she asked back, barely even looking at me to instead fiddle with her computer, swiftly putting in the date and name I just gave her to check it over.

I pulled out my badge and set it down on the table in front of her, other hand rummaging through my bag to locate my unit ID card to show her as well. She took one unimpressed look at it and then back at me, eyes gliding over my body head to toes, before she set her stare back on the computer.

Silence stretched between us, interrupted only by her mouse clicking as she sifted through the database.

“I don’t know if you have clearance to access these files,” she said, sounding like she had to deal with fifteen people like me each hour, and I started to feel desperation and frustration lick at my mind.

“Police officers are legally allowed to look at files connected to their investigations,” I told her with all the conviction I could muster, “this man has been investigated by my unit for over a year.” She looked at me like I was crazy, lips in a thin line and clear disapproval all written over her face.

“Then you surely have access to these scanned for his files,” she said petulantly, safe-guarding the documents like they contained the nuclear weapons codes. I fought back the urge to sass back at her, as it would likely make her ever harder to deal with.

“I do, which should be answer enough whether I’m allowed to access them,” I answered, not even lying on that one, though I still had to carefully skirt around the reasons for my visit, “but I’d like to see the original document, the scan’s never as clear as good old paper.” For signatures anyway. Otherwise they’re pretty well visible.

“They lack the depth,” I added in for good measure, but it was obvious the lady really lost interest in fighting with me over this. The settlement was for grievous bodily harm caused by Hoseok to a club-goer, and it was clearly stated that he acted as a body-guard to Min Yoongi and almost killed the man while “trying to maintain peace” in the club. She wasn’t dumb, she must have realised it was gang related.

And no matter what she thought about my visit, I clearly was police, and that opened a lot of doors (even when it shouldn’t have).

“Show me some ID, I’ll need to put you into the system as a visitor,” she grumbled finally, outstretching her hand to me and waiting for me to fumble with my bag to pull out my wallet.

After another few tense moments of silence during which she carefully copied my details into her computer, she then suddenly got up and gestured for me to follow her. I scrambled to go after her, stuffing all of my things back and making sure the papers I took were still there and in a passable state.

She weaved through the maze of shelves, confidently making her way as if she’d walked the same route a thousand times, suddenly speedy now that she wasn’t behind her little table. Our journey took us one floor door, a rickety metal staircase leading further into the underbelly of this huge building.

As we strayed away from the little table, I noticed a significant lack of cameras, which was frankly startling for a court in Seoul, but they probably thought writing your name down into the little form and going through this little old lady was security enough. I chuckled a little at that and thanked whoever it was that decided that putting CCTV here wasn’t a priority.

The lady finally slowed down by one of the shelves, fingers flying around the boxes stored there until she found what she was looking for, nimbly pulling out a brown cardboard box with Hoseok’s name written on the front.

Without much preamble she thrust it into my arms and then turned around and left, no words spoken and no glances exchanged. For a few moments I watched her go in stunned silence before the reality of the situation kicked in and I swiftly shuffled near one of the little tables that were scattered through the space.

To my absolute annoyance, the box contained a mountain of documents, and I spent good twenty minutes going through it just searching for the one that I brought with me. But once I had it in my hands, it was entirely too easy to carefully peek around to make sure I wasn’t watched by anyone or caught by a camera, dig out my stapler and punch the documents together in a way that looked the most similar, and then slip the original ones in my bag while I pretended to closely read through the copy.

It wasn’t fool-proof. If anyone looked closer at the files, it’d be fairly obvious that they were printed copies – as I said before, there was no depth to them and the signature didn’t look as real. But that’s exactly why I needed the original with me.

I just prayed to God that no one would feel the need to dig these out and closely inspect them until I had the chance to sneak back and switch them again.

I loitered around long enough so that it wouldn’t look suspicious (or at least what my nervous brain told me was enough time to not make it look suspicious) and then I slowly made my way back up the steel old staircase, towards the little brown desk.

The lady didn’t even look up this time, eyes glued to her book without a single acknowledgement of my existence as I walked past her, smuggled documents stuffed in my black bag.

As I was walking out of that building, it suddenly struck me just how easy it was to break the law when you had the police badge on you – a realisation I’d keep to myself and never divulge to Yoongi, lest he laughs himself to death while screaming ‘I told you so’.

Now, I wasn’t an expert on forgery, but I had been able to catch some basic ideas while growing up on the streets. I wasn’t directly involved in it, but some of the kids I sometimes used to hang out with made and sold fake IDs around the orphanage and other neighbourhood kids, and I wasn’t completely clueless on that. When you spend hours sitting next to someone labouring over a fake little piece of plastic, no matter how hard you’re trying to ignore them, you’ll take a peek here or there.

Still, it was more DIY than I was expecting. I bought some see-through paper sheets and spent an evening carefully tracing the elegant lines of Hoseok’s name and personal stamp, trying to work out all the kinks and all the lines, watch where they fill out more, where he exerted more pressure and dug the pen deeper into the paper. All of that, all of the things that made it a little bit more authentic.

The seal was going to be more tricky – not only I had to trace it, but then I’d have to mould it somehow so that I could make a copy of it from wax. I had bought a whole case of playdough and I wasn’t scared to use it. Well, maybe a little bit. I’ve never been an overly artistic person, nor a terribly precise and patient one. So that would be fun, for sure.

When days later I finally felt confident enough to try and transfer it to the actual document, my tiny two rooms apartment was buried under mountains of white papers with randomly placed signatures on it, some a little more successful than others, but most of them still felt a little wonky.

That day I stood at work right next to the fancy printer, once again, and hoped that whoever walked past wouldn’t think it weird that I was gathering what looked to be a hefty stack of the same copy of an official form, waiting expectantly at the mouth of the machine and snatching all the freshly printed sheets still warm from the process as they were coming out. I certainly hoped that what people said was true – that no one was really paying as much attention as you did to what you did. This would be a little awkward to explain.

The stamp DIY had gone as terribly as I was expecting it to. The playdough was malleable, maybe even a little too much, and even when I spent literal hours carefully tracing the shapes into it and smoothing it out with thin popsicle wooden sticks, every time I tried to actually make the seal the result was less than desirable. One look at those uneven lines and everybody would be able to tell that it was made by a child. The messiness of the ink could hide some discrepancies, but what I had made was laughable.

It was truly embarrassing how many evenings I spent bent over the table, tongue peeking out of my mouth as I as carefully as my clumsy hands allowed me traced Hoseok’s name into the soft clay, hoping that maybe I’d already written it so many times those lines were pressed into my muscle memory.

Even with the practice I allowed myself, I still burned through the stack of the forms pretty quickly, always chickening out and fearing that it was just not perfect enough to get caught under a closer inspection. And closely inspect they would, the Hana Bank were no amateurs and they’d walk through fire for their clients. I didn’t know what the procedure was when we had a signed consent to get the statements, but when we delivered warrants, they sure fought it for as long as possible.

Some of my colleagues apparently even believed they even tipped the clients off sometimes, even though that was illegal.

So it had to be bulletproof. More bulletproof than Hoseok himself seemed to be.

On Wednesday a week later I walked through the office once more to nervously shift around the printer as it gave me a fresh copy of the official consent form to butcher at home, this time only one because it was suspiciously full today, with almost everyone present at their desks. I sincerely hoped no one was tracking my printing history.

It felt a little more concrete, having only a single try this time, like I really had to succeed, and I was determined to do so. So determined in fact, that I didn’t even notice when I basically walked straight into Minjoon who had been watching for an undisclosed amount of time, my arms and body immediately twisting so that the piece of paper stayed unharmed.

Minjoon’s arms wrapped around me to catch me, working against the momentum I put to work and instead pulling me closer to his body, to right me when I inevitably lost my balance. Very briefly I thought back to that sunny afternoon I broke into Yoongi’s office and then bumped into him on the corner, before I was forcing myself back into the present, quickly shuffling out of the detective’s arms. I was properly flustered at being caught so unaware, even as a pinch of fear ran through me at being seen like that, as if the others could sense what happened between us the last Friday of May.

“Whatcha doin’?” the man asked cheekily, completely ignoring the fact that seemingly everyone and their mother currently sat just a few feet away from us, our small little desks mushed together to fit into the tight space. On a cursory glance no one was overly paying attention, but one never knew.

All that was needed for me to lose everything was one nosy police officer making an anonymous complaint about me getting a little too chummy with my colleagues. ‘The only woman in an all-male unit fucked her way through the entire team’ was a rumour that would spread a little too well around these parts, especially if Park got involved.

“P-printing,” I blurted out before I could stop myself, instinctively taking a few cautious steps back. Minjoon noticed, and for a split second I saw hurt flash through his eyes before a sad kind of understanding settled in instead, and I heaved a sigh of relief.

“Coffee?” was the next question that came out his mouth, noticeably less cheery, but I still appreciated the exit he offered us, the chance to talk a little more openly without the very real possibility of everything spectacularly crashing down around us. So I just nodded and led the way, not even realising I was still clutching the freshly printed document.

Minjoon clocked it in too and as soon as we were settling down in the empty cafeteria, he was pointing at it with a jut of his chin, a silent question written into his gaze.

“O-oh yeah,” I stuttered through once again, cheeks colouring slightly in embarrassment even as the acidic feeling flooded me at the realisation I’d need to lie to him more, “I’m taking your advice. Someone in those cases might be willing to let me go through their finances, it would give me an advantage. I’ve been prepping it while Cheol’s gone.”

The man hummed in answer, but I could tell his interest laid somewhere completely else, eyes slightly glazed over as he stared intently into the cup of coffee gripped almost dangerously tight in his hands. Oh, so this wasn’t going to be professional chit-chat about work.

“What’s up?” I asked instead, meaning it as both a question about his current mood and the current happenings in his life. I hadn’t exactly given him many chances to catch me for a conversation these past two weeks, and I was starting to feel a little guilty about it; but every time he even as much as looked in my direction, I feared someone would immediately figure out what I’d done – let him fuck me in my living room, as if my bedroom wasn’t full of pictures of Yoongi and I didn’t still wear the little skirt I chose specifically to surprise the man. As if I still didn’t feel the phantom ghost of his presence by my side, and my mind still wasn’t stuck on that little red couch, three pairs of eyes glued to me while I sipped on a fruity cocktail and Yoongi whispered to me like a lover about to sweetly strangle me to death.

That’s what I’d done.

And Minjoon deserved so much better than that as well. I truly liked the man, I did so much, but the way Yoongi burrowed himself under my skin, like a permanent itch, it left barely an hour a day when I didn’t somehow think about him, even if that was the last thing I wanted to do. The man was like a curse, hanging over me and poisoning my mind until even a stupid black car reminded me of him, and I hated that with my whole being.

I didn’t want to do that to Minjoon, but now what was supposed to be a sweet moment will forever be tainted by the fact that I spoke to Yoongi the same day and somehow got myself stuck with the man firmly clawing his way into my consciousness every waking second of my every day.

When I went to him that one winter night, sitting in Dynamite for the first time across him, I had no fucking idea I’d end up here, with my entire existence carved and moulded around his in mere months.

‘I’m like mold, darling’ Yoongi had said, and at the time I had no idea just how right he was.

The awkward silence took over our table, both of us too troubled by our own thoughts, before Minjoon finally decided to take a step forward, looking like he’d been pushing himself to it for a long time and maybe now felt brave enough. How unfortunate that it coincided with the kind of spiral I was going through right opposite of him.

“I was thinking we could have a dinner together,” he suggested quietly, throwing little unsure yet hopeful glances my way, “like we used to.”

Like we used to. Like it was years, and not merely two weeks ago, that we last met for food outside of work.

“Is that a good idea?” when I asked that, I already knew my resolve was slipping, and I knew Minjoon knew that as well when he gave me a wide toothy grin, life pouring back into him and I saw a glimpse of the flirty attractive man he turned into when no one was around. I found my lips tugging into a grin too, wanting to follow his lead with no further prompting needed, but I pulled back until I heard what he had to say about this.

“No.” the word was simple enough, an acknowledgement – both of the fact that we were getting into trouble and the fact that we weren’t about to stop, “But you don’t strike me as the type that would mind that.”

Oh, if you only knew, I found myself wanting to say, but bit my tongue to keep those words in. You haven’t the faintest idea, were the next ones, and I just simply settled for an amused smile.

“Fine, then,” I said, and even as I put more sauce on the resigned tone in my voice, the lightness slowly spread down to my chest and a different kind of trepidation set in. And for once it felt like the good kind, even though I still couldn’t shake the feeling of doing something kind of wrong.

I wished it was easier to banish the thoughts of guilt from my mind – for having even slipped there during the intimate moments we shared. I wished even now I wasn’t thinking about how unsettling it felt with Yoongi being so clearly invested in my relationship with Minjoon. ‘Was it that night?’ as if he branded me by talking to me. Like he was trying to tell me ‘I got there first. It was me. ME’.

But I’d grown tired of that. I wanted to reclaim my life from his hands. And I wanted Minjoon and I didn’t want to feel guilty about it. I wanted to do it right. I didn’t want Yoongi interfering with that. And I sure as hell wanted to try.

I had a feeling that whatever happened this summer, wherever we were heading, it would come to a head now anyway, and everything would change between us. The warehouse murders, the Moon Jiwoo case, me hopefully finally cracking down on Hoseok, too many things that would put us clearly on opposite sides of the fight, and for all Yoongi tried to plant seeds of himself into me, soon I’d cross that line. And he wouldn’t be as friendly anymore.

Like it should have been from the beginning. As was right. The natural order.

Minjoon would still be here even after Yoongi had grown tired of playing with me, and it was time for me to move on from the frustrated obsessiveness he pulled me into when I interacted with him. I might have reconsidered a lot of things since the first time we spoke, broke a lot of my own rules, but the truth was still there – he was a criminal and it was my job to catch him.

“I still have a few things I gotta work on,” I was only half-lying to him, and I told myself that was somehow better than full-on lying, “so I’ll go back now.” The man hummed and nodded, and when I stood up, he made no move to follow – so I walked back to the office by myself, clutching the paper in my hand.

For the first time since Cheol left I opened my notes about the cases we were supposed to work on together and started quickly reading through. If I was going to tell people these forms were for this investigation, I needed names at the ready. If I stuttered and stumbled through some vague explanation, it could make them realise I was being suspicious. There had to be a concrete wall between them and the truth, so I sat there and built it brick by fucking brick.

When Minjoon came to my table hours later, the station was already almost empty and our office was void of any of our coworkers, which made it easier for me to relax about being seen leaving together. This time when Minjoon gestured to his car, I ignored mine own and went with him to his. I’d get my car tomorrow morning, and right now I just wanted to go.

The slightly awkward tense silence still hung about us, though both of us were considerably less high-strung. As I sat quietly in the passenger seat, I felt the brown-haired man sneaking glances at me, face open and curious, like he couldn’t believe he finally succeeded in talking me into talking to him again, and it had a tentative smile tugging at my lips.

He drove us a little further away from the Namyeong station, where we usually grabbed lunch due to the vicinity to our little police station, most probably to make sure we’d have privacy cause a lot of the restaurants around there already knew our faces and knew we were police officers. Though, he did drive us straight into Itaewon, which also didn’t serve my nerves too well.

If we bumped into Yoongi or another one of his clowns, I’d be forced to commit aggravated assault.

But thankfully without any problems we ended up in a small, cute hole-in-a-wall eatery that served ramen. Not one of us has spoken a single word yet, except for ordering, and the tension slowly grew as we knew we were nearing the point when we’d have to talk to each other.

Finally, Minjoon seemed to have reached the breaking point, and when he turned to me, I saw the determination in his eyes. I steeled myself as well, sipping from my coke to put a little barrier between me and the intensity he channelled.

“So… should we talk about it?” he asked simply, though he didn’t look strictly serious – there was still a light smile on his face, like even through his nerves he was sure I was already open to whatever he wanted. Which I was, so I smiled as well.

“Talk about what?” I teased him, cheekily throwing little glances towards him while I pretended not to pay attention by playing with the napkins. Minjoon didn’t seem offended, not at all, though he scoffed lightly and leaned back in his chair. For a moment my eyes jumped to the way his t-shirt stretched across his chest, before I looked back to the table with my cheeks a little redder than before.

“Should I describe in great detail what I mean?” Minjoon teased back, and I immediately held up my hand to him to stop him, even though we were both already snickering.

“I think there’s some things you can keep to yourself,” I grumbled back, feeling myself unfreeze and relax slightly. For a moment we just sat there and looked at each other with small grins, the atmosphere warming around us and reminding me of the way we’d enjoy each other’s company before. Then we both sobered up a little though, the reality of having to have this conversation fully sinking in.

“No, but really, we should speak,” Minjoon said again, this time a little more serious than before, and he leaned on the table, like unconsciously trying to shorten the distance between us, “Do you want this?”

The simplicity of the question and the straightforwardness of the statement momentarily shocked me, and I choked a little on the soda I’ve clutched in my hand this whole time. But I guessed there was no reason to beat around the bush – we’ve already crossed the line, there was no need for being all shy now. I still found embarrassment flooding me at the way I reacted though, and I cleared my throat.

“Do you want this?” I knew it wasn’t completely fair flipping this onto him when I didn’t answer the question myself, I knew it wasn’t fair having to know his answer before having the guts to make the leap of faith myself, but I couldn’t help the strands of doubt wrapping themselves tightly over my heart.

Minjoon simply stared me for a few seconds before he nodded. It was such an uncomplicated and yet resolute gesture, it robbed me of my breath momentarily. Could it really be that easy between us? Just acting on desire and need, ignoring all the things that could be at stake – just being together, like we were a normal couple of coworkers. Did he even fully realise what the consequences could be?

Still, I couldn’t stop the way my heart quivered in quiet hope, jumping in my chest at the idea and letting me run with the fantasy of sharing this with Minjoon. Aligning myself to where I was supposed to fit, doing the right thing with the right man by my side. He was a good detective, and a kind man, and as much as I feared getting found out, there was a part of me that yearned for getting to have that kind of connection with him. We were both on the same side, shared the same goals – we could be perfect like that.

“I understand why you’re hesitant,” Minjoon whispered when he sensed my conflicted state of mind, and offered me a small smile, “but I’m willing to risk it, for you. For us, really. I’ve never connected with anyone here this way, and I knew that you were something special from the moment you stepped through the door. I could see it all in the fire and determination in your eyes. I’ve enjoyed all our little chats, I’ve enjoyed being a mentor for you, I’ve enjoyed our dinners and the time we spent together outside of the precinct. And I’ve most definitely enjoyed our last time together.”

That had me lightly slapping his shoulder, even as I was smiling to myself about his words. Minjoon laughed, the genuine cheerful sound cutting through the atmosphere between us and pulling me along.

“Minjoon, I…” the words simply escaped me, and I had no idea how to express the storm of thoughts, worries and emotions, but I figured I owed him to try. “I’d like that. A lot. I’ve also enjoyed our time together, but my standing in the unit is already quite precarious. I don’t really even care about breaking the rules, I’m just scared. Of what it will do to my career were something to get out. If the situation was different, I would have loved giving this a try, truly I would.” I tried softening the blow with a smile, but I knew I looked more sad than reassuring.

“We’d be careful,” Minjoon whispered to me, hopeful grin in place and I could already feel myself slipping again, “We’d make sure no one knew. Y/N, I don’t want to do anything that hurts you. I’d never let that happen.” He reached over the table to grab my hand, and I almost jerked back before realising we weren’t at the station and I didn’t have to worry about being seen together. Minjoon noticed my reaction, I could see it in the way the corner of his lips weighted down with the knowledge, but when his hand reached mine it was gentle and light.

“We both want this, and I think it would be a pity to not try,” he gently probed, leaning even closer to look into my eyes. I fought the instinct to dodge the eye contact and allowed myself to soak into his soft brown gaze. “It would be a pity to lose what we could have together, don’t you think?”

I saw the waitress approaching with our orders out of the corner of my eye, so I pulled away and softly dropped my hands to my lap to give her space to put our food on the table. Minjoon’s face dropped for a second before her approach registered in his mind too, and we both attempted to focus on the food for a moment.

Silence settled over us as we both dug in, the atmosphere surprisingly not as oppressive as I feared it might have been, but still a sense uncertainty hung in the air.

I spent the entire meal mulling over his words. I knew what decision I wanted to make, and I knew what decision I could afford to make – and they were not the same. Minjoon’s soft insistence that he’d shield me from the bad warmed my heart, I felt touched by his genuine words, but at the same time – how much control did we have over this?

To take the leap of faith and potentially face losing everything, or to continue living by the side of what could have been and awkwardly bumble through every interaction?

‘Did you fuck the detective?’

Yoongi already knew. It gave him a direct fool-proof plan of getting rid of me should he choose to do so. He wouldn’t even have to plan anything, wouldn’t even have to plant anything on me. He’d just report our relationship, and the rest would be done for him. And the sad thing was it would be a bigger hit for me than if he’d plant cocaine on me.

And once again I had to face what my life had become – Yoongi’s echo chamber. Everything I did and everything I chose to do or not to do, it always came back to him, and for a brief moment I mourned the control over my life that was taken from me when I stepped into this investigation. But that was all the more reason to bring him down.

In a moment of panic I just wanted to run from everything. I was so overwhelmed and I felt like a child in many things – choosing things with potentially devastating consequences knowing I couldn’t ever make a fully informed decision. And living with knowing I’d always managed to choose the thing that brought me into a worse situation.

I wanted to trust Minjoon’s reassurance, and I wanted to take the leap, but something kept me firmly tethered to the dark little spot I made for myself here at the rock bottom.

Not many words were exchanged between us after that, and once we finished our meal, we quickly found out there wasn’t much point in staying out longer. Minjoon still watched me with hopeful eyes and I still found myself hesitating every single time, not capable of giving him what he asked of me.

Sleeping with him complicated everything, and while I wouldn’t say I regretted doing it, I thought to myself quietly that given the chance to make that decision again, I wouldn’t do it – just to spare myself this strange vacuum we were suspended in – sitting side by side, yearning, yet not brave enough to take the final step. Well, at least I wasn’t.

Minjoon drove me home, his presence as calming as it was anxiety inducing, the silence spreading over us in an all-encompassing embrace. I couldn’t decide how I felt.

Just like that night, he insisted on walking me to my door, and just like that night I accepted after slight hesitance. Minjoon lingered a little, hand almost instinctively reaching out to me endlessly – always gripping onto my sleeve for just a second before letting go. I could see he wanted to speak, to say more, but didn’t know what.

I knew what he meant to do when he stepped closer though, and I’d later tell myself I didn’t have enough time to stop him, to protest when he leant down with his eyes burning into me, lips gentle and reverent in how he slowly kissed me.

I couldn’t help the way my heart lurched in joy, couldn’t help how I reached out back just as instinctively to hold onto him when he briefly pressed closer. Couldn’t help the slight ring of disappointment when he pulled away, and with a last boyish grin walked away.

As soon as the door closed behind me, the weight of my reality settled back into my shoulders and the giddy feeling slowly trickled out of me. The state of my living room was an endless testament to the situation I’d gotten myself into – covered in a layer of documents with failed forged signatures, and the space that was clean of that was filled with dirty clothes or dishes.

My living room was cluttered with the signs of my planned crimes, and the ones I’d already committed also, and for a moment I had the terrible feeling – that maybe it was Minjoon who should have been fearing a downfall through his relationship with me. That maybe it would be me who ended up dragging him down.

With a sign I pushed away all thoughts of the evening I had, cleaning out my mind – because that always made it easier to cope, and I didn’t have the capacity to face everything right now.

I felt kind of queasy and scared and all I could think about was storming Yoongi’s club to distract myself, my treacherous mind supplying this idea to me like it was a cure and not the root of all of these problems.

Instead I sat down onto my cluttered couch and pulled out the single copy of the bank search agreement, pulling out the tools I’ve made myself in the weeks I tried. With shame I scribed Hoseok’s signature on there from memory, my wrist already familiar with the movements, before I reached over for the stamp with a jittery anxious heart.

This was the last attempt. If I didn’t like this, I’d stop. Clearly it was a sign for me to let this go – and I promised myself – if I messed this one up, it was the last I did.

I tried the stamp out a few times on a different paper, and this one did look the most accurate out of all the ones I did before. The ring around the name was finally symmetrical, and the characters didn’t look as if they were written by a first-grader anymore. With one last deep breath, I rolled it in the red ink and without hesitating a second more, slapped the stamp onto the document.

There was a strange stillness when the deed was done – as if I slowly accepted the decision I’ve come to within myself when I saw it. It didn’t look perfect, and I argued it couldn’t anyway – not even by his own hand the signatures looked all the same. There was a certain margin of error and doubt involved, and the moment I saw the signed and stamped document, I knew in my heart that it was close enough to pass.

Strangely, a trickle of disappointment lit up my chest – maybe I was hoping for it to fail, so that I could talk myself out of this insanity. But would I have stopped? How many times did I promise myself I’d keep my distance and how many times did I actually honour that?

How much time would it take before I tried again?

Leaving the document sitting in the middle of my table like it was a part of an exhibition, I slowly walked over to my bedroom, and I stared into Yoongi’s eyes on my wall before the sleep claimed me, clothes unchanged and all.

The sleek interior of the office unnerved me, and I watched the wooden carving lining the walls with endless curiosity. This was definitely a space where I firmly didn’t belong, and I felt it in the expensive interior and in the strange looks I got from the employees and the occasional client passing through.

I must have been standing out like an ugly bruise, all wonder-eyed and nervously sitting in one of the modern-like chairs, wearing my best clothes that still must have looked like rags to everyone around me, as they were draped in high-end brands from head to toe.

Bitterly I thought to myself that this surely was a crowd Yoongi must have felt very comfortable with, but any thought of the man cranked up my anxiety to new heights. Currently I was panicking about him potentially having an appointment here for today – and what a coincidence that would have been.

The Hana Bank headquarters, situated on the Eulji-ro intersection, was a sleek glass skyscraper with even sleeker cold interior full of squeaky-clean shiny blocks of sandy brown marble. Once I recovered from the initial wonder about the reception space complete with artworks and a fancy café, I stuttered out to the bored receptionist about my surprise visit and she let me up here into the office, where I was currently waiting for someone to talk to me.

And after what felt like ages, during which I sat there and stewed in my own fear and shame, I finally saw someone walking towards me.

“Miss Lee?” a nicely dressed woman stopped by my chair, her heels clacking on the floor loudly, and I stood to meet her halfway. I felt her heavy judgmental gaze on me and I felt the need to defend myself that I wasn’t here looking into my banking options, but kept my mouth shut and just followed after her when she gestured for me to join her.

Of course I wasn’t there about banking, I was on the wrong floor for that.

She walked me down the white and brown hallways until we reached a door that said ‘Kim Jaejoon, Director of Risk Management Division’. With a single knock she was gone, leaving me standing there like a fool.

“Come in,” a voice came from inside, and I struggled to put an age to it.

Upon my entrance, I quickly realised the white and light wood theme persisted in here too, and the uniformity of it all started grinding at my gears. The poshness of it all became almost laughable to me and the insistence on appearing a certain standard turned almost tacky.

I said nothing though, and sat down when offered.

The manager was an older gentleman, elegant and keeping a certain young-like vibe, no doubt through living a very comfortable life. He smiled politely, in a practiced way, but I couldn’t really force myself to return it through all my nerves.

“What can I do for you, officer?” he asked in that practiced slyness, and I decided that there was no point in beating around the bush. I reached into my bag and pulled out the cursed document, a weight falling off of my shoulders as soon as it was placed on the table, like I’d finally rid myself of the burden of it. Now I only had to sell it.

“I came here to obtain Mr. Jung Hoseok’s financial records,” I tried to match his energy, and hoped that I didn’t sound too hill-billy, “We’ve been investigating him and he graciously agreed for us to have access to his information.” If he only heard me, god. I’d be dead meat.

The man pulled the piece of paper to himself, squinting eyes in concentration as he read through the official form. I watched with bated breath as his gaze slid expressionlessly over the signature, moving on immediately to look at me again.

“Mr. Jung is one of our top clients, I hope you understand that I’d like to discuss this issue with our lawyer first before I grant you access,” he spoke diplomatically, keeping one hand on the paper, his smile turned sharper now that I was after someone he no doubt swore to protect.

I nodded and offered him a smile. I hoped he wouldn’t contact Hoseok himself – because if he did, I might not live long enough to hear back from them. I was expecting for him to show me out, but instead he picked up a phone and dialled a number so quickly it had to be at the top of his caller’s list.

It took barely a few seconds before the call was answered and I watched as he gave me a wooden smile while he explained the situation.

“It is signed, yes,” he told the phone, a bit of frustration bleeding through as he narrowed his eyes at the document, “I can send it over to you.” There was an answer that he didn’t like, telling by the way his eyebrows cinched together in a frown, clear annoyance taking over his expression.

“Yes, I said it already… Yes, there is a date… What? What do you mean? That can’t-“ I sat there and listened to him get angry, though he did try to be discreet about it. I put on a disinterested face, but I was listening in with stomach knotted in nerves, straining my ears to catch the lawyer’s answers.

“But don’t you want to see it first?” he asked finally, resignation settling in before he got what I assumed was the final confirmation and set the phone down on the table.

“Sorry about that,” the man told me, but he looked more annoyed when he looked at me again, “They seem to be quite busy. According to what he told me, I’m required to honour your request as it is an official document and you proved yourself with a badge.” Every word sounded like an accusation, and if I didn’t forge that document myself, I might have been peeved at his clear anger at having to honour the law. As it stood now, I was breaking it instead, so I let it slide.

“You’re entitled to the last year of the records, so you can expect it by afternoon today or at the very furthest tomorrow noon,” the man conceded finally, looking thoroughly peeved at me. Sorry for investigating a serial killer, I guess?

“Well, you’ve got my work email,” I said, just to have something to say, and then awkwardly sat there with his expectant gaze at me, before I realised he wanted me to leave. I scrambled to stand up and gather up my things because fuck this guy, I didn’t want to stay either, and he gave me the first pleasant smile since I got here.

After exchanging some wooden pleasantries and polite conversation, and after some more reassurance that he’d send the materials over, I found myself standing outside in the blisteringly hot street with the sun bearing down on my already burnt skin, wondering what the fuck just happened.

I checked my phone for time in disbelief, reading the little numbers over and over again like the piece of technology was somehow lying to me. I was in his office for all of 13 minutes. I waited in the lobby for almost twenty, and then I was out in thirteen.

I committed a crime, and all it took was not even a full quarter of an hour and not a single security check.

As I crossed the street to get back to my car, I had to wonder – was it always this easy or was it because I had a badge that nobody cared?

I spent weeks stressing myself out over a forgery for one of the most prestigious banks, only to be given the clear upon the decision of a single guy after his lawyer told him he’s too busy? It was almost laughable.

I kind of wished I could have asked Yoongi to compare notes with him. How long does it take you to commit a crime? Cause I bet I can do it faster with my badge. Ain’t got nothing on me, baby.

Sitting down behind the wheel, I almost didn’t know what to do with myself. The anxious energy that swelled up inside of me now didn’t have any outlet and I found myself squirming and overthinking, still expecting something terrible to happen the moment I let my guard down.

But even after I spent full twenty minutes sitting in my car staring at the building of the bank (which, if I didn’t look suspicious before, I definitely did now), nothing happened. People walked by, some walked inside, some continued on, some walked out, cars buzzed by. Nobody looked towards me, nobody seemed to care for my presence. Nobody was angrily chasing me down demanding an explanation. Everything went on as usual.

I pulled out of the parking spot absent-mindedly, thoughts going a mile a minute, but heart finally calming down slowly. I wasn’t even really thinking of where I was going, but my body worked on autopilot, clearly deciding for me where to go while I was still mentally stuck in that sleek white room, sitting across the bank manager calling his lawyer.

And that’s how I ended up sitting in my car right across Pied Piper, at 11 am, flabbergasted at how I even got there. Mindlessly I walked over, no plan no nothing, just plain curiosity and a propensity to making bad decisions.

Two bouncers stood in front of the club, smoking and clearly tired, but both perked up the moment they realised I was heading for them. I saw them gearing up to deal with me and send me away, before the taller one’s face lit up in recognition and he slapped the shoulder of his buddy to stand down. When I got to them, I was already intrigued at what the interaction was going to be like, but instead of telling me anything, the taller of the duo opened the door with a shit-eating grin and motioned for me to get inside.

I already held a personal grudge against the other two bouncers, and I certainly wasn’t planning on embarrassing myself in front of these two as well, so I hid my confusion about suddenly gaining a VIP 24/7 access and walked in without uttering a single word, feeling their amused gazes on my back. It sent shivers down my spine, but I figured I shouldn’t be looking down on such sudden luck.

Unless the only reason they let me in was that Yoongi was by some miracle here at the moment, in which case it would be weird and eerie that I ended up here at the same time. I would even consider visiting a shaman, if that ended up being the truth.

The club was of course completely empty – and now fully lit up, without the blaring music and empty of dancers it felt less glamorous and more like a big sad room full of discarded trash, spilt drinks and other liquids I’d rather not think about. The grey on the walls was way bleaker in this light, and I could clearly see how the floor was wearied down by daily use, same as the tables and chairs and couches – where every little stain was suddenly visible, and I vowed myself to never sit on any of those.

My reverie was broken by a melodic voice, and I turned from where I was standing motionlessly just staring emptily into the room.

“Hey, how can I help you?”

There was a boy behind the bar. Well, I say boy – he looked incredibly youthful, especially when his expression broke into a friendly smile, but couldn’t have been much younger than me. Might have even been slightly older. He was leisurely wiping down the counter, no doubt trying to deal with the disaster left behind by a busy night, but there was this cool vibe to him and he moved with a certain swagger.

When I turned to face him, his eyes took me in and I think we might have simultaneously realised we knew each other, because just as I thought back to the memory of him trying to lure me to his bar up in the VIP section with his smiley barkeep charm, he suddenly piped up again.

“Yoongi hyung isn’t here right now,” he offered me the information he probably thought I sought after, and I fought the angry blush off of my face.

“I’m just passing by,” I answered him with a forced nonchalant flare, going back to looking around the room to appear more care-free, and not like I absolutely had no idea what I was doing. Which was always true.

The guy hummed and moved on to shining the glasses with a special rag of some sorts. He didn’t let my attitude bring him down though and kept smiling towards me, almost as if he was blissfully unaware of who both me and his boss were. He probably thought we were some kind of friends.

“Oh, but Hobi hyung is here,” he supplied more details, chattering off excitedly when he caught my attention, “he came in like fifteen minutes ago to get TaeTae hyung, I think he promised to drive him somewhere.” I took a few steps closer to him, hesitating but kind of tempted to sit with him at the bar and just pull whatever he wanted to share out of him. He definitely seemed the type who loved to share.

The name Hobi also rung some kind of bell to me, but I couldn’t fully place it. I’ve gone through so many materials pertaining to the Min gang that I couldn’t remember everything, and I told myself it was probably someone that had a case against them once and I remember it from there. I didn’t care much for this apparent chauffeur of Taehyung’s and instead slinked closer to the guy.

He gestured towards the seat across the bar, and that sealed the deal for me. As soon as I sit down, he was offering me his hand, and I shook it with only slight hesitation.

“I’m Yeonjun. We kind of saw each other around, but hyung never introduced us,” Yeonjun told me excitedly, and I kind of hated having to burst his bubble.

“Hi Yeonjun, I’m detective Lee,” I braced myself for some kind of reaction – really anything would have been appropriate ranging from worry to curiousness to mistrust. I wasn’t really expecting the joyful barkeep to raise one eyebrow at me with a smirk and say: “Well, I doubt that’s your name, detective.”

For a moment I stared at him in surprise, eyes owlishly blinking and mouth barely keeping shut, but I pulled myself together with an embarrassed smile.

“You’re right, it’s Y/N.”

Yeonjun smiled all friendly at me again, no sight of the knowing smirk that slipped onto his face for a second, and I realised I might be dealing with much more of a professional than I initially thought.

“So, what are you here for today? Probably not to dance,” he gestured to the empty silent club, momentarily pausing with a glass precariously hanging from his other hand before he resumed the shining, “though if you feel like it, help with clean-up will definitely be very welcomed.”

I grinned at him and leant down on the bar, propping my head up on my hand to make myself more comfortable.

“Thanks, but I think I’ll pass on that,” I sassed back, curious eyes sliding over the design of the bar, drinking in every little detail. It somehow felt a little forbidden to be so casually sitting here in broad daylight, and I wanted to use the chance to look around well.

“Yeah, figured,” Yeonjun snorted and moved on from glasses to wiping down the bottles of alcohol that were no doubt all sticky from layers of spilt drinks. Silence settled over us and I wracked my brain to come up with any topic to talk about, opening and closing my mouth endlessly, but always changing my mind last minute. What does one talk about in a situation like this?

Well, in the end it didn’t matter anyway, because just then my attempts were ruined by cheerful voice booming over the room.

“There’s one of my babies! How’re you doing, Jjunnie?” a loud joyful scream interrupted our stilted conversation, and I froze in my seat, fear taking over for a few seconds. Just like that, the sudden realisation why the name Hobi seemed familiar to me hit me in the face like a truck full of bricks.

I turned slowly, almost too slowly, only to come face to face with a wildly smiling happy Hoseok swaggering down the stairs, all care-free and feeling very at home with arms flailing dramatically about. I saw the moment he clocked me in, the moment his eyes slightly narrowed and his smile turned more stilted, but he said nothing and did nothing. When he finally reached the bar, he was acting like nothing was wrong, and reluctantly I went along.

“I see that you’re entertaining one of our friends,” were his only words acknowledging my presence, before he turned to Yeonjun, eyes full of warnings. The boy chuckled, eyes rolling slightly at the older man.

“Yes, Miss Detective finally introduced herself to me,” came his answer, and as far as subtlety goes, this one was about as obvious as the Moon in the sky. He could have just come straight out and say ‘don’t worry, I won’t spill, I know she’s police’, but nonetheless I was glad I wasn’t getting some rando in trouble with Hoseok.

Though, he did call him his baby. Probably not a rando then. I looked Hoseok up and down, ignoring his slightly peeved aura – a lover maybe? I guess for a man as busy as him it’d kind of make sense if he was messing around with the employees. Where else do you meet people to fuck when you’re Min Yoongi’s phantom.

My eyes flitted between the two men, the dots somewhat connecting, when Yeonjun’s embarrassed face caught my attention.

“I feel like there’s a misunderstanding happening,” he quipped in, watching us with wide but amused eyes, and I turned back to him. His dark black-reddish hair was glistening under the lights of the bar, and the unusual mixture of colours kept catching my eyes.

“Well, I had no idea I was talking to one of Hoseok’s babies,” I teased the man, though I sounded much too disgruntled to carry the vibe of care-free joking, “if you ever need help, I have a crucifix and garlic in the back of my car.”

Two different voices burst into laughter and filled the empty room almost to the brim, and I was flabbergasted by the chance that I made Hoseok laugh – but the second laugh wasn’t his (though I did see his lips twitch to smile). Suddenly there was an arm thrown over Hoseok’s shoulders where he stood leaning on the bar with his side, and Taehyung emerged from behind him with amused eyes sparkling at me. I paled.

Great.

“I don’t consider myself overtly religious, but I’ll take the garlic,” Hoseok joked back, for a moment taking a break from casting dark glances in my direction (which I greatly appreciated), “I’m sure hyung would find a use for it.” Hoseok had two hyungs, but at that moment Seokjin completely slipped my mind and it jumped straight to Yoongi “making use of it” and I frowned in disgust.

“How? To stuff it into the fresh wounds of his torture victims?” my lip turned down as I sneered, turning my face into this sardonic grimace, which Taehyung readily laughed at. I think it might have been this point where Yeonjun realised he probably was in over his head in this conversation, and the poor guy watched us throw not-so-friendly jabs left and right with an awkward smile.

“Wow, you’ve got quite the imagination,” Taehyung teased, pretending to be shocked by my ‘brutality’ and almost even going as far as to clutch his metaphorical pearls while I rolled my eyes to high heaven.

“Ever consider getting employed here? Sounds like you’d fit right in,” Hoseok’s voice cut through the room and hit right where it hurt, and it didn’t help that this was the first thing he genuinely laughed at.

A frown pulled at my face before I could stop it, and with the way my lips curled in barely supressed anger, it must have been clear to everyone the effect the words had on me. And I felt like a big old fool for getting angry at it – because it was like confirming an anxiety – like if they could see it in me then every worry I had about the state of my own morals was right and warranted. In a twisted sense, it wasn’t even his fault I was mad about it, and it sucked.

So I pulled myself together and played it off, ignoring the painful tug of my heart and the way it beat hard and fast, like it was trying to escape out of my chest. Like I was found out.

And to make matters even worse, that was the moment Yoongi stepped in – scanning the room with eyes that were already searching for me, a big silver briefcase in an AP watch adorned hand, sleek and elegant and put together as always.

He walked to us with a small smirk playing on his lips, but like he sensed my raging emotions he aimed straight for me – until he was standing so close to my side I was once again greeted with the spice of his perfume and the warmth of his body.

Throwing an arm around my shoulders much like Taehyung did to Hoseok, he sent the gathered men a mischievous reprimanding gaze. “Stop bullying my police officer, you know she tends to run away when spooked,” he joked, but I was too lost in my own mind to even snap back at how he clearly depicted me as some wild scared animal.

Because from the moment his arm touched me, it was like a scalding hot iron brand was wrought around my body – and I realised this might have been the first time we touched – it felt like the first time we touched, because I’d remember this kind of feeling running through my shuddering body. I’d remember what the overwhelming sense of being drowned in him felt like.

But then a memory flitted to the forefront – yes, we touched before. I crashed into him outside his office and he caught me (everything always coming back to that damned tracker). But why didn’t it feel like this? Why didn’t I feel the strange heat enveloping me from inside out and why didn’t I already have the scent of his cologne mixed with the slightest tang of sweat burned into my brain?

Because now I did.

The weight of his arm didn’t move, and when my crisis calmed down slightly, I could even hear the other’s voice as if from far away. I heard Yeonjun’s drawl and Taehyung’s laugh, I heard Hoseok’s high-pitched cheerful yelling now that Yoongi was here and I was out of the conversation. I also heard their steps when they walked away and the subsequent silence during which Yoongi still didn’t move.

I sat there quietly, hoping to vaporise into the air to not deal with this right now, but of course the man wouldn’t let me go now. When his hand clamped over my shoulder so he could steer me where he wanted me to go, I went easily, not fighting the momentum at all.

Yoongi pulled me through the club up the stairs to the VIP section, leading me to the already very familiar balcony, and still keeping me firmly under his arm even though it made our sides rub against each other – my cheap shirt to his expensive suit. As we passed the top bar, I realised Yeonjun moved from downstairs up here to repeat the whole process of the clean-up, and he sent me a little wave.

When we arrived into the privacy of the balcony, I was expecting Yoongi to immediately let go, but he even went as far as to deposit me on the sofa where Taehyung usually sat before he himself settled down in his own usual spot, watching me with an entertained smirk.

For what felt like hours no one said anything, and slowly I came down from my embarrassment to tap back into the endless frustration I had towards this man. It also didn’t help that now I felt almost miserably cold after spending those several minutes melting under his aura, and the way my body reacted to that made me both ashamed and confused.

Refusing to deal with another thing in the long line of forbidden topics that slowly built up around this man like some ancient mythos, I instead turned away to face the entrance, catching glimpses of busy feet running about while cleaning.

The silence now suddenly felt like a competition – who would break first and start the conversation? Who’d beg the other to speak?

So I stubbornly pursed my lips and avoided looking at the man.

Yeah, well, too bad I wasn’t exactly known for my patience.

“You know fucking your employees is bad for business?” I threw out the first thing that came to my mind, thoughts straying back to happy Hoseok screaming at the top of his lungs, “I’d expect a businessman like you to know that.”

Yoongi simply raised his eyebrow, looking on the verge of laughter as I stewed in my own anger.

“Having another jealous tantrum, are we?” he teased back, pointedly ignoring my jab and turning it around at me.

“Another? Jealous tantrum? I don’t know which one of us is constantly asking inappropriate personal questions,” I huffed and grumbled, still looking away from the man, “I’m talking about Hoseok and Yeonjun. He called him his baby.” I didn’t know why this was the hill I chose to die on, but my pride was a terrible thing and didn’t allow me to pull back now, much to Yoongi’s amusement.

I heard his chuckles, a melodic and almost ironically joyful sound, before he leant forward into my field of vision – holding my gaze now that I was caught back into his charm.

“Hobi calls them his babies because he trained them, not because he fucks them,” the man explained in that voice one uses on a petulant child, further ruffling my feathers, “He trained our babies too.” For a moment I wondered to who he was referring to as our babies, before the realisation that he was talking about Jimin, Taehyung and Jungkook smacked me in the face and I blushed. Right, not ours but theirs.

“Hoseok trained everyone? I guess that does make sense,” I mumbled more to myself, leaning back into the sofa subconsciously to make myself more comfortable. The mental image of teenage Hoseok in a fighting ring flew in front of my eyes, all bloodied and fighting for his life like a dog, young and feral and scared. That he trained Jungkook made perfect sense, though Yeonjun – why would he need training? Was he more than just a chatty waiter?

But after all, in a life like this everyone needed to know how to fight at least a little. I knew how to fight and I barely ever got out of the office. Unless I was annoying Yoongi.

Speaking of the man, I finally turned to face him, finding him sitting comfortably in his spot watching me with curious eyes, a soft grin playing on his lips.

“So what have you got in the store for me on this fine morning?” the man asked conversationally, fingers twitching as if on instinct to grab a whiskey glass. Well, I guess that was our usual set-up, so I couldn’t blame him for being a little confused.

“Or maybe this month?” he fished more, trying to push me into a conversation. He probably thought I was still sulking, so I ignored how embarrassing that was of me and grinned at him like we were great friends.

“Nothing special,” I teased, going for that whole mysterious vibe and shit, hoping my theatrics hid the way I shook inside from all the events I’ve already gone through that day – and it was only a bit after 11 am. Crazy, is what I was.

“Really? All that talk about having such amazing games prepared for me and you have nothing special ready?” The reminder of our last meeting nearly made my eye twitch, though my expression did sour – much to the amusement of my host.

“What? Not even your detective’s amazing skills made you less mad about that evening?” Yoongi’s voice was so happy, like he stumbled on a diamond mine by accident, and I scrambled to shut that line of conversation down as quick as possible.

“No, no, no,” I wagged my finger in his direction like I was reprimanding a misbehaving dog, “We’re not discussing that. Stop bringing that up, I’m also not asking about what you were doing to that girl when you got the call to come to The Rose.” Yoongi’s eyes immediately lit up at the mention of that, pulling an annoyed groan out of me. I should really learn to keep my mouth shut sometimes.

“You could you know, I’m an open book,” he said, vibe dripping in self-assuredness to almost a maddening degree, as he draped himself over that red velvet sofa, dressed in his nice black suit and with an infuriatingly amused expression on his face, I could see clearly how unbothered he was by everything. How this was such a fun game for him. Pissing me off.

“That’s why I don’t,” I growled right back. I could already imagine how happily he’d divulge any details, as long as it made me embarrassed. I wouldn’t trust a single word coming out of his mouth, but I’d still blush and be angry and cuss him and run out, just to spend the whole day thinking of his teasing words. We’ve been here before – there was no need to test that again, I knew he was perfectly capable of spilling anything just for a reaction back.

The conversation stalled a little after that, as Yoongi seemed to be too busy watching me with sparkling eyes, like a cat playing with its food, and me like a mouse squirming in my seat, knowing I was always on the verge of being devoured by a giant. Yoongi’s smooth sharp claws were already deeply embedded into me, now it was only a matter of time when he’d get hungrier.

“I hope you’re at least putting my tracker to good use” was his next quip, after a moment of silence, and that’s how I knew he was really trying to piss me off. And almost loyally, I as always gave him that satisfaction he craved from that.

“Why are you so obsessed with the tracker?” my voice took on almost a whiney annoyed edge, drowning out the giggling of the man as my face twisted into an annoyed scowl.

“Well, it is mine.. And I have a very hard time parting from what belongs to me,” he drawled out, voice suddenly taking on a much more seductive quality, and I cursed him for really trying to pull out all the stops here.

I leant back into the sofa and looked at him, properly took him in for the first time that day. As always, he wore loose dress pants with an incredibly soft looking airy t-shirt tucked into them and a blazer thrown over that, all in black. I doubted I ever saw him in any other colour, taking the time to dip into my mental catalogue of Min Yoongi and only coming up with black, white and greys.

He was way more comfortable and relaxed than I ever remembered him, and that said a lot since we were talking about Yoongi here – the king of appearing unbothered by mortal affairs. Something just put him into an extraordinarily good mood today, and for a moment I feared he already knew about my visit to the Hana Bank head office. After all, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities they’d try to double check with Hoseok on whether he was cool with sharing his records with the police – but if that was true, I doubt the man himself would joke around with me at the bar.

“What, are you like a dragon protecting its hoard?” I shot back after a while, getting back to the teasing back and forth once Yoongi let me stare my fill, nothing but his lips quivering to stretch into a smirk betraying that he was paying close attention to my very obvious ogling.

“No, that would be silly,” the man chuckled, hand playing with the hem of his jacket almost coyly as he spun his tales, “I’m just a poor boy that got his grubby little hands on some gold and now doesn’t want to let go.”

“Some? I’d argue it’s way more than just some gold,” I gestured wildly around the balcony and the club, and even with the very lavish furnishing, it still felt like a criminal understatement. I’ve seen The Rose, I’ve been to his office – and I dare say that were I to visit his house, I’d see even more, not to mention his never-ending collection of expensive brand hand-tailored clothes. A normal person wouldn’t even be able to comprehend the amount of his wealth.

“Yeah? Are you impressed by the size of my empire?” his out-right coquettish tone didn’t really leave much space for me to misunderstand the clear innuendo, and I rolled my eyes at him.

“Gotta be impressed by the size of something,” I grumbled back, crossing my arms over my chest and doing my best to throw him the most uninterested glare I was capable of even with the heat in my cheeks at the subject we’ve found ourselves discussing.

“Well, why don’t you come over here and find out which is more impressive?” something dark flashed in his eyes as he said those words, legs parting on instinct and making everything a little more prominent to the eyes, “I know what I’m betting on.” I could have just combusted with how my eyes unwittingly slid down at the movement before I caught myself and forced them back up to watch his smirk turn sharper.

Even with the embarrassment flooding my system, I could feel the strange heat that spread through me at the look in his eyes and the words spilling out of his mouth in that rasp, and in shame I found my heart beating faster in some sort of twisted interest.

I squashed all that down, though there wasn’t much I could do about my flaming red cheeks. I hoped nothing more than mortification was visible in my expression though, because otherwise that would have been the end of me, and I’d never talk to the man again without him teasing me to death.

Fuck, I thought to myself, I’ve been neglecting myself more than I thought, because there’s no way Yoongi’s flirting was actually working on me.

“It better be the gold, Min Yoongi, otherwise you’d be a very stupid man,” I gritted through my teeth, through the humiliation, and tore my eyes away from the confusing mix of emotions flitting through the man’s eyes. I could swear I saw a flicker of open hunger in them, but I chose to lock the mental image of that deep down into myself, so deep that I’d never stumble upon it ever again.

When I looked to him again after a bout of tension-filled silence, he was already back to his self-assured relaxed self, smirking at me – though now there was a twinge of something in the edge of it, something that made my stomach roll in an unpleasantly positive way.

If I was counting our victories, this one would definitely go to Yoongi, and I knew I’d be feeling the aftermath for a long time.

“So you’re not here to talk about your colleagues breathing down my neck about certain murders that happened at Bukhang Port,” Yoongi sing-songed, like he was revealing some big secret – like he found me out and wasn’t fooled by my visit. I sat there flabbergasted.

Oh. Right. It had completely slipped my mind Minjoon and Hwang were going to go talk to Yoongi about it. Right, I did want to talk to him after the revelation was made, because I wanted to gloat and try to pull information out of him, but I was so swept away with my own plans that I was truly shocked he thought this is what today was about.

No wonder he was trying to push my buttons when I didn’t say anything – he wanted to provoke me into getting mad and pulling out the murders.

But I was also too embarrassed to admit to him that I had ended up here by a complete accident, so I just played along.

“Right… You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, Mr. Min?” I drawled out, playing my part as the detective – what he clearly wanted me to do, “I distinctly remember you lying to me about having no idea what happened there while slipping a tracker into my phone.”

“Me? Never,” he teased back, putting a hand to his chest and finally fucking pulling his legs more closed, “I don’t lie.”

Even with him basically spoon-feeding me the topic for conversation, I just couldn’t think of anything else to say – my brain was fried under the barrage of strange experiences I had this morning, and I couldn’t even pretend to be interested in those murders. And I ended up just… staring. At Yoongi.

To his great amusement.

“Well, alright,” he said finally when I failed to continue with the jabs, breaking our sacred ritual of pissing each other off until I run off, too angry to continue, “we can definitely go back to the earlier topic if you’ve got nothing to say on this one.” I couldn’t have that.

“They were drug dealers,” slipped out of my mouth, very intelligently, but at least it seemed to surprise the man for a bit before he smirked.

“Great job, detective,” he purred out, “What do you want as a reward for cracking such a tough case?” I flew forward before I even knew what I was doing.

“So you did know them?” He only smirked more, before pretending to turn disinterested in the conversation.

“I may have.”

I could see the way his eyes ever so often flicked to me to gauge my reaction, to see how interested I was with keeping the conversation alive, and I realised this was another game. A game to say just enough to keep engaging me, but never too much to actually give me anything. He just wanted me to banter.

“Yoongi,” I said his name, and it came out all weird, like I wasn’t meant to call him such to his face – but it did get his attention immediately with his eyes wide and jumping to me in a split second, “If you’re bored, I’m sure you can pay someone to keep you entertained. With the size of your empire, as we established, I’m sure you could afford that.”

When his smirk turned a little more savage, it felt like I won something too.

“Hey Min!” I called out to the man bent over his desk, punching something away into his computer. The second he heard my voice his head whipped up, and he smiled warmly my way. When I stepped closer to him, for a moment I worried he’d do something, but the man just sent me a sparkling wink and patted the seat next to him, which I took gladly.

“I’ve got a question,” I told him, and he chuckled, already used to my antics at the office. I did feel a little bad because I’ve been so over the place the last month, but there was a lot on my plate – and if everything panned out, there was about to be even more.

“Fire away,” he sighed and leant back into his chair, arms folding behind his head.

“When you went to Yoongi about the warehouse murders, what did he say?” I hoped my tone wasn’t too eager. Hoped there wasn’t that strange waiver after the kind of morning I had – after the things we said to each other in that empty silent balcony. Hoped he couldn’t reach into my mind and see how jittery I still was from the interaction.

Cause Yoongi sure could – to him I was more than an open book. Sometimes it felt like he could predict me, and it left me worried when I interacted with other people – people that weren’t supposed to see what I didn’t mind showing Yoongi, because he was already a lost cause.

Minjoon though… Minjoon couldn’t see, not when he looked at me with those excited hopeful eyes. Why did I feel as if I cheated on him? That was ridiculous.

“Well, he deflected as always,” the detective said, cutting straight through my inner turmoil, “told us he didn’t see why we bothered him with something that had nothing to do with any of his businesses. Couldn’t get a single word out of him about it.”

The man grimaced and gestured to his face vaguely before continuing. “Did that annoying thing he does… you know, when you just know he’s lying to you because he’s straight up laughing in your face, but doesn’t really say anything, so you’re just really mad?” He chuckled tiredly, and I felt terrible.

The revelation that Yoongi himself admitted to me just hours ago sat parked on the tip of my tongue, and I so desperately wanted to shout out that he knew the men who died – but how would I be able to explain having that information? How valuable really is something that was said between teasing jabs during a conversation that shouldn’t have been happening?

I swallowed those words, and they went down bitterly – but there wasn’t anything I could do to help Minjoon right now. If I shared, he’d only be suspicious of me. If I told him to not ask how I knew, he wouldn’t be able to bring the tip to anyone else anyway, without an unconfirmed source it was useless – and I couldn’t afford to further fall down the rabbit hole of lies and invent a convenient informant.

“Well, that’s just typical of him,” I ended up saying, somewhat awkwardly trying to play the whole thing off and change the subject, even though I was the one who brought it up.

“Hey, are you free tomorrow night?” Minjoon suddenly asked, totally out of nowhere, turning more towards me with a coquettish look on his face, and I felt simultaneously flustered and mortified. A quick cursory glance of the office showed that no one was really around, and those who were had their noses stuck deep into their own work and business, but still a shrill note of panic flew through me upon his open flirtation.

“Actually, I’m most probably going to need to stay late, so I gotta pass,” I answered, not even lying but still feeling guilty, especially with how Minjoon’s face fell. I wished I could explain to him more what was going on in my life – enough so that he wouldn’t think I’m just trying to dodge him – but I couldn’t. At least not now.

Not when he still wouldn’t understand why and what I was doing.

“But I could probably meet up the day after…?” I added after a moment, whispering the words into existence as if they were deeply forbidden; cursing my soft heart and cursing how I couldn’t stop myself from slipping – not when it came to Yoongi, and not when it came to Minjoon either.

The man’s face lit up like I’d told him Santa was real, and for a split second he reached over to grab my hand and squeeze it, before letting go and leaning into his chair again. The action was so quick even I had trouble processing what had just happened, but I still cast a quick glance around the room to make sure no curious eyes were on us.

Even with me all jittery and squirming on the seat, the man was unbothered as he returned to his computer, back to furiously typing out something. I glanced over his shoulder to peek in, meaning it as just a playful gesture, and Minjoon let me with a little grin.

What I got an eyeful of though was a team report about the murders full of information I hadn’t heard of. My name wasn’t on it.

My heart sank, but I was already used to living with that feeling.

I ended up waiting for those records until the afternoon the next day, when I finally got a very unpleasant email from even more disgruntled Mr. Kim linking a file with the last year worth of Hoseok’s finances. He very begrudgingly admitted their lawyers gave the form the green light after looking it over just to be sure, and I felt an immense sense of vindication. In the end the ‘justice’ prevailed, no matter what the truth really was.

I could hardly keep back the excitement, the burning need to look through them wracking through every nerve of my being, but I was too afraid of someone seeing what I was doing, so I had to painstakingly wait the whole day until the office emptied out, pretending to keep busy by menial tasks.

I’ve long since realised that no one really paid attention to what I did, and at least sometimes there was an advantage to that.

With the hours counting up on the clock, the office slowly emptied out – Park rushing out in his usual manner, slamming doors open and running through the space like a storm, while Minjoon took the time to stop by my table with a smile and a discreet wink, gesturing to his phone as he texted me he couldn’t wait for tomorrow.

I also made the decision to stop waiting on every little breadcrumb they decide to drop for me, tired of the way I begged every little information out of Minjoon. After seeing him write up his report yesterday afternoon, I decided rather than going the usual route and pestering him until he told me everything, I’d just simply request the document and read up on the case as he wrote it for Park – quickly realising there were many reports – way more than I was expecting, detailing everything, and most of all things that no one bothered telling me up until then.

So instead of doing anything productive or endlessly going through old cases, I sat down with the reports, catching up on everything that I missed by not being updated properly.

There was a lot of material. Interviews with dock workers I wasn’t notified about (they all denied hearing or seeing anything), one more visit to Mrs. Kim (which didn’t yield much of anything when she plainly refused to see them), endless references to in-person meetings and team briefings I was never invited to.

The latest one was full of frustration on Minjoon’s part – the still unknown third man, the stubbornly quiet people from the neighbourhood, Yoongi’s silence on the topic. From the first reports where he swore these must have been turf wars, he now made a pivot back to a drug deal gone wrong, citing Mrs. Kim’s words as the reason. He didn’t know why though. He just had several pieces of the very infuriating puzzle, but not enough to put together a clear picture.

What we knew was scarce – these boys were playing with things beyond their scales, they got into a skirmish with Yoongi, and found themselves solved by Hoseok. Who were they, how they got there and what they did to invite such trouble – we knew very little about that.

My name was mentioned in a few of those reports, mostly where Minjoon recounted my work on assembling the cases and looking into the Moon Jiwoo case, but otherwise it was all between him and Hwang, with the occasional quip from Cheol or Sunmi.

By the time evening came, I was so beaten down by the reports I almost didn’t even notice when finally the last person left the office and I was alone, free to comfortably investigate my own things without someone constantly walking behind my back.

Well, clearly my path to this unit didn’t lead through this team – it would have to lead through Yoongi himself then, and I was determined to put the work in.

Hoseok’s records were long and disorienting at first – a mess of numbers and locations that were foreign to me, and I spent a lot of time just googling names of places and putting them on the map.

About halfway through I got up and pulled the neighbouring table closer to add a second monitor to my own, so that I could comfortably see both. I felt both like a professional and like some underground vigilante, but it did significantly ease the whole process to me.

I spent hours there, just scrolling through endless spreadsheets, linking Hoseok’s whereabouts to several main areas.

Mostly the man just spent concerning amounts of money on clothes, watches and collector editions of sneakers (really, when I first saw the amount of money spent on a single shopping trip, I almost fell out of my chair), but after few very boring and confusing pages a few patterns started to emerge.

He liked to visit a small café near Jungkook’s office, he clearly had a favourite spot to have a lunch in for when he spent time around the docks. He spent a lot of money on food delivery – the amounts making me think they were probably for a team of people and not just for him. A lot of purchases happened in Gangnam too, real close to where Yoongi lived, which meant he might be living somewhere in that area too.

One of the more noteworthy ones were his weekly visits to a place called the Golden Lily, which at first glance seemed like a restaurant, but after some further digging turned out to be a very high-end brothel. As far as I could see, every Thursday without fail Hoseok went to this establishment and dropped a fat check there, probably paying for something even my wildest imagination couldn’t come up with (and honestly, I’d rather not try). Well, clearly I managed to stumble upon one of his vices – though he seemed like a man of many, with how much money he dropped everywhere he went.

After hours of going through the records and barely getting back a few months, I was fucking ready to pack it in and be happy with the info I was able to gather so far, but the combination of fear I’d miss something huge and the pure pettiness of ‘I committed a crime for this, so I’m fucking using it to the fullest’ kept me going long into the night – to a point I resigned myself to sleeping over at one of the couches in the break room. It wasn’t the most comfortable fit ever, but it would do.

And approaching 2 am, I finally came across something that was worth the determination and the pure torture I put myself through.

At the beginning of January of this year, Hoseok’s location suddenly shifted. The usual coffee spot didn’t come up, nor the odd little transactions from around Gangnam or Bukseong Port, and instead it filled with purchases in hotels and restaurants in Busan. Then Japan. Then Busan again. Then Seoul.

I looked through it again and immediately something screamed to me that this was somehow significant. It was just a few days, but it could have easily been a work trip – I knew that Yoongi had ties to yakuza, and Hoseok didn’t seem the type to go on vacations.

A woman on a mission, I quickly ran over to the meeting room, frantically looking through ‘the Yoongi wall’ and searching for any mention of his Japanese gang ties, but wasn’t able to find anything more than a brief mention of him being seen meeting up with Sato Masaru, which had to do as far as information went.

Running back like a headless chicken I slid onto my chair so hard it wheeled halfway across the room, and I had to awkwardly shuffle back to my table, where I logged back into the internal police database and quickly pulled any files I could find on the man.

There were also plenty, though most of them weren’t specifically about him but about his family as a whole (and his older brother mostly), and they were all signed off by names that were vaguely familiar to me as my colleagues, but I couldn’t think of whether I’d had a single conversation with either of those men.

A quick read-through (which I did clutching a cup of coffee and desperately trying to stay awake as my eyes started closing by themselves) told me that apparently, they were a family Yoongi struck up a connection with immediately after he claimed his throne. The oldest son of the family, Sato Daichi, at the time started taking over the ‘family business’ and took a liking to the struggling boy of a similar age, and the two empires have been moderately friendly over the years.

Problem was – Satos were based in Fukuoka and controlled most of the trade with Busan and Korea. Hoseok didn’t go to Fukuoka.

Double-checking just to be sure, squinting into the brightly lit monitor, I once again googled the name of the hotel he stayed at – and it was located in Kitakyushu, a city northeast of Fukuoka.

When running that name through our database didn’t give me much of anything, I groaned in frustration – because what do you mean that after spending hours on this and stumbling upon the first potentially interesting thing, it turns out to be a dead-end? Hoseok was really starting to piss me off with this.

After a few more failed attempts at finding out why that city specifically could be significant to Hoseok and Yoongi, I dejectedly went back to the financial records. And then, looking at the dates, something just… clicked in me.

Why did they feel so familiar? Why did I vaguely remember something happening at that time?

Absolutely crazed and on the verge of passing out from exhaustion, I dived under my table to fish out my bag, spilling it all over the floor in the process of raking through it with the grace of a bridge troll – I was able to find what I was looking for. My little black notebook, full of bullshit and useless little tidbits about Yoongi. Like what coffee he liked to drink, because I was genuinely insane and wrote down everything (also it wasn’t that hard to not remember – he liked plain unsweetened americano, and even during winter he alternated between getting the hot and the iced version).

Included in those notes were a few days of angry rambling – me losing my mind about Hoseok being nowhere to be found and wondering what the fuck was he doing and where. And the dates matched – even to the point of the very embarrassing stake out when Yoongi had Soobin bring me coffee happening only like four days after his return. And the warehouse murders happened a day before he left.

In a scrawl that was undecipherable even to me I wrote down the connection I seemingly made and with shaky hands turned back to the map of Japan I had pulled up and the Sato family files, reading through them again with more presence, though it took absolutely everything of me to not just fall asleep on the spot.

I was hoping that maybe I’d find a mention of the city – a suspected base, a warehouse, a fucking summer getaway cottage or some shit, just anything to signal why Hoseok travelled there of all the places, but the Satos infuriatingly seemed completely straying clear of there.

For a moment I even wondered whether I actually lost my mind and this was just a normal vacation. Everybody needed a break sometimes, didn’t they?

But then I noticed something – through the files and the reports, there was a name that kept coming up every once in a while – and from the way the detectives spoke of him, he must have been close to our unit. Baek-sunbaenim.

Going back to square one, I put his name into our database and was met with a friendly middle-aged face, distinctive black curls already greying through and an unkempt stubble giving him a bit of a rugged vibe. He seemed like the perfect example of a merry neighbourhood policeman – and he was apparently the chief of Busan’s narcotics and organised crime unit.

There, sitting by the brightly shining computer, eyes tearing up, completely deranged, at 3 am – the idea that suddenly burst into my mind like a wrecking ball through a cardboard wall seemed like the best one I’ve ever had.

Hoseok went to Japan around the time the murders happened. He didn’t visit the family Min gang was affiliated with, and instead went to a different city. He stopped in Busan both on the way there and on the way back.

Busan was somehow important. Baek-sunbaenim seemed to have a lot of expertise on Japan’s current crime scene, and he was in Busan.

Who was also in Busan? Cheol and Sunmi, chasing a serial killer.

Quickly turning everything off, I pulled away from the table and promptly stumbled like a drunken sailor the moment I tried getting on my feet. The world swung in front of my eyes for a moment before everything righted, and with shaky hands I grabbed everything I could see from the floor, stuffed it back into my bag and started the long and exhausting shuffle to the break room.

As I dragged my feet through the office, I reached for my phone.

There weren’t many people I was in contact with – the very few I usually kept up with offline, and there was little need for any kind of electronical communication. What was work related was kept to my email. Yoongi didn’t have my number, and I didn’t keep in touch with people from my childhood. As such, when I opened the messages app, the only chat that had been active in the past week was Minjoon’s still unread text about tomorrow’s dinner, and so it didn’t take long at all to find the only other person I’d been recently (in the past three months) texting.

Cheol picked up my call on the third ring, groaning into my ear sleepily with a healthy dose of annoyance, and I guiltily realised I was calling him literally in the middle of the night and other people actually slept instead of endlessly scrolling through miles of white spreadsheets until they were crying from the exposure (among other things).

“What happened?” his voice was all scratchy and raspy from being woken up, but I could still sense the tinge of worry as the detective started coming more to himself. There weren’t many reasons police officers called each other in the middle of the night, and none of them were good, so I couldn’t blame him for expecting some bad news.

With more guilt pushing into my heart, I vowed myself to buy the man at least a breakfast, a lunch and a dinner once I’d get the chance to, and with an equally tired voice I replied.

“Hey, Cheol… Do you think I could maybe come down to you to Busan? It’s work related…”

Previous part | Series masterlist | Next part

Taglist (open): @wobblewobble822 @viankiss @jjkwifestyle @mortal-body-timelesssoul @fullmetalavatar54

@ot72025 @jalexad @eleni-cherie @m00njinnie @mysteriousgeminizone

♡ MASTER TAGLIST (open) ♡

@afangirl91 @bear-hugs-and-kisses @luuucifer-writes @anjoellamorte @ami7-12bts

@thenaverse @shakespeare-in-the-park7 @karinaever @anaspectoflife @luvly-angel

@sousydive

#kpop fic #kpop smut #kpop angst #kpop fluff #bts fic #bts smut #bts angst #bts fluff #yoongi fic #yoongi smut #yoongi angst #yoongi fluff #yoongi x reader #abraxas series

61 notes · View notes

irisintheafterglow · 1 year ago

Text

One-Shots

Gojo Satoru

You Are In Love - "you're my best friend," and you knew what it was

...Ready For It? - knew he was a killer first time that I saw him

Hits Different - it hits different 'cause it's you (or, struggling in a situationship with gojo satoru)

Never Grow Up - meeting megumi for the first time

The Archer - all of my enemies started out friends, can he hold on to you?

invisible string - the first time megumi uses ten shadows

even in my worst times, you see the best in me - being the strongest has its downsides, but at least you're suffering with him

life's no fun without a good scare - you have the brilliant idea of playing hide and seek in a corn maze against the most powerful sorcerer in the world. should be fun, right?

it's all me, just don't go (meet me in the afterglow) - satoru is jealous but refuses to admit it.

every dead end street led you straight to me - former fuckboy gojo has some things to say at the top of a mountain

i hate accidents, except when we went from friends to this! - coworkers to lovers with a healthy amount of teenage eavesdropping

he's the death you chose (you're in terrible danger) - married life with husband!gojo means cleaning up bodies at 2am.

Geto Suguru

The Great War - somewhere in the haze, got a sense I'd been betrayed

Back to December - you gave him all your love and all he gave you was goodbye

say you'll remember me - you were destined to fail from the start, so why does it hurt so badly when he's gone?

dazzling haze, mysterious way about you, dear - need some fluff after reading all the angst above?

tell me that you love me, love me 'til my lips turn blue - being partnered with suguru on a mission takes an unexpected turn

what if all i need is you? - after failed attempts to find a date to a relative's birthday party, your best friend acts as your fake boyfriend.

you know i love you so. - what if he never left you?

Nanami Kento

of daisies and collisions - nanami kento felt a little out of his element, with a small bundle of flowers sitting in his lap and brooding in the dark corner of the jazz bar. yet, you play that song he likes again, and nothing else matters.

Blurbs/Drabbles

the stakes are high, the water's rough, but this love is ours - holding satoru and letting him rest, even if it's only for a little bit

it took so long to know someone like you - he doesn't know who he is with you and it scares both of you

bad days and blanket burritos - good ol' satoru bf fluff

Imagines/HCs

And the touch of a hand lit the fuse

how gojo and geto react to their partner being obsessed with them (fluffy !!!)

summer camp counselor!gojo

Gojo Satoru

What, like it's hard? -> law student!gojo / university!gojo

general hcs

when he buys a motorcycle

flirting via the library

I'm with the band -> rockstar!gojo

rockstar!gojo meet sexyy

the valentine's day show

quiet moments and teaching you guitar

awards show

Falling for you, on and off the ice -> hockey player!gojo

someone steals your usual rink slot

watching a game

living in winter, i am your summer - he's terrible at figure skating

Kachow -> professional racer!gojo

on the radio

smoke his ass! - pro racer!gojo needs some motivation after a newcomer to the track pisses him off

Geto Suguru

oops? - satoru finds out that you've been seeing his best friend

a quiet moment in the aquarium

napping with you :)

scare actor!suguru

wooing the rec center worker (university!suguru)

Save a horse, ride a cowboy -> gunslinger!suguru

gunslinger!geto au

big iron - he's not the first to go after the crystal-eyed bandit, but something tells you that this one will keep his promise to buy you a drink when the hunting is done.

Theta Phi Fuckhead -> enemy frat!suguru

ancient grudge, new mutiny

move fast, keep quiet

half the things that haven't happened yet

Series Masterlists

End Game (volleyball captain!gojo x you) COMPLETED

Co-Parenting Megumi with Satoru COMPLETED

I Don't Wanna Live Forever (gojo x you during shibuya) COMPLETED

VIGILANTE SHIT (vigilante!au, IN PROGRESS)

#irisintheafterglow masterlist

467 notes · View notes

reputationmunson · 2 years ago

Text

Crossing Lines | S.H x fem!reader

part one | part two | part three | part 4

series summary: steve isn’t your biggest fan, so why does he ask you to be his date to a wedding? | enemies to lovers, fake dating

chapter summary: a day at the lake with the Harringtons followed by a night out

content: steve and reader arguing (what’s new), drinking, swearing, these two idiots being in love, she/her pronouns, use of y/n

word count: 3.3k

You wake up with a wine-induced headache and you look over to see the spot next to you empty.

Yeah, you and Steve kissed last night, but so what? It didn’t mean anything. It was simply all part of the plan to be a more convincing couple. It would be weird if you guys didn’t share a quick peck every now and then if you were so ‘in love’ like you claimed to be, right?

You quickly shake it off and leave the bedroom to find out where Steve went. You’re half expecting to find a note that says ‘hey that kiss made me wanna flee the country. see you never’

Instead, you see Steve sitting on the front porch in one of the rocking chairs, taking in the scenery.

“Good morning” you say and sit down in the chair next to him. He doesn’t say anything, just gives you a nod instead. You refuse to let it be awkward. The weekend has only begun and there’s no way you’re going to let a dumb kiss that meant absolutely nothing make everything weirder than it already is.

“Remember when we kissed last?” you try to lighten the mood. “Do we really have to talk about that? It’s been bugging me all morning”

“Oh, so you’ve been thinking about me all morning, huh?” you tease and he lets out an irritated sigh “do you not know how to be serious about anything?”

“What's there to be serious about? We kissed, for scientific reasons I might add, and it doesn’t have to be weird.” you shrug like it’s no big deal. Except it is a big deal, to Steve, at least. The kiss wasn’t terrible, he might’ve even liked it and he doesn’t want to be dramatic, but that might be the worst thing that’s ever happened. “It is weird though, isn't it?”

“Why? because you liked it?” you ask, expecting him to immediately deny it, but he doesn’t. “Steve? you liked it, didn’t you?” you boast. “No! no, I didn't like it. It was just really stupid and I think it’s insane that you don’t regret it”

“Oh my god, Steve. It was a kiss! You didn’t even hesitate, you practically jumped at the opportunity! then, you initiated the second one!” you proclaim. “Jumped? You were the one making that face!” he argues and you scoff “Face? What face? I was not making a face!” you insist and his eyes roll. “Oh, you so were. You were all like ‘Steve, please kiss me! I’ll even pout my lips and bat my eyelashes at you’” he attempts to make the look that you were allegedly making last night.

“Are you admitting that you think I’m irresistible?” you smirk at him and the triumphant look on his face immediately disappears. “You’re insufferable, you know that?” he says, avoiding an answer to your question. “Yeah, okay, but you still think I’m irresistible” you chaff and he stands up. “You’re about as irresistible as a bed of nails that got set on fire. Now, if you’re done arguing with me, we gotta get ready”

“Ready for what?” you question “There’s a private beach around here and my family wants to go in about an hour” he tells you as you follow him inside. “An hour?! Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” you chastise. “Because you were too busy drooling on your pillow this morning and no, you don’t have time to yell at me because you’re gonna need all the time you can get to look decent before we leave”

Apart from the human embodiment of stepping on a piece of gum in a new pair of shoes that is Steve Harrington, today was a lovely day. The sun was shining and there was a cool breeze that balanced perfectly with the weather, making the heat more bearable. The beach was nice, too. It was secluded and Steve’s family were the only people here. Now, if only you could find a way to leave Steve stranded that would make this day even better.

“You finally made it! We were starting to worry!” Steve’s mom, Joanne, greets you. “Sorry about that, Steve forgot to tell me about it last night so I got a late start getting ready” you explain.

“That’s Steve for you. Communication and time-management skills shouldn’t go on his resume if he ever decides to get a real job” His dad chimes in and you can’t help but feel a little bad. “Oh, no, he’s usually always great when it comes to that. We just all have our off days” you defend him and Steve gives you a slight smile as a way to thank you.

“Exactly, George, give Steve a break. I know it’s a little early, but I brought some wine if you’d like some, y/n. It is a vacation after all.” Steve’s mom seems to drink a lot of wine, but if you were married to someone as condescending as George, you would too. “I’d love a glass, thank you”

You sit with Joanne on a blanket while Steve goes over to join his cousins. She pours you a hefty glass of wine and you decide she’s your favorite Harrington.

“How are you two enjoying the house? I know it’s a little small, but we wanted you to be close to us” Their definition of ‘small’ is much different than yours. “It’s perfect, thank you, again. Steve and I had our coffee this morning while admiring the view” okay, you didn’t have coffee, you had a little disagreement, but you were still admiring the view.

“Steve seems absolutely smitten with you. I know I have my faults as a mother, but I still have my instincts and they tell me that maybe in a few years we’ll have another wedding to put on our calendars”

“Oh, I um-”

Before you can get a response out, Steve comes out of nowhere and you don’t think you’ve ever been more grateful for his presence. “We've been challenged to a game of chicken. best two outta three, you in?”

“hm, I don’t know. Do you have to be my partner? I would like to win” you tease. “yes, because it’s couple versus couple and you know you can’t win without me. c’mon” he offers his hand to help pull you up off the ground.

When you pull off your bathing suit cover up, Steve knows he should look away. He shouldn’t care that the one-piece you’re wearing in the god awful shade of your signature color, hugs your body perfectly. His eyes definitely shouldn’t briefly flick down to your ass when you bend over to set the coverup on the blanket, but they do.

“Ready?” you ask, pulling him out of whatever weird trance he was just in. “y-yeah. let’s go”

“What did my mom say? you looked a little freaked out back there” he asks once she’s out of earshot. “something about you being just so head over heels for me and how we’re going to be married in a few years” you let out a sigh like it’s something to brush over. “Don’t listen to her, she’s drinking too much wine. Something you guys seem to have in common”

“how else am i supposed to cope with being your lover”

“gross. don’t say that” he whines and you laugh at him as you always do.

“this water is freezing!” you squeal as the water comes to the shore. “hm, really? how freezing?” he asks with a tone that sounds like he has a plan. “that’s a dumb q-” before you can finish your insult, Steve lunges at you and his arms wrap around your waist and he drags you deeper into the water.

“Steve! let me go!” you screech. “if you insist” he replies before dunking you into the water. You get a hold of him and pull him down with you. There’s no way you were going down without a fight.

You both emerge from the cold water, laughing and neither of you have a look of anger on your faces. Which is strange because usually just the sound of each breathing is enough to set either of you off, but you rarely ever see him have fun. It’s kind of nice to see him let loose even if that means being submerged in frigid water.

“If you lovebirds are done, we’re ready to take you down now” his cousin shouts and you both quickly retrieve your touch from one another. “you think you’re gonna be alright with my legs on your shoulders?” you ask him, not meaning for it to intend to sound as dirty as it came out and his cheeks turn pink. “my god, Steve, stop being a perv and squat down. We are not losing this game”

Steve crouches down so you can sit on top of his shoulders. He hands grip your thighs to steady you and you thread your fingers through his hair to keep your balance. He notices that your thighs are soft and smooth. It’s probably from the lotion that you constantly put on ‘cause you smell nice too. He hopes this game is over as soon as possible.

As the ‘battle’ starts, his grip on your thighs tighten, but you don’t have time to focus on the way it’s making you feel when you’re worried about trying to take down the other team.

You win surprisingly fast. Steve was expecting an immediate takedown that resulted in your flying off of his shoulders. Actually, it was more like hoping than expecting. You’re unexpectedly competitive. Steve figured since you’re so sweet and shy (other people’s words, definitely not Steve’s), that you’d go done in a split second, but you stuck to your guns. He’s decently impressed.

“I’m gonna take a walk to dry off. do you wanna join me?” he asks once you’re out of the water. “yeah that sounds nice”

As you walk, your arm wraps around his and he accepts it without question. “I’m gonna say something but don’t let it swell your ego any more than it already is” he starts and you refrain from a sarcastic comment. “I'm having fun with you today and I guess it’s not totally awful that you’re here”

“Should we get you to a hospital? I think there’s a blood-sucking leech in your brain”

“yeah, i think so too” he looks over at you and sees you're already looking at him. The sunshine really does something to his eyes and makes the freckles on his face more noticeable, you could almost connect them like a constellation. Maybe there’s a blood-sucking leech in your brain too.

“I'm having a good time too. Ya know, despite having to constantly be around you” you joke and he chuckles. “well lucky for you, the guys and I are going out to some bar so you’ll have the place to yourself for a while”

“thank god. i’m going to need some time to recover from being nice to you”

“you and me both, y/n. you and me both”

With Steve being gone, you had planned a relaxing evening. There was a little general store not far from the house and you’d gotten all the necessities; snacks, a face mask, and some stuff for a bubble bath. You’re about to start a bath when you hear a knock at the door and you pray that Steve isn’t back already.

“Hi!” One of the Harrington wives, Mary, greets you when you open the door. “Hi! Steve isn’t here-”

“Oh, I know. I’m here for you! Are you still getting ready?” She asks when she notices your robe and face mask. “Getting ready for what?” you question. “We’re meeting the guys at the bar! Didn’t Steve tell you?”

“Y-yeah, he did. I just thought it was a pity invite” you lie. “I don’t really have anything to wear for a night out”

“Honey, let me tell you something that I wish someone told me when I first joined this family; never travel without your favorite little black dress when you take a trip with the Harringtons. Especially us young ones. Those boys always go out”

“I don’t have a little black dress. '' You mumble, a little embarrassed. “Lucky for you, I always bring an extra. Here, try it on!” she hands you a dress from her bag along with a pair of black heels to match. Steve is definitely going to make fun of you for this.

You were expecting to feel out of place in this dress, but honestly, you look hot. The dress is a spaghetti strap with a simple square neckline and it’s shorter than what your choice might’ve been, but it’s stunning.

“Oh my gosh, you look incredible! Steve won’t be able to keep his hands off you” she squeals.“I don’t know about that…” you mutter. “Please. I see the way he looks at you and once he sees you in this dress he’s going to lose it”

People keep talking about the way Steve ‘looks’ at you and you’re starting to think they’re just saying it to say it. How can they confuse his looks of dislike and revulsion with love? No wonder Steve thinks his family is crazy

“Alright, I brought us some drinks and they aren’t going to drink themselves. Let’s get to it!”

“Hi, boys. Miss us?” Mary announces once you all approach the half-circle booth the boys are sat at. Steve does a double take when he sees you. Not only was he not expecting to see you here, he definitely wasn’t expecting to see you in that dress.

“Hi, Stevie” you say in a sing-song voice. There’s no denying you’re already a little tispy. Your eyes are glassy and you have a loopy grin on your face. “Hi, babe. I thought you were staying in tonight?”

“I was going too but I just missed you. I hope it’s okay I’m here”

“Oh, it’s fine” One of the men interjects. “Steve’s been talking about you all night”

“I have not. They’ve been asking about you and I’ve been answering questions” he explains. “And what have you been saying, Stevie?” you wonder. “He was just telling us-”

“Alright, that’s enough. How about you grab a chair and sit down, yeah?” You look around to try and find an empty chair but with the bar being crowded, there aren’t any available. “Just sit on Steve’s lap! None of us are prudes, clearly” Mary says and you look at Steve with hesitance. “Yeah, that’s fine. Just hop on” hop on? he repeats in his head. He can’t believe he just said that.

You sit on his lap like it’s something you’ve done a million times before. Your arm wraps around his shoulders while his arm wraps around your waist. Once you’re seated comfortably, his hand comes to rest on your thigh, a little too close for comfort. Your breath hitches slightly and you hope Steve didn’t notice. He did notice, and he’s planning on using this against you later.

Steve can’t focus on any of the conversations happening because the only thing on his mind is the fact that he doesn’t entirely hate your closeness. He blames it on the alcohol coursing through his veins. You look rather pretty tonight and you smell so good that it’s more intoxicating than the drink in his glass.

He absentmindedly begins to rub your thigh and you let out a small gasp, causing him to smirk. “Sorry. Just keeping up appearances” he whispers in your ear, sending a shiver down your spine. “It’s fine” you whisper back.

Except, it wasn’t fine. It wasn’t that his touch was making you uncomfortable, it was the complete opposite and that was the problem. You felt yourself melting into his touch and craving it every time his hand left your thigh so he could take a sip of his drink.

You feel like you should regret not staying back at the house, but you don’t. Not even a little bit.

“You have to turn the key to the right, Steeevvvee” you drunkenly whine as Steve tries to unlock the front door. “I am turning it to the right” he whines back, mocking your tone. “That’s the left” you point out. “You try it then” he challenges. “Watch and learn, pretty boy”

The key doesn’t budge. You turn it left, you turn it right and nothin’. “Watch and learn. I’m soooo much smarter than Steve” he mimics you as you drop the key on the porch. “It’s broken! What’re we gonna do?” you pout, standing close enough that your chest is flush with his. “Follow me”

You follow Steve to a window that’s slightly open a little higher up than other windows. “I can’t climb through that window in a dress!” you exclaim. “Well, you can’t lift me, so up ya go”

“That is so sexist”

“I know, I’m the worst, blah blah blah. C’mon, let’go” Steve hooks his hands together for you to use as a step. You grip his shoulders and once you're balanced, you’re able to grab the window frame. “I need more of a boost” you tell him. “This is all the boost I got”

“Then throw me!”

“Are you insane? I’m not gonna throw you!”

“We’ll sleep outside, then”

“I have an idea, but don’t punch me! I’m gonna have to touch your butt” he giggles like a four-year-old when he says ‘butt’, making you giggle too. “Lucky you, then. Try not to bust in your pants, okay”

“You sure are confident when you’re drunk. Okay, on three” Steve counts to three and pushes you as much as he can until you’re able to pull yourself through the window. “I’m in!”

“Yeah, I see that. Go unlock the door” he says and you shake your head. “Oh, no no no. If I had to do this, so do you. It’s fun!”

“Why do you have to make everything difficult?”

“Scared you can’t do it?” you taunt. “What was that you said earlier? Watch and learn?”

Steve starts to climb the house and you can’t help but laugh at how many times he slips. Once he’s almost made it, you grab his hand and pull him into the house causing him to topple you to the ground and throwing you both into a fit of giggles.

“Alright, I admit that was fun” he says, a bit breathless. “I know. I’m full of great ideas”

You both stand up and flop onto the bed. “I’m ready to go to sleeo” Steve says with a yawn and closes his eyes. “Noooo, you can’t sleep in those clothes. That’s so uncomfy”

“I can’t move” he grumbles. You move to stand at the foot of the bed and reach your arms out to him. “Get up. Just grab my hands” he lazily grabs your hands and you let out a groan as you pull him up. “Hey, I’m not that heavy” he laughs. “If you say so”

Neither of you have moved from where you’re standing. Your hands are still holding his and his face is close to yours that you could count his eyelashes. “You look really pretty tonight” he whispers like he’s afraid you’ll hear him. “You don’t have to say that. No one’s around”

“And if I said I wanted to kiss you… what would you say to that?” his hand comes up to cradle your cheek and you lean into his touch.

“I’d say it’s a bad idea” you slightly lean in “I know” he leans in closer.

“We hate each other”

“We do”

“And we really shouldn’t kiss ‘cause I don’t think I’ll be able to stop”

“Okay” His nose brushes yours, but his lips press against your cheek instead. This is the one time you wish he wouldn’t listen to you.

“I wouldn’t be able to stop either” Steve confesses before going to get changed in the bathroom, leaving you to feel more confused than you’ve ever felt.

Fuck.

taglist: @nix-rose-q @eternallyvenus @freezaz123 @whisperingwillowxox @buckysmetalhand @clincallyonline17 @x-theolivia @realsuper-dark @eddiesguitarskills @megxplryxb @alicetweven @calmoistorm @impossibelle @k-k0129

(for some reason there were a few blogs that i wasn’t able to tag:( i apologize!)

#steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x fem!reader #steve harrington x y/n #steve harrington x you #steve harrington fic #steve harrington enemies to lovers #steve harrington series #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington

967 notes · View notes

alovesongtheywrote · 1 year ago

Text

Nightmare Academia | Spencer Reid x Reader

♥ Summary: Have you ever seen the tiktok where that guy brings a typewriter to his class because his prof doesn't allow laptops? Yeah, it's that, but you are the source of the typewriters. In other words, you're Reid's worst nightmare. [Prof!Spencer Reid x GN-Prof!Reader]

♥ Warnings: Descriptions of emotional vulnerability from a student to a professor, reminders that the world sucks and Gen-Z is fucked when it comes to housing. The reader is. Kind of Mean to Spencer, but I won't say he doesn't deserve it. Enemies to Lovers, but they're just Enemies right now.

♥ A/N: a couple things about this fic. 1) i have no clue when this takes place in the criminal minds timeline???? i just know reid took a some kind of leave from the bau, and this is what he's doing with it 2) reid isn't actually in this one that much. my bad. 3) i've got no clue what university these two teach at. i researched typewriters extensively for this, but i didn't bother googling universities.

♥ Word count: 2371

Series Masterlist

♥♥♥

“Alright, my little chilli babies, that’s about it for today. If you have any questions, office hours start now, and please remember there’s an exam next week. It makes me sad when you forget. Got it? Got it. Cool.”

Your students immediately began to stand and file out of the room. They left in groups. Some of them chatted amongst themselves softly, and some called out a farewell to you, but most of them were silent. One or two lingered behind to ask about the administration process of the PCL-R, but that was about it.

Except for this one girl.

You were pretty sure her name was Opal. She sat near the back of the room in the second to last row. She got good grades and performed well on tests and projects- although she was a touch shy during the one presentation project you assigned during the semester.

Usually, Opal was one of the first to leave, practically running from the room, but today she just sat there, staring straight ahead. You watched her for a second, vaguely assuming that she had a question or something. She didn’t get up to ask, though. She just sat still, staring at her laptop. You paid her no mind. Sometimes your students just needed a second, and that was usually nothing to worry about.

You were just about to pack up your own things and head for your office when you heard a sob. You looked up again to see Opal just sobbing into her computer. You winced. A pang of sympathy hit you dead in the chest. University was just like that sometimes- and she wasn’t the first or last student to cry on campus.

Shit, you cried on campus. Like, all the time. As a professor. The previous Tuesday you thought about the two-headed calf poem too hard and you ended up sobbing in your office.

You headed for the back of the room, leaning a hip against the back of the seat beside her. She didn’t seem to notice your presence. Her laptop screen was covered with detailed notes- it was honestly an impressive collection.

You crossed your arms, raising an eyebrow, “Everything okay over here?”

Opal gasped, looking up at you with wide eyes, “I-I’m- I-” she sobbed again, “I’m so sorrrrrry.”

“Sorry? What do you have to be sorry for?”

“I’m crying in your classroom, and I’m so overwhelmed, and my next assignment is going to be late, and I’m so sorrrrry.”

The poor thing put her face in her hands and hunched over in her seat. You pulled out the chair next to her and sat down.

“You have nothing to be sorry for. University is stressful. It’s easy to get overwhelmed and crying can provide a cathartic release from that.”

“I- I know. It’s just so- so embarrassing.”

“Again, don’t worry about it. I literally cried in here last week.”

“R-really?”

“Mhmm. Now, if it helps, I can provide an extension on that assignment. Your feedback might be a little less in-depth, but that’s really nothing to worry about. Your work has always met a high standard.”

Her eyes somehow got even wider, “Are you- are you sure, professor?”

“Absolutely. It’s not a big deal- it might not fix your whole problem though,” you pulled your legs up onto the chair, sitting criss-cross facing your student, “If you’re feeling overwhelmed, the school provides free counselling services. They can help you feel less… whelmed.”

Opal nodded, wiping her eyes, “It’s really just- just this one class I’m in. Our professor doesn’t allow laptops so I have to take notes by hand. But my- my writing is really messy, so then I have to figure out what I wrote, and-”

She was working herself back into a frenzy. You had to intervene.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. Which prof is it, maybe we can ask about getting an accommodation made?”

“It’s-” she sobbed, “It’s Professor Reid.”

You froze. Opal continued to sob as a dark, heavy storm cloud rolled into your brain.

“That fucking bastard,” you hissed, effectively shocking Opal out of her stupor.

“Wh-what?”

“This isn’t the first time he’s- okay, come on, follow me, we’re going to my office.”

Wordlessly, Opal put her things in her bag. You ran to your desk to do the same, snatching your keys and water bottle before heading out into the hallway. Opal followed diligently, but she struggled to keep up with your purposeful strides. Her face was still tear-stained, but now, instead of sorrow, her expression was the ultimate picture of confusion. When you reached your office, you swung the door open wide and ushered the girl inside.

In all honesty, you were quite proud of the space you had created. It was warmly lit, a necessary contrast from the harsh white lights of the hallway (you fucking hated those lights). The walls were decorated with your doctorates and neat little art pieces you found in various places. It was colourful and pleasant, and now was not the time to focus on your choice of decor because you were on a mission.

Opal remained near the door, watching as you rounded your desk and reached for something below it. With a slight groan of effort, you quickly emerged with your prize.

A vintage typewriter.

A heavy vintage typewriter.

You placed the thing down on your desk as delicately as you could. Opal stared at you in confusion as you beamed at the fine piece of machinery.

“Which room is his class in, I’ll have someone bring this to you.”

“Professor-?”

“You use it for one class, just one, and I guarantee he’ll let you use your laptop. Damn, technophobe.”

“I don’t know how to use a typewriter.”

You placed your hands on the desk, leaning forward on it, “Okay, come here then, I’ll show you.”

Opal timidly made her way towards you. You made sure to leave her lots of space as you ran through the tech tutorial. She picked up on it quickly, being the good student that she was. When you were done, you collapsed back in your chair, another bright smile on your face. Opal looked significantly less distraught, but still vaguely confused.

“Can I ask why you’re doing this for me? You- you didn’t even have to give me an extension. Why are you-?”

“Because you aren’t the first student to have this problem.”

It was true. This was the seventh sobbing-student-style complaint you’d had about him in as many months- and Reid had only been there for seven months. You’d received emails, phone calls, and office hour meetings where desperate and devastated students would explain to you that they were falling behind. It broke your heart a little bit- and it pissed you right off.

It was ironic that Doctor Reid had come straight here from the FBI- his technophobic nature was slowly but surely murdering your students, and now, you were going to murder him.

“Now about that extension, does five days sound good?”

Opal handed in the assignment two days into her extension. You smiled as you looked over her incredible paper. Your little scheme had worked. You hoped that Reid was pissed.

–

He was! Kind of. Not really. It was a bit of a disappointment to be honest.

You had only known Doctor Spencer Reid for the seven months he’d been teaching alongside you, and boy howdy were you starting to hate his fucking guts. At first, everything was fine. He’d seemed sweet, and polite, and you were willing to overlook the whole FBI profiler thing to maintain the peace.

Then one of your students passed out during class.

Thanks to his high expectations and fear of computers, there was a lot of shit for his students to cope with. The worst part was, you agreed with some of his policies- of course, you didn’t agree with the tech thing, that was stupid- but there was other stuff that you liked. He taught your students things that could help them improve- but at what cost.

Your formerly dim-eyed and sleepy students (let’s be real, they were never going to be bright-eyed nor bushy-tailed, they’re fucking college students) were now going through life in a state of anxiety that was not good for their long-term health. That was enough to make you hate Spencer Reid.

And then one night, over a very full glass of wine you looked up his FBI career. You learned that the BAU used a private jet.

A private. Fucking. Jet.

They didn’t need to use the private jet. They could’ve used trains and it would’ve done the same thing. Shit, they didn’t even have to leave Quantico. They could’ve done their job from their main office. Most profilers do their job from their main office. Instead, Reid’s team had dumped fucking jet fuel into the damn atmosphere because they fucking felt like it. Not to mention just. FBI. Ew.

So, yeah. Fuck Reid’s three PhD’s, and fuck his ability to teach. You didn’t give a shit about any of that. You hated the man. You wanted to eat his heart in the main atrium, and given your way, you would.

Taking all that into consideration, it was only natural for the expression on your face to morph into one of absolute joy when Reid came to your office with the typewriter in his arms, and his tail between his legs.

“Doctor Reid,” your smile was a plastic thing, a false beauty with venom hiding beneath it, “What can I help you with.”

“Please stop sending that typewriter to my class.”

You opened your eyes a little wider, playing dumb just to fuck with him, “Typewriter? Whatever do you mean? I can’t imagine anyone in this century would even own a little antique typewriter like that thing there.”

“Little? That thing has to be over a hundred pounds- and it’s not antique, it’s-”

“It is literally thirty-three pounds.”

“Oh, okay,” he nodded. It was very clearly a ruse, “But how would you know that unless you own the typewriter?”

“I do a lot of research. That’s a 1960s Vintage Royal Empress Typewriter measuring about twelve inches in width and weighing thirty-three pounds and eight ounces. Y’know, now that you mention it, I’ve actually been in the market for a vintage typewriter.”

You put your elbows together on the desk and placed your face in your hands, “You wouldn’t know where I could get one would you?”

“Dr. (L/N), this is your typewriter. Please stop sending it to my classes.”

“Hm, I guess it doesn’t pay tuition, that’s not fair to the other students,” you opened your laptop, “What class do you teach again? I’ll sign it up and pay the price in full.”

Doctor Reid let out the most exasperated sigh you had ever heard in your life- and that was impressive. You taught college kids.

“Why are you like this?” he mumbled.

“Pardon?”

“I said-” he at least had the decency to look embarrassed, “I said, ‘Why are you like this?’”

Your smile split your face from ear to ear. You emerged from behind your desk slowly, carefully, like a predator eyeing up its prey.

“Why am I like this, Dr. Reid? I’m like this because in the past seven months, I have had to deal with seven emotionally wrecked students, and what did they all have in common? Was it personal tragedies? The pure state of the world and everything in it? The knowledge that very few of the students at this school will be able to afford houses once they enter the working world? No, Dr. Reid. The thing they had in common was you.”

“What are you implying?”

“Implying- what are you implying, he asks me,” you muttered, “I’m saying that your fear of computers is fucking over your students.”

“Studies have shown that handwritten notes-”

“No, no, stop. You don’t get to talk. I’m talking now. Handwritten notes might be better for long-term memory retention, but not everyone writes as fast as you talk. Most of these kids don’t have time to switch their notes to a digital format! And that doesn’t account for shit getting lost, or students who get sick and miss class. Look, I get that computers might be scary for you, but in a climate where most of your students are full-time students, who take a mind-numbing amount of courses that cover incredibly difficult material, go home and struggle with the steaming pile of shit that is reality, and then head out for their part-time jobs- or, in some cases, their full-time jobs- you might want to have a degree of sympathy.”

Reid stared at you. He seemed unaffected. You wondered if that was because you were like, an entire foot shorter than him. You pulled up a chair and stood on it.

“Let your students use their laptops, or I swear to god, I will never stop sending the typewriter to class. You will hear the incessant sound of keys clicking in your nightmares, got it?”

He paused, his eyes darting across your face from your lips to your eyes and back.

“How old are you?”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re standing on a chair like a child. How old are you?”

“Twenty-seven. Now get out of my office.”

He did as you asked. You could see a small smirk on his lips as he shut the door behind him. The sight of it made your blood boil, and there and then, you decided you were gonna keep sending the typewriter anyway because fuck that guy.

Still, over the next few months, you never heard another complaint about Spencer Reid and his technophobic habits. Your students went from extreme emotional agony to regular, day-to-day emotional agony. He’d stopped making them take notes by hand.

You were still gonna kill him just… maybe a little bit less.

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x gn!reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x y/n #x reader #holy shit two fics in two days that's fucking crazy #btw if you have an idea of when this should take place #let me know #im thinking it's around or just after season 9 #i might be biased since im like. halfway through season 10 #but if you've got ideas PLEASE SHARE THEM #anyway

254 notes · View notes

wth-if · 2 years ago

Text

Humans have made their peace with the supernatural a long time ago.. all of them, except the demons.

Ten years ago Archangel Michael swooped down from the Heavens to give humans a new salvation, a solution to their pest problem, a little thing they called H.E.L.L. - Heaven's Eradication of Lethal Lowborns.

Ever since then the demons have been under control. Until recently -unexpected, right?- after a series of kidnappings conducted by a cult calling themselves The Morningstar's Children. Ever since, H.E.L.L. has been cracking down hard on the lowborns.

And well, Lucifer Morningstar (The President of Hell Themself and Michael's sibling) is having none of that.

In retaliation, she sends you, a demon, to infiltrate H.E.L.L., and take it down.. from the inside!

OR, a celestial sibling rivalry goes a bit too far.

FEATURES (May Change!):

Play as a lowborn/demon! Male, female or nonbinary (including cis/trans options); gay, straight or aro/ace; be the vessel for Lucifer’s revenge against her sibling by.. hunting your own kind? What?

In-depth character customization! Hair color & style, skin color, body type, markings, piercings, etc!

Choose how you got chosen for the job! Are you a demonic assassin or are you just an average joe who happened to be walking by?

Romance one out of four unique romance options! Your demonic co-worker, a demon hunter and TWO archangels (that’s right!)

Cause chaos and shenanigans! Get Michael’s coffee wrong, mess up an investigation and let demons escape H.E.L.L.’s grasp! It’s what you’re here for!

Discover the mystery behind the disappearances, and who's really behind The Morningstar's Children!

Help Lucifer Morningstar win her election against her son Satan, or sabotage it!

Levithan (He/Him): Demonic Overlord, Son of Lucifer, Sin of Envy. You'd expect a guy with that description to be pretty full of himself, but instead he seems pretty tired and over-worked. He's been tasked by Lucifer to infiltrate H.E.L.L. alongside you- why? It's anyone's guess at this point. (Possible Tropes: bickering couple, tired x energetic, tol x smol)

Yavhi Gupta (They/Them): Stubborn, rude and cold-hearted. They've been working for H.E.L.L. since they were able to join, and they're one of the toughest, roughest demon hunters around. They don't joke or play around, they go straight for the kill each time. Unlucky for you then, that you've been assigned to train underneath them for the foreseeable future. (Possible Tropes: enemies to lovers, opposites attract, black cat x golden retriever)

Raquel (She/Her): Fierce, witty and loyal to the end. When her best friend left Heaven, she followed right after. Now, she works as a detective alongside him and they've been hired by an outside source to investigate The Morningstar's Children, as H.E.L.L. can't seem to do anything right, and she'll do anything to find out the truth; even if it means teaming up with a lowborn like you. (Possible Tropes: fwbs to lovers, smart x dumbass)

Gabriel (He/Him): Quiet, yet lethal and dangerous. He left Heaven for a reason, but now works alongside his friend as a detective. He's the brawn of the operation, but just as willing to do anything to get the truth... even if you get the feeling he knows more than it seems. (Male MCs only. Possible Tropes: Mutual pining, star-crossed lovers, quiet x loud)

Lucifer Morningstar (She/They): As the Sin of Greed, she's the father (mother?) of all the other deadly sins, and the current President of Hell- though with reelections soon, and her subjects looking in their son's, Satan's, favor, that might change soon. Which is why they sent you on the quest to take down H.E.L.L., so her rep would get a serious boost. She's conniving, scheming and pantsuit wearing, and will stop at nothing to keep her spot on top. (And I love her.)

Michael (They/Them): The most powerful Archangel of them all, it was obvious that one day, they'd become the humans savior, their saving grace.. uh, not really, but they love the praise. Recently however they've been under fire from the human media after a slip-up resulted in the deaths of six people, but they managed to save grace by capturing and promptly executing a few lowborns connected to The Morningstar's Children. (Which, In Raquel's professional opinion, puts them right at the top of her list of suspects.)

Shae (She/Her): A vampire and the one who hired Raquel and Gabriel after the kidnapping of her son Damien at the hands of The Morningstar's Children.

LINKS :

DEMO POST (TBA) R/O INTROS (TBA)

Asks about the R/Os, the characters or the story in general are always welcomed!

#intro post #hosted games #choice of games #if wip #cog wip #twine wip #welcome to hell #welcome to hell if #wth if #wth #interactive fiction #interactive novel #cyoa #choose your own adventure #wip

210 notes · View notes

a-spes · 1 year ago

Text

| WORKS IN PROGRESS;

✧ Pretty faces, Dark souls (part one. — Serie) with dark!CEO!Natasha Romanoff x thief!Reader where R steals the wrong person, Nat' being determined to make her pay her debt. — ON PAUSE.

| FUTURE PROJECTS;

✧ Darkish!WandaNat x Hybrid!R in which they find you in one of hydra's basement, and end up being your caretakers as you are forced to stay with the Avengers.

✧ Dark!BlackHill x Enhanced!R where they are working for SHIELD, and their mission is to monitor and neutralize y/n.

| DEVELOPED IDEAS THAT I MIGHT WRITE SOME DAY;

✧ Natasha Romanoff x fem!Reader as old friends to enemies to lover during Civil War when they are on opposite teams. If Reader is supposed to track Nat', she ends up seeking for her help when Team Cap' turns against her.

✧ Mob boss!Natasha Romanoff x Undercover!Reader except she knows from the beginning and it's just her manipulating R the whole time.

✧ Stained Heart AU (new part) with Avenger!Natasha Romanoff x Avenger!R where Natasha keeps refusing to train with you because she is scared she would hurt you, so you decide to train with someone else but they hurt you by accident. Even if you try to hide it because you know she's gonna be mad, nothing escapes her gaze.

✧ Zombie!Scarlett Witch x Reader in a post apocalyptic universe. They used to be friends/lovers as teens until Wanda got infected. R never thought she would see her again whereas Wanda spent the past years looking for her, now that she found her loved one she'll make sure that nothing will separate them.

✧ Church of the Damned (serie) with a cult leader!Scarlett Witch x Enhanced!Reader where R is looking for a place to stay after she ran away from her home and it seems that abandoned church is the only safe place for people like her.

| THINGS I WANT TO WRITE;

✧ Something about anti-hero!Reader with powers (or maybe not).

✧ Something that happens in a bar or during a party.

✧ Something that uses the bodyguard trope.

✧ Something that takes place in Ancient Greece, or with a similar vibe.

✧ Something in a military au with mean!captain!Carol Danvers x rookie!reader.

✧ Something with a sick or badly injuried R and angst/comfort.

| last update: Jan. 01. 2025.

#a spes writing #current wip #mcu women #natasha romanoff x reader #reader insert #wanda maximoff x reader #carol danvers x reader #kate bishop x reader #mcu fandom #mcu fanfiction

57 notes · View notes

tirsynni · 1 month ago

Note

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers (if you’d like). Spread the self-love ♥️

Thank you, @anosrepasi! <3

Sands of Time:

Link awakens in the desert with no idea how he got there, to encounter his worst enemy…except it was the King of the Gerudo, not the King of Evil, he faced.

This one was my love letter to the Zelda series and fandom. It was also my attempt to get into writing and posting regularly. A good goal for 2025. lol

The Journey Home:

Bilbo awoke alone on the battlefield. He had no idea that his request to go home would keep him alone for a long time.

Canon divergence where Thorin lives and there's a happy ending. Another love letter fic. I remember working hard to make sure the language and tone fit the original book.

Better Dead:

Piers thought there was nothing more awful than losing Leon. One last radio message, one act of destruction, and the future he dreamed of with his lover was gone. Nothing could be worse than this grief. Piers was wrong.

Why tumblr did it like that, I don't know. But anyway. I had a lot of fun with this one, and whenever I hear the song which inspired it, I still think about this fic. <3

In Hell Softly Sleeping:

When Leon vanishes, Chris goes half-mad trying to find his lover. After a mysterious phone call, Chris and Piers both realize how far into Hell they're willing to go to get Leon back and what they all truly desire. "I'm sorry, Chris." “Why are you sorry? Where are you, Leon?” “Do you remember the hotel in Colorado? Where I was on vacation during the mess with Arias? Meet me there. Hurry, Chris. Please."

Another one I had a blast writing. It's fun exploring the horror portion of the RE series and the different ways it could show.

Remember Me:

Revali is braced for Windblight Ganon to kill him. Someone else has a different plan in mind for him and the other Champions.

Fitting the trend, another love letter fic, because OoT and the Champions both deserved better. Looking at you, TotK. Snarl.

Thanks for the ask! <3 <3 <3

#self recs #fic recs #ask game

8 notes · View notes

simpxxstan · 1 year ago

Text

perfect complements (ch. 5)

pairing: professor!seungcheol x professor!f.reader

genre: fluff, enemies to lovers, angst, smut

series summary: four and a half years of working together breeds familiarity, resentment, and everything in between. it's almost like living together.

chapter word count: 2.7k

warnings: nothing really except a few curse words and one suggestive joke.

a/n: exams are finally over! going to try and update this as regularly as possible before i get busy again. also: congratulations to bss for the daesang! their aaa performance was GOLD like no one does it like them honestly. hope you like this update! do let me know your feedback, it motivates me so much! this is a filler chapter, largely. kinda important to understand the gaps i guess. sorry again if the slow burn is hurting, next chapter promises action. also, about the poll: i promise mingyu fic coming up real soon! last thing i wanna say: thank you for 200 followers omggg lost my mind over it for a day yk <3 i hope i keep entertaining you for a long time on my blog!

taglist for the fic: @minhui896 @yunoyeol

series masterlist

It is well past midnight, but you cannot sleep at all. Perhaps it is the caffeine and sugar from the coffee and the crepe cake you had indulged in after dinner. Perhaps it is the stress of packing for the upcoming trip. Perhaps it is the chill in the wind that lingered in your bones for too long.

Or perhaps it is the weight of Minhee’s words weighing down on you.

You keep thinking of the conversation you had with her in the afternoon.

Eight hours ago, Minhee had appeared at your front door, carrying bottles of soju and convenience store food, an apologetic expression on her face as you had opened the door in confusion. “I can explain, Unnie. I’m really sorry.” One look at her usually bubbly face now scrunched up and clearly distressed, and you didn’t have the heart to be mad at her anymore. Soon you were sitting on the couch, slurping ramen from the big cups, already two cups down, biting into cheese kimbaps, and drinking soju. It was an utterly unhealthy combination, but it was oh, so healthy for your hearts. After gobbling down the food and getting over with casual small talk, she had finally nearly lying on your lap, as you huddled into one blanket.

“My sister’s getting married this weekend.”

“What?!”

She looked up, smiling but it was not quite reaching her eyes.

“Isn’t your sister already married…?”

“My youngest. You forget we are four sisters. My eldest got married three years go, the one right after me got married six months ago, at whose wedding you ate half the cake,” she teased, and you pushed your face into your chest in embarrassment. “This time it’s my youngest.”

“But you’re not happy?” You asked, even more confused.

“No, no, I am! You know I’ve rooted for Miso and her partner forever!” You nodded, having heard about this couple quite a bit.

“Then?”

“Nothing, it’s just… I’m the only sister who’s not married now. My sister who is five years younger than me are getting married but…. I can’t even last a stable relationship. And my parents-”

You huged her, noticing her eyes getting teary. “Minhee-ah! Don’t mind what your parents say, please. You know how parents can be…”

“But Unnie… I’m thirty now! I’m turning thirty-one in, like, three months, but I haven’t even been able to last a relationship for more than a year in my life, and it’s quite fair honestly for my parents to be bothered about this-”

“But this is your life! You should decide the pace, darling. It’s not important if your parents want you to get married early. They may have done it early at their time, but you should definitely wait till you’re ready! It’s not that late honestly-”

“Unnie, I think it is late though. I should think about freezing my eggs-”

“Oh baby, why are you thinking so hard!”

“I’m not Unnie! Trust me, you’re lucky your parents haven’t pressurised you with this. It gets so claustrophobic whenever I sit with my parents these days. It’s all they can talk about. My mom keeps sending me photos of sons of her friends, forcing me to go on these blind dates with random guys, like honestly does she even look at the guys she sends me with? It’s so stressful, Unnie!”

You rubbed her back gently, feeling her heat up in agitation. “Minhee, tell me honestly. Do you want to get married soon?”

She stopped shaking in your arms and said softly. “I do. But I want to wait for love.”

“Then wait. This is the 21st century. This isn't the 18th century that people will scorn you for marrying late. Plus, your mom probably just wants to see you settled down and rid herself of her last responsibilities towards you. She doesn’t mean any harm. Have you spoken to her about this?”

“I’ve tried to-”

“Well then, you gotta be a big girl and speak up, huh? Unless you talk to her, she’ll never understand that she’s forcing you. There must be some middle ground for you to reach.”

She moved away slowly, nodding in gradual understanding. Her face looked infinitely more calm now, and she stretched her legs onto the carpet. “This is why I was so worked up that day… I’d just gotten over with a phone call from my mom interrogating me as to why I hadn’t liked the last blind date she had sent me on.” She then turned to you, facing you. You could see the clouds in her eyes, urgent and earnest. “This is why I’m worried about you, Unnie… you should speak to Hyunsik Oppa about settling down. You’re not getting any younger… and four years together isn’t a joke.”

You sighed, looking away. It was your turn to be worried, and you decided not to meet Minhee’s eyes for that while, knowing too well she’d catch on to the doubts that had been lingering in your mind for months now. You said softly, “I know you meant well, Minhee…. It’s just that, this is something for Unnie and Oppa to talk about, hmm?” She nodded again, speaking up with enthusiasm, “Yes yes, I’m sorry for that day! I just want to be your friend! I won’t be nosy from now on, I promise!”

And that had been that. You both had switched on to lighter topics after that, casually flicking through fancams of idol groups you both liked, or funny episodes from reality shows you had grown up watching since teenage years. Suddenly, it struck you that the next weekend was supposed to be your trip with Minhee and the undergrads to Singapore, and you panicked. She had calmed you down, calling Wonwoo for both of you, and speaking to him for advice, knowing he’d give the best option available.

He had not.

He had actually insisted you go with Seungcheol, mad man Wonwoo, and even agreed to calling off the therapy sessions if you called Seungcheol to ask him. After that, you had no option but to call Suengcheol, who had absurdly agreed. Like, you were seconds away from cutting the call off, calling up Wonwoo and blaming it all on Seungcheol denying the trip request, thereby getting the easy way out- Wonwoo would have no option but to cancel the therapy programme and also let you go alone on the trip, but the damn bastard just had to agree now. For the first time in four and a half years, he had willingly agreed to spend time with you and you didn’t know what to do now.

“Fuck him!”

Minhee giggled, slyly saying, “No shit Unnie!”

You were fuming with annoyance and this was not the time for Minhee’s jokes. “What?!”

“Isn’t that what you both want, ultimately? Getting into each other’s pants?” She kept giggling like it was the funniest thing ever, while you made disgusted faces at her mere words. “Minhee-ah, you’re so drunk.” “Am not!” She picked the fourth bottle of soju and uncorked it easily. “Unnie, can you not overreact so much? It’s just three days!” “Three days of torture! Oh god, he’s going to be so smug now. I just know he’ll behave like he’s doing me this huge favour and be all arrogant about it.”

“Unnie, I see why Dr. Lee asks y’all to do colouring and stuff. You really are kids, you know?”

“Minhee, I’m not in the mood now!”

“I’m not kidding, please. Everyone has co-workers they may not like. I remember hating my boss at the research institute I interned at. He was so slimy and always wanted to show me down because I was young. But I tolerated him, right? We just have to get along and live with it because that’s what the world is about.”

You tsked at her sudden philosophy lesson, bobbing on the heels of your feet, not quite calming down.

“Unless you… don’t just dislike him as a co-worker? Minghao and I are just waiting for you both to tell us that you’ve been secretly crushing on each other for years now. The tension is real, ya know?” she smirked, and you threw a pillow at her face, causing her to duck, laughing at your flustered face. “Minhee, how many times do I have to tell you and Minghao?” “Right, right, sorry! I’ll drop it. You call Wonwoo Oppa now, or I’ll do the honours.”

At the end of the day, when the lights are off and you finally lie down in the softness of your bedsheets, however, worries about Seungcheol and the trip aren’t running laps in your brain. It’s thoughts about you and Hyunsik.

You’d met him for the first time in the third year of your college. He had been everything you’d dreamt of in a boyfriend, coming into adulthood. You’d been too much of a nerd as a teen to ever think of dating, but now that you were in college, you were so ready to date an oppa like the heroines of k-dramas. Or perhaps you’d read too many fanfictions and you had fallen in love with the idea of falling in love rather than the act in itself. Hence, when you saw Hyunsik walk into your undergraduate statistics class as the RA, you’d toppled over your feet and fallen headfirst for him. From daydreaming over how his pretty fingers traced the words on your answer scripts when he corrected them for you, to journaling every day about how many times he made eye contact with you, you had become completely smitten by him. But he was an RA, a Postgraduate student, two years older than you. He hung out with many pretty unnies, one of whom definitely had to be his girlfriend. So before you could gather up the courage to actually confess your feelings, he had passed out of college, and you’d been forced to move on.

It wasn’t like you hadn’t dated since then. After the initial crush on Hyunsik and the heartbreak of unrequited feelings, you had become bolder and started moving into the market more decisively. You had dated a total of eight people in the five years after that, most of which relationships had ended without any hard feelings and you had remained distant acquaintances with them. It wasn’t that none of them had captured your heart- they had each loved you in their own special ways, but it never felt enough.

So you framed a pretty excuse for yourself: it was because none of them were Hyunsik. It was because he was perfect and nobody else compared to him.

In hindsight, you were so wrong.

In hindsight, you probably should not have ended things so quickly after comparing them with what you imagined Hyunsik would be like. Imagined being the key word, because you had filled in the gaps that you didn’t know about him (which were a lot, considering you had only known him from a superficial level), using romance novels you had grown up reading.

And you’d lived with that perfect image of him, until you’d met him at the college reunion. Apparently it had been organised for the two batches before you, and the two batches after you. And Hyunsik was there. So when he came walking up to the corner where you and your friends were chatting up on the old times, you had been stunned and had fallen back into the rabbit hole you’d been trying to get out of for years. He was still as gorgeous as before, and as he soon slipped, single. He had bought you drinks, made you laugh too many times, and then taken you home that night.

Life had not been the same since then. It had been a whirlwind for the first two years, and you had gladly found out that he was exactly what you had imagined him like. But then-

Then he had got a new professorship opening in Canada, and he had moved away, on your insistence that this was a wonderful opportunity for him. You were so sure long distance would not affect your relationship, in fact, you’d been confident you’d even be stronger now.

In hindsight, you were so wrong.

You let the phone fall onto the pillow next to you, gently fading your attention away. You’re confident he will not pick up the call, like the last few days.

“Jagi?”

You hear a faint voice squeaking out from your phone, and turn to the screen in shock, seeing the phone screen alight with his call receipt. You quickly click the speaker button, and reply, “Oppa! You picked up!”

You can hear his soft chuckles on the other end. Quickly checking the time, you realise it’s 9.30 am in Toronto. “I’m sorry, I’ve been so busy. I’ve really had no time to even eat properly,” he explains softly, making you worried. “You’ve not been eating properly? Yah, do you need me to come over and take care of you now?” You’re half teasing, half anxious. Somewhere you hope that he’ll bend and say that he does need you to come there for him. You know you’ll cave in if he says it, you’re that desperate for the least bit of his attention. Anything that’ll convince you that Hyunsik from two springs ago will be back.

“Y/N-ie, please stop overreacting. I need to lose weight anyway, a few meals skipped here and there don’t matter.”

You sigh, biting your lip.

“Oppa has to go now, okay Jagi? I’ll drive to university now.”

Your eyes prick with the hints of long-dried tears.

“Okay, good night Oppa… call me when you get time, hmm?”

“Hmm!” The line disconnects, and you’re left staring into the darkness of your bedroom. Once again, the pain of the past and a dark fear of the future grips your heart and refuses to let go.

“Hello Dr. Lee!” You call out loudly as you step into their office, thinking you’re early for your appointment, only to see a very smiley Seungcheol already standing with an even more smiley Dr. Lee near the window of their cabin. You had successfully avoided spending more than five minutes with Seungcheol whenever you encountered each other in the staffroom, hoping he’ll not raise questions about the trip.

They both turn around to see you walk in through the door.

“Oh you’re here, Prof. Y/L/N! I just heard from Wonwoo that you’re no longer in need of my services from next week onwards,” they smile knowingly.

You blush in embarrassment of getting caught. “It’s not like tha-”

“I heard about your bargain, and don’t worry, I’ve not taken offence.” They smile again, walking away from the window and towards the coffee machine sitting in one corner of the room.

Seungcheol pipes in, “Take note, Dr. Lee, this bargain was framed by our resident darling, Prof. Y/L/N. I have no contribution. I assure you, I quite enjoyed our sessions and I shall miss them.” You roll your eyes, resident darling, really! and slap his arm lightly, laughing sarcastically. He chuckles back in an equally sarcastic tone, both of you throwing daggers at each other using your eyes. It doesn’t help that he’s slicked back his hair today, giving a more prominent show of his strong forehead with eyebrows more bushy than you could ever dream of having, even after makeup. Dr. Lee laughs out loud at your antics and give you both two cups of the vending machine coffee.

“Well, I know exactly well how you both will be feeling, so no need to convince me. But before I let you go, I have one last task for you both, to conclude my notes.”

“Notes?” you ask, crossing your left leg over your right, ignoring the way Seungcheol squirms away from you as your left leg extends forward slightly.

“My analysis notes. I’ve been studying you two, of course.”

“But you have notes about us?”

“Force of habit, you forget that I am a psychologist and my primary interest is observing behaviours of people.”

You smile at their words, and quietly sip on your coffee.

“So, what is the final task?” Seungcheol asks. You notice that his coffee is nearly finished.

“I have a harmony-building task for you two.”

#choi seungcheol #s.coups #s.coups x reader #seventeen x reader #seventeen fanfiction #seventeen fluff #seventeen series #s.coups series #s.coups fluff #s.coups fanfiction #seungcheol fanfiction #seungcheol x y/n #seungcheol series #seungcheol fanfic #seungcheol x reader #seventeen fanfic #perfect complements series #simpxxstan

46 notes · View notes

hyunnielix · 2 years ago

Text

— Ⅰ. Scarlet Dusted Cheeks

Series Masterlist

— lee minho x reader (f)

— word count: 3.8k

— genre: non-idol au, acquaintances (enemies?) to lovers, slow burn, eventual smut, right person wrong time/place typa beat

— warnings: drinking. MC being a flirt. Yeji think's a bartender is cute. Highschool reunion kind of stuff. MC deals with her anxiety by drinking. (this could go either of two ways). ((unedited))

Speckles of dust entered your vision through the crack in the blinds. Reminding you that you should probably clean your room. The dust was cute, it was almost like they were little creatures dancing in the sunshine. The daylight hit the table in such an aesthetic way, creating a variation of shadows as your hands moved. You shook the intrusive thought, now was not the time to be getting distracted.

You were so close to finishing the stanza. The keys of the typewriter made a satisfying clicking sound as you typed away. It was a poetry booklet you were creating. Something so personal and vulnerable it made you want to throw up. Nonetheless, it was coming along nicely… despite the fact that it was an assignment from Minji herself.

In a way, poetry was similar to journaling. Except the word choices had more meaning and authenticity… not to say that journaling didn’t. It just lacked that kind of passion needed to truly convey one’s emotions into something beautiful. There was something so enticing about the structure of different poems. Sometimes they had rigid Stanza’s, other times they were disconnected on purpose. All of those stylistic choices…. They were all up to the authors own experiences, formatted in a way that represented them so honestly. Maybe that’s why you’d loved writing them so much. It was a simple but gut-wrenching way of speaking about trauma, loss and grief. On the contrary, it could also lead to revelations and healing.

You stopped typing. The room became dead silent as you sat back in your chair. The squeaking of the door hinge had caught your attention. You cringed at the sound, you really had to get that fixed. It was your roommate. She poked her head shyly from behind the door.

Your eyes fluttered shut, an amused expression on your features. “You can come in Yeji, I’m not busy or anything.”

The door continued to creak dramatically. She leant against the door frame. You’d realised that a part of her hair was now dyed bright pink. Your expression must’ve given your surprise away as she twirled the newly dyed hair. “Nice right?”

You nodded. “Suit’s you.”

She grinned at the compliment like the Cheshire cat. “So…” Yeji began, taking a curious step forward. “What’s that red envelope on the bench?”

“Nothing important.” You tried to brush it off easily. You hoped that your tone was convincing enough. If Yeji found out that you’d rejected another invitation to a social outing, she was going to kick you out. Again, another reason why it was exhausting for an introvert and extrovert to live together. You chewed your lip, lost in thought.

Or maybe you were an ambivert? Depended on who you were around to be honest. Yeji cleared her throat, “Oh, I thought you got a ticket, or it was like an eviction notice for us or something!”

An eviction notice? How ironic.

“No,” You laugh inwardly at her assumptions. “it’s nothing like that… one of my old school mates invited me to a high school reunion.” You cringed as you told her the truth. You may as well have suffered her wrath here and now. Lying was definitely not your forte.

Her brow raised comically. “Reunion? Are you gonna go?”

You sighed, knowing full well she was going to press this. “Well…” You shook your head. “It’s supposed to be tonight.”

“When were you given the invitation?”

“A week ago.” You said slowly, wincing slightly at Yeji’s disapproving glare. Yeah, this was definitely your least favourite part about it.

“Did you actually have any intentions of showing up?” She questioned knowingly, smiling softly as she crossed her arms over her chest. Sometimes you felt like she was a mother in another life. She had that kind of wisdom and insight only an older person would know. But also, the same kind of condescension. You knew it was only out of love, it still managed to make your stomach sink.

“I don’t know to be honest; I get mad anxiety when it comes to things like that…” You tried to cover it up with an excuse. You were definitely hibernating again, and Yeji could tell. She could pick up on your cues in an instant. Part of you loathed her for it, but you knew she was only looking out for you. That was the weird thing about having friends. Their innate nature to protect and nurture you like their own family. It was a precious thing… platonic love. Truly underrated in your books.

Yeji sung almost teasingly, “Yet you still manage to show up to your sessions…” You let out a groan, hiding your face in the palm of your hands.

You mumbled under your breath. “That’s because I have to.”

You parted your fingers slightly, just to see her staring at you intently. She kind of looked like a light fury. The way her eyes were wide, mouth slightly parted.

“Would you go if I came with you?” Her question completely caught you off guard. It would make you feel less awkward that was for sure. If you hadn’t been an outcast in high school, you certainly would be now. Especially if you were sober.

“Yeji, you didn’t exactly go to the same high school as me.” You pointed out an extremely valid fact. Yeji furrowed her brows, huffing. “Primary school counts, doesn’t it?” She whined, “Just say I’m your partner or something like that.”

You leant your elbows on your thighs. Squinting slightly at your roommate as you made a realisation. “You’re just using this as an excuse to dress up!”

“You know me too well.” She pouted. You smiled to yourself, shaking your head in disbelief. They did call her the life of the party for a reason. Maybe it would be fun if she came along. If she was allowed… Your eyes darted to the clock on your bedside table.

She stared at you with pleading eyes. A sigh fell from your lips as you hung your head forward, “Let me call Jisung first, I’ll have to suck up to him big time.”

Yeji danced on the spot a little, celebrating it as a win in her book. You rolled your eyes at her antics. She was absolutely shameless, but that was what you loved the most about her. She was ridiculously confident, although she’d definitely rubbed off on you.

“Wait…Jisung? Like Han Jisung?” Her mouth hung open.

“Yeah,” You attempted to brush it off. “He’s the one who gave me the invitation.”

“I thought you said he was the weird kid from—”

“That doesn’t matter,” you cut her off quickly. “People can change Yeji.”

She laughed at how quickly you’d revoked your previous statements. Smirking at you evilly. She pursed her lips before humming. “Alrighty… I’ll be getting ready then.”

Yeji turned on her heel, exiting the room with a pep in her step. You watched her leave, an astonished expression drawn on your features before yelling out, “You don’t even know if you can come!”

“I think from what you’ve told me… Jisung seems like a bit of a pushover!” She poked her tongue out cheekily. You so badly wanted to tackle her to the ground and tickle her for teasing you. Although, she was definitely correct about the pushover part. You sighed as you stood. Something told you that you were going to regret this.

It’d been at least thirty minutes and you were still staring at the invitation on the table. How hard was it to make a damn phone call? The pit in your stomach seemed to deepen with every exhale. Like something was trying to eat you up from the inside out. What’s the worst thing he could say? No? As if you’d take that to heart….

Why the hell did you suddenly care so much about what Jisung thought about you. Because he was also friends with Chan? Because you’d be seeing all the people from your past, including your former best friend? You were spiralling and you knew it. You tapped your nails against the marble bench, arguing with yourself. This wasn’t worth it.

“Fuck this shit.” You muttered under your breath. You snatched the invitation from the table, prepared to tear it in half.

“That better be a phone call your making right now!” Yeji called from her room. You chewed on your bottom lip, hesitating. The piece of cardboard fell onto the table once more. Fine. You’d call him then.

You frowned as you entered his number. Hovering your finger over the call button, you closed your eyes before you pressed it. It was like trying to rip a band aid off. You placed the phone on the bench. It rang once. Twice. Then a click signalled it’d been picked up. You chewed on your bottom lip, turning on your heel as you tried to guess what he’d say. It was on speaker phone.

“What’s up Y/N?”

You scurried to the bench, leaning over it. “How’d you know it was me?”

“I have your number still saved, remember that art project?” You could basically hear the smile in his voice. That’d put you at ease. Embarrassment instead dusting your cheeks with a deep scarlet.

“Oh.” You responded bashfully. “I was wondering if I could bring a plus one?”

“Yeah, no worries! It’s pretty laidback. Chan’s coming by the way I forgot to tell you when I was giving you the invitation…” Jisung trailed off, “You know the venue, right?”

You nodded, as if he could see it. “Yeah, it’s the rooftop bar right?”

“Yep! I’ll see you soon then. I’m glad you’re coming this time.” His reassurance caused your shoulders to relax.

“Yeah, me too.” You exhaled, a laugh following it. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all.

You were ridiculously underdressed. You wondered if anyone would’ve noticed if you ran back home to get changed into one of Yeji’s sophisticated dresses. What a dream that’d be.

Instead, you stood, dressed in a comfortable beige cardigan. Not the kind of beige that painted the facility walls…. It was more of an off-white. Who were you kidding yourself. It was definitely the same lifeless cream colour. The only saving grace was the little red stars that decorated the cuffs. You thought it was cute. Definitely not cute enough for a high school reunion. But still cute, nonetheless. Maybe you should’ve read the dress code… then again, what kind of high school reunion had a dress code.

Your head was all over the place. Absolutely frazzled. The black cargo pants hung off your figure, resting snugly around your hips. You were comfortable that’s all that should’ve mattered. Yeji on the other hand, was all dolled up. She was dressed in a smart leather trench coat. The statement checkerboard high-heeled boots really sold the look. You didn’t really want to be the one to stand out anyway.

The venue was nicer than you remembered it to be. Violet lights hung from the ceiling; they were shaped like crystals. The flames from the torches outside lit the faces of the people. Their expressions shining through the orange-red light. It felt warm… familiar. A contrast to the stark purple. You were already out of your comfort zone. A part of you wondered if you’d rather be sitting in the group therapy session instead. Suddenly those metal chairs didn’t seem so uncomfortable after all.

The room was open, too open for your liking. There were no walls you could hide behind, bar the hallway for the toilets. The smile that was on your face began to waver slightly. Yeji hadn’t noticed it. She was infatuated with the music playing, a smirk playing on her features.

The bartenders were laughing, showing off their tricks while people at the bar watched in awe. The corner of your lip upturned. Fuck all of your anxieties. You headed straight for the alcohol, ignoring how Yeji struggled to keep up with your pace. The social butterflies were out mingling, and mindless chatter filled the air. Nothing interesting enough for you to eaves drop.

You had one mission tonight; to get drunk enough to make you extroverted. You’d been sober for so long that you knew it was going to hit you like a truck. Yeah, maybe it was a little self-destructive, but who said it couldn’t be fun at the same time? As long as it eased your nerves. Right?

“Hey! Can I please get a raspberry vodka?” You yelled, leaning over the bench that was slightly sticky. Sliding over one of the chairs, you made yourself comfortable.

Yeji sent you a look. “You’re playing it safe tonight.”

You placed a hand over your chest dramatically. “I’m starting it off light!”

To be completely honest, you didn’t know how much you’d actually be able to handle tonight. But you wouldn’t tell her that. Yeji found the excitement on your face hilarious. The drink was placed in front of you. She thanked the bar tender for you.

“He’s kind of cute.” Yeji stated, sliding onto one of the bottle-top chairs. You weren’t one to judge a girl’s type, but he was not yours. You dipped your head, sipping on your drink slowly. The sweet taste caused your skin to goosebump. It’d been way too long since you last did this.

A strong pair of arms cornered you in the seat from behind. They rested their hands on the bench top, almost encasing you in a hug. Your eyes trailed up one of the arms, smiling as you recognised the Australian that spoke. “Long time no see.”

You swivelled around in your seat. “Chan?”

You took in his appearance. His right eyebrow was slit. Your eyes trailed to his nose, noticing the shiny jewellery he now donned. He looked good. Too Good. There was a tattoo that slithered down his neck, it piqued your interest. He flashed you a charming smile. “That’s my name don’t wear it out.”

There was the Chan you remembered. The relentless flirt he was. You’d both promised each other you wouldn’t cross that line. It’d only complicate things. A giggle fell past your lips as you leant your arms against the bar top. He still towered over you as you tilted your head slightly. He knew you were analysing him. He squinted momentarily before drawing back.

“I actually wasn’t expecting to see you here.” He chuckled, scratching the back of his neck almost awkwardly. The sincerity in his tone made you frown. Part of you was glad that you proved him wrong. “Jisung must’ve plead really hard huh?”

He seemed nervous. It was endearing. You responded sarcastically, a mischievous glint in your eye. “He was on his knees and everything!”

Chan shook his head, smiling to himself. You missed this banter. The type of banter where you didn’t have to worry about any repercussions. You were just about to introduce him to Yeji. Glancing around you realised you’d lost her. Chan noticed the worry that’d crawled onto your face.

He gestured for you to look to the right. A smirk crawled onto your features. Sure enough, Yeji was leaning over the bar, twirling her hair as she smooth talked the cute bar tender. You shook your head in disbelief. “She’s better at this than me.”

Chan chuckled at your revelation. “Call it ditto on that one.”

“As if you couldn’t pull Channie, don’t lie to yourself.” You stated, trailing your eyes from his waist to his defined arms and then his face. He almost looked flushed under your gaze. Embarrassed. You pursed your lips in amusement before redirecting the conversation, “Are all the guys here?”

“You that eager to see them again?” He jested. You rolled your eyes, fighting the urge to playfully push him out of the way. You couldn’t help but be a tad curious. After all, they were only boys when you knew them. Now it seemed like they were all men.

There was a nervous sort of flutter in the tone of your voice as you spoke, “Not necessarily, I’m surprised you actually approached me.”

A flash of hurt was evident on his face as he took in your words. You automatically wanted to apologise for your honesty. It was your own insecurities that’d made you say that. It was a bit of a low blow, even you could admit that. You tried to shrug the statement off, but you weren’t sure if he could as well.

“Well Minho’s late again.” Chan subtly changed the subject, wounded by your assumption about the friendship. “Doesn’t surprise me he always had an issue with being punctual.”

“Maybe he’s just trying to prove a point.”

“What point would that be.” Chan crossed his arms over his chest. Your eyes flickered to his flexed biceps. He’d definitely kept in shape in the last six years. You looked at his face again, hoping you hadn’t been caught ogling once more.

“Well he doesn’t need to listen to anyone but himself does he?” You pointed out, shrugging. “Unlike high school.” You mumbled the last part, taking a sip of your drink you’d nearly forgotten about. This conversation was way too sobering for you. You held up two fingers, signalling the bar tender once again for another refill.

“Let me take you over to the boys.” He held his hand out. You turned to finish the drink you were nursing, grabbing the extra one you’d ordered. You accepted his invitation, sliding your palm along his. Standing, you gripped onto his bicep as you quipped, “I’m sure they all barely remember me.”

You looked at him through your lashes as you sipped on the concoction, smiling smugly. He squinted down at you, “You downplay your influence.”

“Someone’s gotta keep me humble, may as well be myself.” You pushed against him, “And you haven’t been around so I gotta make up for it.”

He ran his tongue along his teeth, tutting softly. You tilted your head, watching how his expression changed. You felt a slight tingle in your fingers. Oh, this was not going to end well for you at all.

It was a little overwhelming. Being re-introduced to everyone in the friend group. Usually there were eight of them. As you trailed your eyes over the boys, you noticed one of them was missing. Definitely Minho.

“Y/N you came!” Jisung responded too earnestly, removing his hands from the shoulders of who you recognised as Felix and Hyunjin. Wow had they grown. They were all almost towering over you. “Where’s your plus one?”

Chan looked at you, an amused smile playing on his face. You glanced over your shoulder. “She’s a bit preoccupied flirting with the bartender.”

"Shame, she could be here flirting with me."

"Jisung—" You scolded him before turning to Felix. "How much has he had to drink?"

Felix chuckled, brushing back his frosty blue hair. "I've lost count to be honest." His admittance didn't exactly reassure you.

Eventually, the group had huddled around one of the many inviting couches. They were all playing some kind of stupid drinking game that involved taking items of clothing off. You were amazed that no one had been kicked out yet. Public indecency and all that.

The atmosphere was beginning to die down. Some people had already left. You on the other hand were lying down sideways on the couch with your head in Chan's lap. He ran his fingers through your hair, mindlessly fidgeting. He was nervous for his next turn, you could tell. You didn't mind it in the slightest. He'd been shirtless for a while now. You spared him the embarrassment and had your eyes closed. Partly because you were about three seconds away from dozing off with how relaxed you were.

Yeji had been chatting with the bar tender, who had now finished his shift. Part of you was amazed that she hadn't ditched the place and taken him back to the apartment. You smiled slightly, hoping she was having just as much fun as you were. You had forgotten how nice it was to socialise with like-minded people, dealing with anxiety and all.

"I'm gonna go to the bathroom I'll be back." You mumbled, patting Chan's thigh softly. As you sat up, you took a moment to reorient yourself. Yeah you'd definitely rather be sitting down right now. Chan nodded, helping you get up without stumbling. He almost wanted to follow you to make sure you were okay.

You probably should've looked where you were going. Scratch that. You definitely should've looked where you were going. You had just made it around the corner before you felt a cold liquid splash all down your front. A gasp fell from your lips. The sensation was ice cold. You felt like you watched the incident happen in slow motion. The burgundy wine that hadn't been absorbed by your beige cardigan was now dripping on the hardwood floor. Making an even bigger mess. Of course this would happen to you.

An uncontrollable amount of anger surged through your bones as your skin prickled with embarrassment. You gazed upward at the instigator through your eyebrows. Immediately, your gaze softened as you realised who it was. Minho.

His gaze was piercing. It was almost like he was staring through you, and not at you. His jaw was clenched. He held his now near empty glass close to his chest. For some reason, you felt the need to apologize. His hair was now a scarlet red. It matched the eyeliner he had on. The makeup was delicate, barely emphasising his eyes.

He noticed how your cheeks dusted pink. He wasn't sure if it was from drinking or the embarrassment. Plenty of people had seen the accident. His eyes flickered down to your chest, the wine had completely saturated your cream cardigan. Oh well, it wasn't his fault. He waited patiently for you to move.

"You should really look where you're going." You mumbled almost defeatedly.

He squinted, tilting his head in a cat-like manner. "You should really buy me a new drink."

He emphasized his statement by pushing his glass into your hand. You swallowed harshly, worried that his grip would break it. You stumbled back slightly. He roughly brushed past you. Making sure to throw more weight into his shoulder. Out of pure spite, you let go of the glass. Cringing slightly as it shattered on the ground. It was sobering to say the very least.

This is how you would get kicked out. This is how you wanted to leave. You were never good at social functions. You should've known that by now. Safe to say it was time to throw your cardigan out.

Oh, and what a great fucking way to reintroduce yourself.

60 notes · View notes

captain-joongz · 1 year ago

Text

Abraxas; Act 1, ch. 1

Pairing: mafia boss!Min Yoongi x police officer!reader

Genre: angst, humour and some fluff, investigative, dark themes, sloooooowburn, enemies to lovers, eventual smut

Chapter summary: As a new addition to the organized crime unit after a huge corruption scandal burnt through it, it definitely wasn't easy to seamlessly fill in and join the team. Tasked with menial shit and kept away from the actual investigation, my patience ran out after meeting the one man the unit was after, Min Yoongi, thus leading me to getting myself involved with one of the most dangerous men in the whole of Korea.

Everything is fair in love and war, isn't it? And this was war.

I would take him down, no matter what.

Word count: cca 26k

Warnings: reader is somewhat innocent and naive (in a sense that she's very idealistic), there will be brief reader x OC, but worry not, Yoongi is endgame, nothing much here, workplace sexism, some slight discussion of illegal stuff, description of the boys as criminals, reader is just a tiny bit obssesed with taking Yoongi down, some slight stalking (illegal tailing and stake out)

Series masterlist | Next Part

A/N: welcome to the first chapter of my new series! i have a ridiculously soft spot for mafia yoongi fics, so this is a child of me watching daechwita and haegeum too many times drooling over min yoongi himself, i hope that you stay with me throughout the entire ride and enjoy yourself as much as i did when writing this <3 i will attempt to update this every month, the semester is starting soon again but i'll be having less classes so i should be able to do it, take this love letter to long-haired yoongi <3

"That which is spoken by God-the-Sun is life; that which is spoken by the Devil is death; Abraxas speaketh that hallowed and accursed word, which is life and death at the same time. Abraxas begetteth truth and lying, good and evil, light and darkness in the same word and in the same act. Wherefore is Abraxas terrible."

- 3rd sermon, Seven Sermons to the Dead, Carl Jung

Winter, first year in the force

“Minjoon, for fuck’s sake! Move it!” the booming voice of Senior Inspector Park rang out through the station as the poor man in question scrambled to put on his jacket, grab his badge and gun and ran after him. When he was passing by my table, he sent me a little sympathetic smile and then hurried to catch up to our superior before he left to make the arrest without him.

I sighed heavily and then sulkily returned to filing away some old hand-written cases. It’s been 3 months since I’d been assigned to the Organised crime unit, fresh out of academy and full of hope to change the world for the better. The second I got my badge I sent in my application to SMPA, hoping to make it to violent crimes. Instead, I was pushed to this division. The official reason was because they were lacking manpower, which wasn’t exactly wrong, after what happened. But I knew what they were really trying to do – clean up after a huge scandal that broke through this unit just a few months before my joining, when several young policemen were caught tampering with evidence and reselling confiscated drugs. After a few tough rounds of investigation, three men were fired from this unit and several others from affiliated places.

That meant that when I walked through the door, all rosy cheeked and wonder eyed, excited to start my career, the reception was more than icy. Senior Inspector Park, who was in charge, barely ever spoke to me except for barking out orders, and I was almost never allowed to do any actual work, always confined to the office and left with tasks that no one else wanted to do. My colleagues were ranging from cold and reserved to actual full-blown assholes, happy to take advantage of young blood knowing I couldn’t say anything in return to my seniors. Except for Minjoon, who actually made effort to be cordial, everyone in this hellhole was insufferable. Thus, I pissed away my days filling out forms, cleaning out cabinets, cataloguing files and putting old files into the system.

I looked wistfully out of the window and just caught the sight of our team’s van leaving the parking lot of the station. It was an arrest pertaining to our current leading objective – an informant was finally able to gather enough evidence for us to be able to interview one of the higher standing members of a gang this unit was currently focusing on. They knew we most probably wouldn’t be able to keep him long, after all it wasn’t that substantial at all and his boss always found a way out of any arrests, but it was better than nothing – we’d annoy him at the very least. That’s what Park always said anyways – never let them forget you’re hot on their trail, even if it meant being a little petty.

I walked over to my computer and sat down. All I could do was wait.

It was a surprisingly short amount of time until Senior Inspector Park came barrelling through the door with three men hot on his tail dragging a tall, handcuffed man with them. Unlike what you’d expect from an arrested man, he had a serene expression on his handsome face to a point he almost looked smug, lazily walking and letting himself get pushed around by eager officers, not a hair out of place and his expensive suit looking absolutely pristine.

They briskly walked through the office space to the back hallway where the interrogation rooms were situated, not sparing a single glance to anyone still sitting by their computers. By the disinterested short glances of the present colleagues, it was obvious that this wasn’t that unusual here. I myself was a witness of similar arrests of members from this gang, but this was my first time seeing someone this high up. This wasn’t just anyone. It was Kim Namjoon.

With careful peeking around to see if anyone was looking my way, I made sure the coast was clear, and then curiously moved after them into the hallway. I walked to the very back and lingered for a moment by the door, gathering courage, before grasping the handle and confidently walking into the listening room. Park was sitting there with a senior detective by his side, watching as Minjoon and his partner prepared the computer to start their interrogation while Mr. Kim sat there looking bored. Park looked to the door and did a double take when he noticed it was me. A disapproving look etched itself onto his face and he was just about to say something when I beat him to it.

“Please, sir! I’d never been able to watch my colleagues during interrogations, I want to learn,” I pleaded with him, “I’ll be totally quiet, you won’t even know I’m here!” I clasped my hands together in a praying motion and gave him my best puppy eyes. He looked at me and it almost seemed as if he was considering my words, but then his face closed off again. My heart was beating against my chest as I waited for him to shut me down.

“Don’t you have anything to do?” he asked, and displeasure oozed out of him in suffocating waves. I shook my head. “I was just putting the files I’d been working on away when you returned.” He was just about to speak again when Minjoon in the other room suddenly cleared his throat and began talking to the eerily calm man, asking him basic questions about his personal information and occupation. That sufficiently claimed Park’s attention and he just waved at me and said “whatever, just be quiet”. I bowed to him even though his back was already turned to me but didn’t even dare to mutter a thank you in fear he’d throw me out for speaking.

When I was first assigned to this department, I was warned that this particular unit unfortunately was a sausage party – no female officers in sight. While my colleague’s distaste of me never really felt overtly sexist, I knew some of them doubted my capabilities as a female detective, and Park was definitely one of them. He didn’t shy away from speaking out about how he’d always worked only with men and male officers and how a woman in a unit full of men would only bring trouble and unnecessary drama. He never got over the fact that they pushed me on him and didn’t listen to his bullshit.

While none of them ever asked me to make them coffee or bring them lunch, I knew that they kept me occupied with work that they viewed as “softer” and “more suited for a woman”. It infuriated me to no end, but I just needed an opportunity to showcase my skills. I didn’t need their approval; I just wanted to fully do my job and not be stuck at a desk all day.

I knew one day I’d get that. No matter what it took, I would make it happen.

I was brought out of my reverie by a shockingly deep voice that struck me to my core as I was wholly unprepared for it. Kim Namjoon, who was completely silent until now and only nodded along or hummed, had finally started talking. I didn’t catch the question and I barely made out what Mr. Kim said in answer, but my attention zeroed in on him in a second and refused to let go. I knew who he was very well, after all, his picture along with several others was hanging on our wall in the meeting room, all connected to each other with strings, intel and many, many cases we were trying to push against them. I’d see him every morning when I walked in, every time I went to the toilet or for lunch and every evening when I was leaving.

But in his picture, he looked very different – hostile and angry, with a face full of fresh bruises from a recent fight, miles away from the suave self-assured man currently occupying the room in front of us. He had a domineering aura to him and even if he was supposed to be here as a suspect, he gave off the vibe like he wanted to be here more than anywhere else. In a sick twisted way, he fascinated me to no end. I’d seen mobsters before, petty thieves and drug dealers, tatted up, with foul mouths and hands dirtied by crime, but this man was a whole different class with his sharp eyes and sneering mouth, dangerous in a way that made the hair on my arms stand up. He knew how to mask his violence and that made him even more terrifying.

“I see that you have a law degree,” said Minjoon cooly and I saw Mr. Kim subtly roll his eyes, “Is the work you do for him pertaining to that?”

“We talk about this every time we see each other,” he answered coldly, “You know I have a degree. You also know that I currently work in accounting. You have my file memorised to a point that you probably know my measurements better than I do. Let’s not waste time with pointless bullshit.”

“Accounting is a very broad concept,” Minjoon didn’t let himself be intimidated and matched his indifferent attitude, “I want to know what exactly your line of work is.” Mr. Kim looked at him and put on the fakest smile I’ve ever seen.

“I’m sorry, officer, what is my arrest pertaining to exactly? Why are these questions relevant to whatever you brought me here for?” he said in a professional voice, his eyes glinting in challenge.

I stayed there and watched their back and forth for whole two hours. The whole time Minjoon drove hard questions about the exact nature of Mr. Kim’s work while the said man played hot and cold with him, teasing him with little remarks and then returning to cold professionalism or prolonged periods of confident silence. I learnt that the intel they’d been delivered this morning was a vague allusion to certain tactics of tax evasion that were closely related to his boss’s smuggling activities. But all these were easily deconstructed by Mr. Kim in a matter of seconds.

It seemed that everyone involved (even Mr. Kim himself) already knew that though and judging by Park’s intense focus on Mr. Kim’s mannerisms and speech, this was about something completely different. As I found myself splitting my attention between the lawyer’s fascinating dance and my own superior’s complete interest, I realised that he was studying him. He was learning him. And for the first time, since this was the first time I saw him in action, I felt real respect towards the older man and his dedication to his work. This wasn’t even about being annoying, it was a purely academic endeavour. I found myself lightly laughing at the revelation.

Behind the glass Mr. Kim was running the two officers in circles, never surrendering any new information and only regurgitating bits and pieces we already knew in different context, and I could see how exhausted Minjoon was becoming.

I was stepping around by the door, alleviating a certain leg to ease the pain and discomfort of standing for such a long time, also nearing my limit, when Park leaned closer to the mic, pressed the button and said: “take a 10, let’s talk”. Hearing that, Minjoon and his partner stood up and with unfriendly smiles thanked the clever lawyer for his cooperation. They left the room and in a minute they were pushing into the listening room.

When Minjoon stepped in and saw me, he looked surprised for a split second and then gave me a kind smile, which I returned, while his partner stared rather impolitely. Park didn’t pay attention to any of that, eyes never leaving the sole man in the interrogation room, who was now leaning back on the chair and picking his nails in a bored manner.

“As expected, as a lawyer he’s skilled at this,” Park muttered, “What a talented prick, if we didn’t know it already, I bet we wouldn’t be able to get even his name out of him.” The officer sitting next to him finally spoke for the first time.

“Still,” he argued, “this is the first time we’ve managed to actually get him to the station. It means something. Min’s gonna be pissed.” At the mention of the name, Park smiled animatedly and nodded quite happily. I tried to blend into the wall while I watched the men converse and try to come up with a new strategy.

“It’s clear questioning him leads nowhere,” Minjoon added to the convo, “He doesn’t even seem bothered by it. Just look at him. He has all the patience and time in the world.” He motioned to the glass and the man sitting calmly behind it.

“I’m not surprised, he’s had years of experience dodging the police like this. Fucker’s barely thirty and yet has already spent more than a decade covering up his boss’s mess. That’s more than I’ve spent in academy and the force combined.” We all turned to look at Minjoon’s partner, officer Hwang, who was dispiritedly leaning on the doorframe. He was right, but Park didn’t seem to be put off by that.

“That’s how it works here in this unit,” he said firmly, “You sometimes spend years just to get a chance at arresting someone. We’ve been working on this for almost a year and we’re already starting to get somewhere, but this is only the beginning. We need to learn how they work and that takes time.” No matter what my personal opinion was on him, I could see that Park was truly an experienced detective when it came to organised crime. I made a mental note to myself to pay attention to what he says carefully and learn.

They talked for a little while longer when suddenly a commotion was heard back in the office space of the station. We all looked at each other, some more surprised than others. Park got up and pushed his way out into the hallway. As he was passing me, I heard him quietly mutter “here we go” as if this was the main point of the evening. And I quickly realised why.

When I also pushed my way into the hallway and peeked over Minjoon’s shoulder, I was able to see a man confidently making his way through the station flagged by two others. Before I had a chance to gasp at the sudden appearance, he’d already stormed all the way to us.

Just like with Kim Namjoon, seeing his face on a picture on our wall every day could never prepare me for the experience that meeting Min Yoongi was. I was beginning to curse the people who chose the pictures, because they were clearly dangerously understating these men’s aura. With longer black wavy hair, sleek black jacket, black tee and ripped jeans, standing there looking both incredibly angry and incredibly bored, was one of the most dangerous men in this city and the man Kim Namjoon called master. As did half of the city’s criminals. To an ordinary person he was just a businessman, an owner of a few clubs and, recently added, a hotel in the posher area of Seoul, but to us he was a leader of a gang that rose in power and ranks so rapidly it was like witnessing a wildfire. The blink-and-half-the-forest-is-gone kind.

I’d never met him before, and judging by officer’s Hwang flabbergasted expression, I wasn’t the only one, but the man in question barely paid any of us attention. He walked up to Park as if they were old friends, cruel annoyed smile on his face.

“Here I am!” he proclaimed in a faux sweet voice and threw his hands into the air, “That what you wanted? You come into my house and steal my things when I’m not looking now?” Park returned his smile in a similar manner. He was extremely pleased at having pissed off the man to this extent.

“Mr. Kim was lawfully retained due to suspicions of illegal activity,” he answered the man, “He was arrested in one of your clubs.” Min Yoongi’s eyes minutely flitted over to me and there was a tiny spark of surprise and then interest.

“Huh, you’ve got fresh blood here?” he asked all jokes and games, “How come I’ve never met her, isn’t that like a rite of passage here? Coming to see Uncle Yoongi?” He waved at me and laughed like he was encountering a cute animal in the wild. I felt the anger coursing through me, but I knew this wasn’t the situation to lose my cool, so I just scoffed and turned away from him. He fake pouted and then put his attention back on my senior, suddenly turning all serious again. Watching his moods swing was like trying to keep up with a bouncy ball in an empty room.

“Whatever, just release my man,” he said firmly, “You know that anything you came up with to get him here is bogus, so just let him go and I’ll let this slide.”

“How gracious of you,” Park gritted through his teeth. Tensions were beginning to brew between them, and the more annoyed Min Yoongi was, the more teeth showed in his wolfish grin. Just when I thought the whole building was just going to combust, Minjoon stepped in.

“We are legally allowed to keep him here for eight hours at the minimum,” he said calmly, “It’s only been two and a half.” The man’s whole attention shifted to my colleague and, standing behind him, I saw how all-consuming it was to be at the centre of Min Yoongi’s focus. His intense stare and dangerous smile only deepened having noticed just how much he was throwing me off balance. I knew he was getting off on intimidating people and I tried to not give him the satisfaction, but suddenly coming face to face with him, I wasn’t prepared to withstand it, especially since he was so intimately familiar with our entire force that a new face stuck out to him like a sore thumb.

“I know that,” he retorted sharply, “But he wasn’t brought here to be questioned. He was brought here because he-“ Yoongi pointed in Park’s direction “-wanted to know how long before I showed up to bail him out. So, here I am. Release him.” Minjoon looked at our superior with questioning eyes, but he only nodded.

“Let Mr. Kim go, we got everything we needed from him,” he smiled pleasantly in Min Yoongi’s direction, “Have a nice day Mr. Min.” With that he moved back into the office. Mr. Min’s attention once again shifted to me and Minjoon, watching with rapt interest as he moved towards the interrogation room, and I followed him like a loyal shadow. The moment the door opened, Mr. Kim was already hallway outside, coming to his boss and giving him a half hug. Neither of them said anything, they just shared an amused smile at our expense and then turned around to leave with cheeky smiles. As Min Yoongi was rounding the corner, he winked my way. Absolutely flabbergasted by his behaviour, I couldn’t get the encounter out of my head for the entire rest of the day.

While much of Min Yoongi’s childhood was a mystery to us, we had a pretty good idea of what his life was like since around he was 16. So, a good decade of criminal life. As a young teen, he started an apprenticeship as an underling of one of the former ruling gang’s top men, and basically was brought up by him into the man he was today. While the old royalty was torn apart in succession wars after the old master died and his four sons all decided they should be the sole heir, Min Yoongi started up with his own few loyal followers, all who today are his most trusted closest subordinates. With cruelty, tenacity and violence, he took the city by the storm and before they knew it, he was ruling most of it. Too caught up in trying to kill each other, neither of them reacted fast enough to stop young Yoongi’s rise to power. Today, with the original gang wiped out, his was undoubtedly the one at the top of the food chain.

He started with one club and now he owned several of the most prestigious clubs in the city, making enough money to buy him a hotel and finally catapult him into the sphere of honest business. In hindsight, it was pretty stupid of me to show up to one of them to “scope it out”.

Peeved by our last (and first) interaction and driven by the need to prove myself to my unit, I’d decided that the way to go was start right on his turf and dig around. I’d believed that with how much business he had to take care of, both legal and not, there’s no way I’d show up at the right club at the right time to actually meet him there. How foolish. They did always say that he stayed at the top by working endlessly, stupid of me to not actually take that into account.

I didn’t even know how I managed to actually get into the club, considering the long waiting list and lines outside, it was a miracle one Friday evening I found myself sitting inside Dynamite, one of his clubs, watching everything go on like a hawk.

I knew this was something that was rarely accomplished by the people in our unit. Maybe a few months ago they had the liberty to sneak onto his territory, but currently he knew very well about our interest in him, and everyone associated with our unit quickly got blacklisted from half the establishments around the area, owned by Yoongi or not.

I knew that anything pertaining to illegal activity would definitely be taking place in the VIP zone with private booths and waiters, so getting there was the actual challenge. Somewhat foolishly I decided to just try my luck and think of the plan as it went. Little did I know just how easily I’d manage to get invited in.

I was just sitting there minding my own business when I felt a presence next to me. At first, I thought nothing of it, thinking they’re probably just trying to catch the barman’s attention, but suddenly I felt them press into my personal space. I sighed, annoyed, turning around to send whatever sleazy flirt that was trying to get into my pants to hell, when my breath caught in my throat. Sitting next to me, leaning on the bar with a million-watt smile was none other than the owner himself. I cursed every god in existence and three generations of their ancestors and steeled myself for what was coming.

“Didn’t expect to see a police officer letting loose in one of my clubs,” he drawled out playfully, “They all know which ones to avoid. I suppose you’re either stupid or up to no good.” I rolled my eyes to him and turned back to look onto the dancefloor.

“My friend insisted we go here,” the lied slipped through my lips easily, but by Yoongi’s smirk I knew he didn’t believe me one bit. “Oh, and where does this friend happen to be right now? As far as I could see, you’ve been just sitting here glaring,” he laughed at me lightly, as if we were just two friends teasing each other.

“Do you have a habit of watching partygoers like a creep?” I bit back at him, annoyed at being sniffed out so quickly. What are even the chances of him being at this exact club the night I decided to snoop? Something not of God was on this man’s side to arrange a coincidence like that.

“No,” Yoongi answered with a teasing lilt, “But I do happen to remember faces very well. Two weeks ago, you’d slip right by me, but now I know you’re an officer.” I cursed under my breath, and he laughed again. Then he stood up and turned to me. Suddenly a hand was offered to me.

“Come on,” he said, this time a little more serious, “Let’s talk.” I ignored his hand but stood up to follow him. He snickered and started in the direction of the VIP zone. We were currently on the ground floor, which was the general area with a dance floor dominating the centre of the room. The VIP zone was situated on a little gallery overlooking the ground floor.

The flashing lights, bass boosted music and mass of moving sweaty bodies made it difficult to orientate myself in the space, but I kept my eyes on the back of Yoongi’s head as he leisurely made his way through the crowd like he had no worry in the world. He led me to stairs that were cordoned off by red velvet rope, with two very big and very angry men standing on each side. When they saw Yoongi coming near, they both put on professional smiles and bowed wordlessly. He didn’t react to them in any way, just waited till they let him through patiently. As I walked in behind him, they both stared me down as if I was about to jump on Yoongi and stab him right in front of them.

I knew this was probably my only and last chance to get a look around this place, since after being found out I’d definitely get blacklisted just like all the other police officers, so I hungrily scanned the VIP zone and tried to take in all the details. It was very dark there; some booths were out in the open while some had curtains and it was surprisingly packed with people. Waiters were busily buzzing around, serving drinks and appetizers, hum of conversations and laughter carried through the space comfortably. At first glance, you couldn’t see anything wrong or illegal going on, just young people having fun, but I knew better than to trust that.

I followed Yoongi through the area all the way to the back, where one corner was similarly cordoned off. The couches and tables were situated in a way that allowed a little more privacy and separated the space a little from the rest of the people. This must have been his personal lounge.

He made himself comfortable smack in the middle of one of the couches and I timidly sat on an armchair right across him, with a small table between us. Immediately waiters descended onto the space, bringing in plates of appetizers, most probably assuming all kinds of crazy shit since Yoongi brought a woman to his personal zone. The man in question was nonchalantly asking for some cocktail and acting as if this was a completely normal situation and I wasn’t the police. I declined his offer for alcohol and just uncomfortably sat there, watching him settle in.

He gestured to the food and said: “Do you mind if I dig in? I haven’t eaten the whole day.” I gave him a polite smile and told him to go ahead. Yoongi started filling his plate, sharp eyes watching my every move while offering me various food items with annoying courteousness, smirk in place on his lips cause he knew just how much he was pissing me off. It was absolutely crazy – here I was, small-talking with a man I was trying to get behind bars.

Then I had to sit there while he enjoyed himself with his appetizers. When the silence stretched enough to become awkward, I started losing my patience.

“Have you brought me here to watch you eat?” I barked out annoyed, crossing my arms in front of my chest and leaning back into the chair. He looked up from his plate with a little amused smirk. Then he finally put it down.

“Why exactly are you here, officer?” he got straight to the point, “What are you hoping to accomplish?” He mirrored me and leaned back into the couch, his form slouching comfortably with hands laying on his thighs.

“Isn’t that obvious?” I answered, sudden insecurity taking a hold of me. Why was I supposed to explain myself to this guy? He smiled and this time it wasn’t as ferocious.

“I fail to see how this helps in your divine plan to put me under.”

Truth is, I didn’t know either. I was angry and frustrated that nobody was taking me seriously, the encounter with him last week only serving to push me further over the edge. I didn’t know how this was supposed to help, I just knew I needed to do something. Anything. It was better than just endlessly sitting behind a computer typing away. I had to do something that would put me on the radar in my unit and if it involved humbling Min Yoongi a little bit, I was all in.

Truth was, no matter how much I didn’t want to admit it, I was shaken by him. Seeing in flesh this fabled monster, having him stare and smirk at me while he shamelessly strutted around a police station as if he was untouchable, it took everything in me to hold up under his scrutiny. But now, sitting across from him and returning him the favour, I felt some control slowly trickling back into my hands and it calmed me.

He was watching me contemplate with rapt attention and suddenly I was reminded of the prickly feeling of having his eyes trained solely on you. They were dark, so much darker than in the bright daylight in the middle of a police station, and all-consuming in a way I’d never encountered before. It felt as if he was reaching straight into the centre of my being and pulling, pulling something out of me. I shook my head subtly and looked away.

When I failed to answer him or defend myself, he sighed.

“Look, I’m saying this, because you seem like a really naïve genuine person,” he started, “Take this advice to heart – don’t bite off more than you can chew just to stick it to some old guy. This is a dangerous place for people like you, don’t get pulled under.” Now that made me angry. Somewhere deep down I realised that my stubbornness actually was putting me in danger and that I was stupidly jumping headfirst into things that could be my end, but I was so done with getting treated as a fragile little thing.

“Whatever do you mean by that?” I answered him prickly and sat more defensively. Yoongi looked at me and for a moment I could see a glint of something almost melancholic there, but then he was all wild grins and suave demeanour again.

“Let me speak frankly for a moment,” he said and winked conspiratorially, “You decided to single-handedly take down a whole gang, allegedly, that controls half the city, allegedly, because your superior is a sexist pig, that doesn’t seem like biting off more than you can chew to you?” Every time he said the word “allegedly” he smirked a little and I could see he was having fun playing around with me like this. I smirked right back at him and leaned forward until I had my elbows resting on my knees.

“Who said anything about single-handedly? That’s what teams are for,” I whispered teasingly, “Why do you even assume it has anything to do with Senior Inspector Park?” I tried to mask the genuine emotion, but he still must have realised that one was actually spot-on.

“I’ve known Park for quite some time,” he explained and leaned forward as well, “Heard about him a long time ago, been seeing him here and there for years and then been in personal contact with him for about a year now. He’s an excellent policeman, no doubt about it, but even I know he’s a shit person. He lives for his work, but in personal life he’s a jerk.”

“He’s a jerk at work too,” I couldn’t help myself and muttered. To that Yoongi laughed lightly, eyes gleaming at me. “Should I be asking how you even know about his behaviour outside of work?” I quipped in quickly.

“I’d be stupid if I didn’t run some basic checks on people that are hell-bent on making my life difficult,” he answered me with a dangerous glint in his eyes, but quickly relaxed again. I found myself tensing up and relaxing alongside with him. The realisation that talking with him was like constantly walking on ice and hoping that even though you hear cracks you won’t fall in, hit me square in the face and put me off balance again. He kept effortlessly flip-flopping between joking and being serious and I was starting to get whiplash from it. I decided to leave this subject behind.

“So, what is your advice exactly?” I returned to the previous topic, “To just let you go and leave you to your little crime syndicate? Live happily ever after knowing you’re out there?” He snickered at that.

“No, you can do whatever you want,” he said, “I’m just warning you to be careful. This, this space right here, it has its own rules. It’s very easy to end up badly.” It didn’t feel like a threat even though it may have been worded like one, imagine my shock when I recognised actual genuine emotion behind his words. Instead of shying away from it, I bored my eyes into him just as intensely as he did to me.

“Rules or no rules, no one is above the law, not even you, Mr. Min,” I told him prickly. He smiled at me sardonically and then sighed again, but this time it was more amused.

“Since you’re someone that spent most of their life studying the law, I’m surprised you still haven’t realised that it’s quite useless,” he laughed and I could see the switch in him, becoming meaner and smiling cruelly, “The only thing that law does is fuck over those who are already in a bad place and benefit those who are already in a good spot.” He laughed mirthlessly and continued. “No one is above the law? Oh, my dear, many people are above the law. All you need is money and power and not even God can touch you on this mortal plane.” I took full offense to his words, feeling the anger overpower my instinct trying to tell me this man could potentially be extremely dangerous.

“Spoken like a true criminal,” I spit out venomously, “That’s a load of bull.” Yoongi’s eyes flashed minutely and then he relaxed into the couch again with a lazy smirk full of sharp edge. His hand suddenly pointed somewhere behind me. “You see that guy? That one in the striped shirt?” he asked.

For a moment I debated whether I should turn my back to him or not, but my curiosity overpowered me. Steeling myself for potentially getting attacked from behind, I turned and searched in the crowd of people. There, a little to my left, was sitting a group of young men. Each of them had a girl or two by their side, they drank and laughed and looked exactly like the kind of company I’d never want to find myself in. One of them, sitting on the far edge of the couch facing me, was wearing a horrible unfashionable striped shirt. I turned back to Yoongi with a queasy stomach.

“Yeah, I think I see him,” I told him suddenly quietly, unsure of where the conversation was going. Yoongi leaned forward to me again as if he was about to tell me a great secret.

“He could walk over here, steal your gun, then walk outside and shoot someone straight between their eyes in front of a street full of people, and you wouldn’t be able to charge him with anything. You wanna know why? His father sits in the parliament. Before you knew it, he’d be skiing in the Alps while you faced losing your badge because you crossed a politician.” Yoongi smiled at me triumphantly and my stomach swooped again.

“This kid comes here four times a week, each night breaking at least five different laws at a time,” Yoongi continued meanly, “and the most trouble he’s ever gotten into with the law was a parking ticket his father took care of for him.” He waited for a moment to see whether I’d react, but when I stayed silent, he went on. “Go ahead and arrest him, officer. Go over there and pull out your badge and bring him into the station with you. If you test him now, you’ll probably find every drug that’s available on the street in his system. But I guarantee you, you won’t be able to keep him there longer than two hours before you’ll be steam-rolled by his family’s lawyers.” He threw his arms into the air in a pompous gesture.

“Look around here. This place, it doesn’t work because I came here and brought crime with me, no. I sprung up here, because they needed a space to do rank shit in. You could bring me out back, shoot me in the head execution style, and tomorrow you’d be sitting back in that chair talking to the same clown in different clothes. The way this goes is that you find a spot that works, and you grab onto it, and you hold on for dear life until someone either kills you or puts you away. I’m like mold, darling, wherever there’s a place damp, cold and dark enough, there I will grow. I’m a product of the people. Not the other way around.” I felt bile in my mouth as I looked around the area and saw the little evidence of illegal activities. Girls too scantily clad and flirty to not be working, powdery smudges on the tables, prints of guns under jackets. Behind me, Yoongi kept going on in his spiel.

“You put me behind bars, and tomorrow there’s going to be the same guy doing the same shit in the same place. The people will keep coming here and they will keep doing their thing here, it doesn’t matter to them who runs it, as long as they can fuck and get high in here.”

I turned back to him, and he was just sitting there like a king of the underworld, sardonic grin on his face while he looked over his hard work. He was beautiful and terrifying at the same time and there was something demonic about him in this dark lightning with shadows dancing over his face and cruel lips curved around sharp teeth. I felt my throat close up as panic seized me, shaking hands gripping onto the armchair to attempt and get some stability. My stomach was protesting, and I feared I might throw up if I stayed there a second longer.

“You’re disgusting,” I whispered. He smirked.

“And you’re naïve.”

I got up, turned around and left without looking back. Still, I felt his eyes burning into me all the way home.

I was soullessly staring into the computer, hopelessly trying to focus on my work, but instead I kept coming up short. My mind was elsewhere, unable to comprehend anything that was written in front of me. The fateful meeting with Yoongi had already happened a few days ago, but I still haven’t shaken off the effect of it.

His words, as cruel and self-righteous as they were, I knew there was truth to them. And I knew I had to do something about it. I had to do something about Min fucking Yoongi and his empire. So, as shaken as I was by the encounter, it also served to make me more determined. I’d help to bring him down, no matter what.

I stood up from my table and made my way across the office to the meeting room. I wouldn’t be able to do any work anyway, not right now when I was too pumped with adrenaline to focus on anything. I walked in and bee-lined for the back wall, which was covered in pictures and papers. Dominating in the centre was a picture of Yoongi. He was younger there, with short, bleached hair and face still a little plump from adolescence, but I could already see the signature smirk forming on his lips. Under him there were six more pictures, one of them Kim Namjoon which I had met for the first time a little over a week ago. Those were those closest to him, his friends who each monitored a different part of the gang’s activites.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much information on them beyond a few years back. Yoongi himself emerged out of nowhere when he was 16 and made a dent out for himself. At that time, he already knew Namjoon, God knows how. Together they quickly climbed the ranks of the Song gang, which was ruling over Seoul at that time. Back then, they were already notoriously known for their violence and determination, which made them favourites of the gang’s higher ups. They were also quite liked by the underdogs and quickly a group started forming around them. They were Yoongi’s loyalists and this… this was most likely the moment he realised he can soar even higher.

When the Song gang was falling apart, just like war strategy dictates, it was a matter of knowing whose side to take. Between four sons, two were on par, one knew he could only survive by hugging the thigh of the strongest and one was barely hanging on. If Yoongi chose his loyalties correctly, he could gain a lot. If he chose poorly…

But he didn’t. He took Namjoon and their dogs and together they stormed an “enemy” club – it was recently acquired by one of the brothers. He won the fight of course, and then brought the keys to Song Hwan, the weaker of the two winning brothers. He wormed his way in – offered his intel, his expertise and whispered poison in his ear. Every win he got for Hwan was actually a win for Yoongi himself and through Hwan he started laying base for his own road to power. Long before Hwan fell, most of the gang was already following Yoongi’s lead.

When the war ended and Song Hwan stood victorious, Yoongi murdered him and stole his throne. He went on a bloody rampage against everyone that didn’t support him and from the blood and fire emerged a new gang, a stronger gang, and at its centre – the devil himself with his six. That was seven years ago.

It wasn’t all sunshine and roses at the beginning though. His territory was contended often – others saw it as an opportunity to steal turf right from under his nose, and it took a long time before his gang was respected in the scene. They thought him to be a child that won by pure luck and love for killing, that he’d be easily taken down, either by one of them or one of his own. But he stood his ground and time and time again he proved himself, until there wasn’t a single person in this city that didn’t know he owned it. These were Min Yoongi’s streets, painted with blood, sweat and tears.

That’s when he started coming up on this unit’s radar until he gradually became the sole focus, the main purpose, the goal.

I stared intently at the mess of strings all connecting together people, events, news and crimes. Missing persons, corruption, arrests, murders, intel, dirt. It was all there, black on white. I reread the headers of the articles, the names of files and the accusations until I was dizzy and could barely make any sense of it.

After what felt like hours, I was brought out of my reverie by the sound of the door opening. I jumped a little and turned around quickly, an excuse hot on my tongue, but relaxed once I realised it was Minjoon.

“What’s up? Jae said you’ve been standing here just staring at the wall for whole 40 minutes,” he said in lieu of greeting and I blushed with embarrassment. So they saw me, I thought nobody here was paying attention to me. I peeked over my shoulder where some of our colleagues were curiously glancing our way. I frowned. Should have closed the blinds, I thought to myself.

“Just… catching up, refreshing the information,” I explained lamely and sat down at the table, still with a perfect view of the cursed wall. He hummed and leaned his back on the table. For a moment we just quietly existed there, side by side studying it.

“What’s with the sudden interest?” he asked a little hesitantly, “Not that I want to discourage you.” I sighed.

“It’s not sudden,” I muttered a little petulantly, “I’ve been coming here from time to time, I just mostly did it when no one else could see. Felt like I wasn’t really allowed to look at it.” He smiled a little at my attitude and went around the table to sit at my side.

“Why not? I think it’s great you’re outwardly showing interest.”

“Just- You know, it doesn’t feel like I’m welcomed here, I didn’t want to overstep.” He hummed again, but kept his eyes trained in front of us.

“So, what’s changed now?” he asked the question of the hour, fingers drumming a pattern into the table.

“I’m done with that,” I said firmly, glancing his way, “I am part of this unit, I’m staying and I’m solving this fucking mystery. I’m taking Min Yoongi down and I’m gonna be looking straight in his eyes the entire time I’ll be tearing his life apart.” Minjoon next to me chuckled, amused by the sudden turn of attitude.

“That’s quite charming,” he hummed again and finally turned to look at me. We both grinned at each other.

“You know… I understand,” he started hesitantly after a moment of silence. We both focused back on the wall and Yoongi’s picture in the centre of it was like a magnet – no matter what you did, you found yourself drawn to it. With slight reluctance I tore my eyes away from it to look at Minjoon questioningly.

“I mean… this, I understand this,” he stated more firmly and gestured between me and the wall, “I was also quite distraught the first time I met him face to face. He has a way of messing with you. It’s a mix of everything, I mean, you go months hearing about the atrocities of this one man, and then suddenly he’s there, right in front of you. And he just stares and stares and stares while talking calmly, too calmly for the crimes that he’s being investigated for. It’s unnerving. So, I understand.”

I knew exactly what he meant. It was the same feeling I had with Namjoon too – you know what they’re capable of, you’ve heard of their crimes and when you see them, you can almost feel the danger in the air, but the violence is hidden just beneath the surface. Sometimes you see it peek out momentarily in flashes of sharp teeth and slanting eyes, but then they reign it in and just play with you again.

“Well, yeah, meeting him was jarring,” I conveniently omitted having met him just a few days ago too, “but it’s not just about that. I just don’t want to be underestimated anymore.” He smiled at me, a real genuine smile, and it warmed me knowing at least someone here was on my side.

“But you joined the team before the whole Yoongi thing, no?” I asked suddenly. For a moment he was confused where this question came from, but then brightened up.

“Just barely,” he answered earnestly, “You joined like three months ago? In early September, right? For me, a one-year anniversary is actually coming up, I joined in December last year. It was just as all the shit was going down. They were investigating mainly this mid-size gang in Incheon that was wreaking havoc in the harbours and steadily rising in power. There was a lot of corruption in that area, and they managed to snatch control over some ports. The unit had been working on it for about two years and were super close to an arrest, but it went bust. The guy fled, a question about the corruption in the force rose and an investigation into our guys started. That’s when I joined.” I hummed in sympathy. That must have been extra rough. I told him as much and he gave me a thankful smile.

“It wasn’t easy. When I asked to be transferred, I thought everything in this department was okay, then I walk in and suddenly I’m in the middle of a botched two-year operation, forever lost suspect and a lawsuit waiting to happen,” Minjoon kept talking, “Within few weeks, the three guys had been suspended and a more in-depth investigation was promised. The case was lost, the boss had managed to flee somewhere south, most likely Malaysia, so it was put on a backburner and instead an open case that was sitting on someone’s table, slowly piling up more evidence, was brought forth. That was the Min gang. Two teams had already been tasked with looking into it and when it was confirmed that the previous case was dead, they made it a priority.”

I jumped in quickly to ask more questions. I’d never asked Minjoon about his time in the force before and till today I didn’t even know he was here only a year. He was always Park’s first choice to everything concerning Min Yoongi and he relied on Minjoon and his partner Hwang a lot, so I assumed he must be one of the more experienced members of this unit.

“Where were you stationed before?” I asked curiously and put my attention on him instead of messing with the wall.

“I was part of the drug prevention team,” Minjoon clarified and gave me a grin, “I was one of those fools they dress up nicely and send into schools to warn kids. It’s still a part of the force, but it’s a dead-end spot and you don’t actually do much, at most you here and there deal with some petty criminals selling weed on the street. It’s usually where older policemen go when they want to have some peace and quiet before retirement, it’s not the best place to start your career. But thanks to that I was able to make it here, cause my expertise on illicit substances was a big plus.”

“I see,” I laughed, “You’re right, that is pretty much a dead end. I didn’t even know they assigned youngsters there.”

“Well, they try to, because kids are nicer to them and they take it easier from someone closer to their age,” he explained, “Some graduates actually do ask for the position, but I was trying to get here and didn’t make the cut.” He was still smiling kindly and occupied himself by playing with the string on his hoodie.

“I was actually trying for the violent crimes unit,” I confessed quietly. I’d never told that to anyone here. Besides the fact that they absolutely weren’t interested in such information, I was also kind of scared they’d be acting even more hostile since I “clearly didn’t even want to be here”. “I got sent here because of understaffing problem,” I continued.

He looked at me and didn’t react in any way, just leaned back and said: “Oh yeah, we do work with them quite often. Can’t have organised crime without violent crime. If you survive it here for some time and make a little name for yourself, I’m sure it would be easier for you to transfer. But a lot of people strive for violent crimes, so it’s kinda cutthroat to get there.” I relaxed at his words and finally smiled back fully.

“Yeah, maybe I could make it there if I help with Yoongi,” I muttered and focused back on the wall, “I’m sure, considering his reputation, that violent crimes have their hands full with him.” Minjoon stood up and walked over to it. He raised his hand softly tapped on a poster of a missing man.

“Actually, unfortunately it’s more about missing people,” he said, “He has a great clean-up team, it’s super messed up.” His hand moved downwards and this time he tapped on a picture of two men. “You know these guys?” he asked absentmindedly.

On the photo, there were two incredibly familiar faces. One man a bit taller, with wide shoulders, dressed in a nice suit, his perfectly sculpted face in a neutral expression and framed by light brown hair. By his side there was the second man – a bit shorter but with much fiercer displeased expression. His hair was cut into a mullet and the hair just about touched his shoulders; he was clad in a fitted black turtleneck that gave away his strong lean muscles.

Of course I knew them. In this whole building there most probably wasn’t anyone who didn’t know them. Actually, I’d argue that in this entire city only a few people had the pleasure of not knowing.

“I’d be an embarrassment of a police officer if I didn’t,” I joked at him, “It’s Kim Seokjin and Jung Hoseok, they’re part of Min’s six.” Minjoon smiled approvingly.

“Tell me everything you know about them,” he challenged, teasing, “Shoot.” I gave him a wolfish grin as excitement coursed through me. He was giving me a chance to show I’d really been studying this case. I sat on the table and made myself comfortable.

“Kim Seokjin studied medicine and has a degree. He poses as the main seven’s personal physician, but the assumption is that he most probably deals with all wounds of anyone from the gang that were sustained during any illegal activities that cannot be taken into hospital. He owns a house up in Gangnam, just a few streets from Yoongi himself, and has a clinic there. He’s the second son of a pretty wealthy family, his record’s completely clear and it’s unknown how exactly he came to know Yoongi or became involved with crime.” I looked at Minjoon from the corner of my eye and he was just humming, but there was a pleased smile on his face. That gave me courage to continue.

“Jung Hoseok on the other hand, has been arrested several times for assault or causing bodily harm while getting into fights, but never prosecuted. Then he went off radar only to reappear a few years later as a part of illegal fighting rings. He quickly rose through the ranks and was a champion for three years straight. But that also means he most probably killed a lot of people, since these fights only end when one of the two fighters drops dead. It’s presumed that’s where he met Yoongi and became familiar with him.”

Minjoon nodded along and patted my shoulder. “Good job, newbie, you really did spend ungodly amount of time here,” he joked, but I felt the praise anyways. My cheeks heated up and I couldn’t help but feel intense satisfaction.

“It’s mainly Hoseok that’s in charge of clean-up, but Jungkook also participates. They do both clean-up of unwanted people and clean-up of unwanted evidence. Sometimes those two cross over. In other words, they both murder and get rid of it,” Minjoon spoke, his face serious, “I mean, that’s our theory anyways. If we were able to catch them murdering and disposing of a body, they’d already be rotting in jail. But the point stands – there’s a huge number of missing persons tied to this, mostly petty criminals or people known to be associated with enemy gangs. No bodies though.”

My eyes flitted to the picture of the mentioned younger man. Jungkook’s picture, for me, was really hard to look at, because unlike all the others, he was just a kid in his. It was an old photo, most likely taken from a yearbook, with his serious face still round and cheeks full of baby fat, dark hair cut short and styled neutral, but it still hit too hard. Especially when my eyes slid lower to a more recent photo, which depicted Jungkook standing on a balcony smoking, all hard edges on his emotionless face, long hair blowing around and blurring out his tatted-up fingers holding a cigarette and black shirt bulging with muscles. He was the youngest and it was also a mystery about how he became involved with Yoongi, the most we knew about him was that he came from a lower middle-class family and led an unproblematic school life as one of the top students. Where he met Yoongi, or even how he started to involve himself in illegal activities, no one except for them knew.

“The rest of them, as I’m sure you’re already well familiar with,” Minjoon continued talking, “are trying to look more legit. Kim Taehyung and Park Jimin oversee some of his clubs and help him with the hotel and restaurants too. They try to seem like stand-up men with no ties to the underground to grant him an air of an honest man. And Namjoon, well, you’ve already met him. He’s in charge of the finances and that’s exactly where most of the crime is the most visible.” I nodded at him and gestured for him to continue.

“Yoongi’s smuggling in insane amounts of goods, everything from luxury items and artifacts to alcohol, exotic foods and ingredients, to drugs. He sells it to himself, supplies it to his own clubs and restaurants for dirt cheap and then makes crazy money on selling it to clients. If you ask for VIP treatment, you get it deluxe – you don’t have to lift a single finger, Yoongi supplies everything. You want a unicorn? He finds a way to smuggle it in. You ask, he delivers. Namjoon’s job is to make all this look legit, so that he can’t be busted.”

It was so much to take in, but I was finally starting to make sense in it all. Even though I’d been reading the files and trying to catch up on the happenings, there were things I was confused about, things that were lost in context or just lightly referenced without more information, and I had no way of fully understanding it until someone properly explained it to me and filled me in. I was waiting for it to happen in the first few weeks, even asked about it once, but I was shut down and quickly realised that no one was planning on talking to me about it. They rather kept me busy with petty stuff and didn’t let me get in on the operation. I was eternally grateful to Minjoon for taking the time to properly explain what they’ve been doing the past year.

“So that’s why you’re currently breathing down Namjoon’s neck,” I mused out loud, “You want in on whatever magic he’s working to make Yoongi appear as an honest businessman.” Minjoon nodded and added: “And that’s why Yoongi appeared immediately when we brought him in. Park wanted to get a feel of the man. See how he’d behave when interrogated and to test out how strong of a bond they have.” I hummed.

“They’re tight,” I stated, “And Namjoon’s impenetrable.”

We both sat there for a moment, taking in everything that’s been said. I was wracking my brain for a game plan. There had to be something I could do.

“Are you doing stake out missions?” I wondered. He looked at me a little surprised which quickly turned into embarrassment. “I’m sorry, I had no idea you were this much out of the loop,” he said quietly and rubbed the back of his neck. Now it was me who got embarrassed. I was about to stutter out some excuse or an apology, but he started talking again.

“Not currently no, there used to be some in the early stages, before Yoongi caught wind of the efforts. Now that he knows us and knows that we’re interested in him, it’s practically impossible to do stake out missions, unless you just want to annoy him and show him we're there. Not to mention it takes a lot of manpower which we do not have. We’re trying to crack down on the lower levels of the organisation. You know, take in some common mobsters selling substances, threaten them with a sentence and then try to get intel off of them. Some do agree to talk, but somehow Yoongi always manages to sniff them out and they don’t tend to end well. He has a tight hold on everything, despite the size of his empire. Mainly what we gathered is that he is an incredibly paranoid man, he most probably does very frequent inspections and doesn’t hesitate to get rid of anyone just slightly suspicious.”

“Well, in some way, it’s to be expected,” I pondered out loud, “A man that has accomplished this much, it doesn’t surprise me that he’s basically become omniscient.” Minjoon hummed in agreement and flicked some of the pictures around absent-mindedly.

“There was even an attempt to infiltrate,” he said quietly, “We did manage to get in, but it went bust pretty quickly.” I could feel it was definitely a sensitive subject and I didn’t want to pry, but the implication here was absolutely devastating.

“Did he…?” I couldn’t even bring myself to finish the question, but thankfully Minjoon understood. He smiled sadly, shook his head and said: “Thankfully not, but he did end up in a hospital for like two months. They messed him up. He didn’t even return to the force, wouldn’t be able to anyway due to some injuries. When I went with Park to confront Yoongi, he just straight up laughed in our face and told us we’d better feel grateful that he wasn’t interested in becoming a cop killer, because rats in his organisation usually end up much worse. It was the most we’d ever heard him admit out loud, but we didn’t even manage to record it or anything, we were too upset to think straight and missed an opportunity.” He sighed again. I was just glad that the officer ended up okay. At least Yoongi was aware that if he’d killed a cop, he’d become the most wanted man in the eyes of the entire force. There wouldn’t be a moment of rest for him.

Somewhere deep down I felt a little bit of shame though, because I did the same mistake just a few days ago. Yoongi didn’t end up saying anything even remotely that damning, but he still talked to me pretty openly.

I was just about to open my mouth to try and dispel the awkward silence that took over, but Park chose that moment to burst into the room loudly. He didn’t even spare us a glance, too focused on a folder in his hands. I’d jumped off the table in panic and straightened up, but he barely paid attention to anything else. Slowly our colleagues started filing in and taking seats. When after a while no one said anything about my presence, I sat down next to Minjoon, who gave me a reassuring smile.

Park closed the file and slammed in onto the table, then made his way over to the most interesting part of the room – the wall.

“Alright, emergency meeting,” he started, “we just got new info from violent crimes about the disappearance from two weeks ago.”

As I sat there and half listened to the information presented, a plan was starting to hatch in my head. Although Yoongi knew about me, could even pick me out from the crowd, I had to figure out a way to tail him. And when I did, I had to find out more about what Hoseok did. And where. And how. While my unit focused on Namjoon and worked from the bottom, I had to learn about the most criminal aspects of this gang to cover all the grounds. I had to catch a killer.

I’d never been on a stake out mission before. That was one of the few things they didn’t teach at the academy, and I had to figure it out all on my own, while trying to tail a man that probably knew even how many pieces of ham I put on my toast that morning (it’s always two).

Once I pulled information about Min Yoongi’s probable whereabouts, all I had to do was jump in my car and go find him, which was easier said than done. I’d decided to do this in my free time, since asking for the permission to tail him would most definitely not be met with much excitement in the department, especially since they themselves have given up on it.

Now, here I was, sitting in my car at 4 am on a Friday, intently watching a posh house in the middle of Gangnam, hoping that Yoongi is either already in there or soon to return. Since through my snooping I was left with several addresses all ranging from clubs, restaurants and a hotel through factories and warehouses to offices, I figured my best shot would be to catch him while leaving his house rather than running through half of the establishments in Seoul. I also pulled information on the other six, but quickly found out that we had working addresses only for like four of them, so no luck staking out Hoseok’s house or anything.

I was desperately trying to keep myself from falling asleep, the fact that I only slept 3 hours catching up to me, my head drooping and my eyes barely staying open. The house was dark, and I figured at this time he either had to be getting up soon or coming home to rest.

The next three hours were absolute hell. I was so tired, fighting sleep and frustration, I had gotten extremely hungry because I ate through my snacks in boredom, and I was losing my mind. Nothing was happening. Not even a shadow moved on his property. The fact that Yoongi was now probably sleeping happily in his bed, not a care in the world, was pissing me off beyond belief. And another thing – I was freezing my ass off. Duly noted – tailing for dummies: don’t do it in winter.

I had just begun losing hope that Yoongi’s even home, when suddenly a light came on somewhere in the house. My heart jumped with excitement, and I was so happy I could cry actual tears. It seemed that he started his day around 7 am. I wrote it down into my journal and ignored the rising feeling of being a total creep, keeping records on someone like this. This was a professional endeavour. I was doing it for the greater good.

I watched as the lights slowly moved downstairs to the ground level where Yoongi must have been messing around in the kitchen. At 8 o'clock the door opened, and a lady walked out, turning around presumably to say goodbye only to be narrowly missed by Yoongi immediately slamming the door shut behind her. She started shouting something and banged on the door for a little bit, screaming expletives and other interesting comments, before calling it a day and sulkily walking away. I took a look at her as she was walking by and winced. Damn, I definitely didn’t envy her the walk home in those heels. Godspeed, sister.

When the clock hit 8.30 am, a car rolled to a stop in front of the house and Yoongi himself walked out in all his glory. This time he was wearing a classic black three-piece suit with a white shirt, hair slicked back behind his ears, phone in one hand and a to-go cup of coffee in the other. He didn’t look around at all, just sped all the way to the car, got in and in a second, they were on their way god knows where.

I took a moment to check my own reflection. Compared to the sleek mafia boss, my hair was messy since I barely even brushed it that morning, my face puffy and unkept and I had an old, stained hoodie on. I was almost embarrassed. Almost. After a moment I’d decided I gave them enough space and pulled out of my spot.

I had the list of potential addresses sitting out on my passenger seat and as we began weaving through the city, I was trying to guess where they could be going. My mind was constantly on keeping enough of a distance to not look suspicious but be close enough to not lose them in the morning traffic. With my heart beating out of my chest and damp clammy hands tense on the steering wheel, I managed to follow the car up to one of the clubs.

The car had just stopped when Yoongi briskly jumped out and jogged to the entrance. He disappeared inside for about 20 minutes and then he emerged again, a briefcase in hand and a smile on his face. I jotted it down into my journal and then we were on our way again.

I spent my day like that. Yoongi had always rolled up to a club, for a moment went inside, then came out again, sometimes holding something and sometimes empty-handed. Once I even managed to catch a glimpse of one of his six seeing him off. Based on the head full of soft blond curls, it must have been Park Jimin.

Gradually as I went after them, I relaxed, setting into my new role. My journal was getting packed with information, mostly useless things about where we stopped for now. I would be able to put it to more use once I had more stable and reliable info about his routine.

Around 2 pm he went into one of his offices and stayed until 9 o'clock, after that he went back to the club where he met Jimin. I was all cramped up from sitting in my car the whole day, my back absolutely killing me. I was hungry out of my damn mind, and I’d run out of water an hour ago. I just wanted him to go the fuck home and stay there, but he stayed until midnight. When I finally saw him walk back into his house, 1 o’clock in the morning, I was done and tired, but regretting nothing.

That’s how my life went on for a few days. I’d spent full three days tailing him, showing up at his house at around 5 am (I’d given myself an extra hour, but I didn’t want to risk missing him leave) and then drove around the city jotting down all the places he went to and all the things he did. Currently my journal contained everything from the various items he carried around his clubs to his order in Starbucks (which I wrote down very reluctantly, but I figured since I’m already there, I shouldn’t half-ass it). When it was time to go back to work, I’d taken the journal with me and discreetly wrote down any kind of new information that my team brought in.

It was my fifth day of stake out when it all crashed down. I was feeling good about myself, thinking maybe I’ve managed to actually dodge his attention, but I also realised I knew nothing about the kind of scoping out his bodyguards did. When Yoongi moved about, he either had some stone-faced strangers I’d never seen before with him or there was Jungkook by his side, and I quickly came to the conclusion that his job must have also entailed keeping Yoongi safe. It seemed that I never actually popped up on their radar, I’d never noticed any suspicious glances around, no one from Yoongi’s squad had ever even looked in my general direction, so I thought I was good. I wasn’t.

I was sitting in my car, leisurely eating a subway sandwich. It was 4 pm, which meant Yoongi was going to be in his office for another few hours at the very least (that’s how it’s been for the past four days). My car was parked a little off to the side some distance from the main entrance, monitoring who came in and who came out, while the car in which he came few hours earlier was still parked in the same spot and some of the guys were standing around, smoking and talking. Jungkook was with Yoongi today and they went in together, so they most probably had some free time until Yoongi needed to go somewhere again. It had begun snowing a little while ago and everything felt quiet and peaceful.

Then suddenly my passenger door opened, and a person filed in, settling on the seat with a loud exclamation of “god, it’s so cold outside, isn’t it?”. In a split second my hand went for my gun, but I ended up grabbing empty air – I wasn’t on duty, I didn’t have a gun currently. Panicking I turned to the side, prepared to fight, only to come face to face with a smugly grinning Yoongi. The fear immediately all drained out and instead frustration burst through me like a grenade.

“Fuck!” I screamed and hit the steering wheel. I managed to get the horn and in the distance I saw Yoongi’s bodyguards perk up at the sound, immediately checking their surroundings with hands on what one could only assume were their concealed guns. Out of the corner of my eye I also saw a face peek in through the passenger door window to check on the situation, and realised Jungkook must be standing outside the car. Yoongi was just sitting there, completely unfazed, watching me with amusement.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I growled and glared at him.

“I could be asking you the same thing,” he drawled out, playing with his fingers unbothered, “Though I do have to praise you, we didn’t know about you for full two days. Guess we’re not used to having to worry about that anymore.” I closed my eyes and attempted to calm myself down. I didn’t need to embarrass myself further by throwing a full tantrum in front of them.

“How did you find out about me?” I gritted through my teeth and willed myself to relax more into the seat, stubbornly keeping my eyes in front of me and not looking over at Yoongi.

“You’ve been tailing me for days, of course we’re going to notice,” Yoongi replied cheekily. Then he gave me a once over. “No gun and no badge,” he hummed, “not on official business, then? Am I so charming that you just have to see me all the time?” He smirked at me playfully when he saw me peeking over, now starting to play with my little journal. It was closed, but I was still tensely watching him whether he’d decide to open it. By his smug expression, I had a feeling he knew what he was holding in his hands, and when he decided to put the journal down with a little playful wink, it was very pointed.

I cleared my throat. “It is official business,” I said, and really, I wasn’t even lying.

“Oh, is it?” he hummed noncommittally, “Because right now you just seem like a crazy stalker.” I looked over at him annoyed and he seemed to be very amused. A disembodied hand knocked on the window. Yoongi looked over and suddenly became more serious. It only lasted a second though, and then he was smirking at me again.

“All I can say is, I’m quite impressed, Y/N,” he winked at me, “Good job. Try a bit harder next time, though.” With one last amused smile he opened the door and clambered out. One hand leaning on the open door, he bent down at the waist to look in and contemplated for a moment what to say. Behind him I could see a hulking black mass as Jungkook immediately moved closer to safeguard Yoongi.

“See you around, officer,” Yoongi settled on in the end and then finally moved away from the door to slam it shut. I was left in there alone with all that cold air he let in and an unsettled feeling. I watched him cross the street to his own car, watched him as he turned around one last time and waved to me, then got in and sped away.

Only when I was left staring at an empty curb, I realised he’d called me by my name.

So… a change of tactic it is. Even though he didn’t say much, I didn’t think Yoongi had gotten into my car to threaten me. Quite the opposite, he seemed almost suspiciously encouraging. He most likely wanted to know whether I’d been assigned on this task or not.

Well, I learnt a few things at the very least. First, tailing everyday with the same car when you don’t want to be discovered is a big no-no (honestly kind of stupid on my part not to have realised that). Second – Jungkook was like Yoongi’s shadow and Yoongi’s bodyguards were all most likely under him too. He must be doing some intense scans of the surroundings, given the fact that after two days they realised a car was tailing them. After that they most probably just entertained me to see what I was doing and took the time to run a background check on me.

So, I had to find a way to be more inconspicuous. I was on their radar now; they would look out for me, and they knew more about me. Renting cars would get too expensive too quickly, it would also make me look very suspicious. My car was out of the question since they already knew it.

Honestly, I was surprised they let me tail them for that long when they already knew about me, but this might be the one time someone underestimating me would actually play into my cards. Because my goal wasn’t to aimlessly shadow Yoongi. It was to get closer to information about Hoseok. And I got a little tiny snippet.

When I sat at my computer at work the next day and stared mindlessly into the wall, I was wracking my brain on how to recuperate from this fumble. The previous night I had been going through my journal for hours, trying to come up with a way to keep a surveillance on Yoongi without letting him know I was following him, when I realised it.

Through the five days, I’d been catching glimpses of the other six. Of course, I saw Jungkook the most, but here and there I’d see Kim Taehyung’s shoulder as he was chatting with Yoongi outside of a club, Namjoon calling someone and smoking in front of the office building, Kim Seokjin coming out of Yoongi’s house, Park Jimin’s profile in the darkness of an alleyway by Yoongi’s car. They were all extremely close to each other and their lives were intertwined rather finely.

And I’d seen Hoseok too. It was for a split second, just a flash of the man’s face through a crack in a warehouse door, but I’d seen him. I had written it down, just mindlessly jotted down “door might have been opened by Hoseok”, and that was my chance. All I had to do now was start investigating that warehouse and move from there. Tonight, I had to go there and scope out the surroundings to see whether there was a place I could comfortably watch the area from.

The door to Park’s office suddenly slammed opened and I jumped in my seat, heart almost lurching out of my chest. I glared at my superior’s back and cursed his habit of storming into rooms as loudly as possible. He walked over to Minjoon’s table and started quietly telling him something. My curiosity won over and I couldn’t help glancing their way. Minjoon caught my eye for a moment and smiled, but mostly kept his attention trained on Park.

After a while of mumbling and several hushed okays, Park briskly walked through the station out to the parking lot and Minjoon and his partner both stood up and started gathering their things to follow him. I mournfully watched them get ready and grumbled behind my computer, but as I was about to petulantly grab some files and put them back into the cabinets, Minjoon came over to me and asked: “You wanna come with?” I stared at him for a moment, completely flabbergasted. He waited patiently until I got my wits about me again and then smiled when I started very enthusiastically nodding. The others in the station were also surprised, but I wasn’t about to give them my attention as I also grabbed my badge and a jacket and followed Minjoon out.

“It’s 7 pm on a Saturday, which means Yoongi’s at the Pied Piper,” he explained while leading me to the service car. Pied Piper was Yoongi’s most successful club, one that sat smack dab in the middle of Itaewon and drew attention with its fancy exterior and sleek interior. It was a hotspot for both locals and foreigners, and young trust fund kids often bragged about being on the VIP list, having the privilege to just come and walk in instead of having to wait endlessly in the line. “That also means that Namjoon’s currently sitting alone in the office. Park’s been tirelessly working on obtaining some insider info and he wants to go have a chat with the lawyer while he’s on his home turf.” I nodded along as we filed into the car and started on the journey.

I was a little nervous around the mysterious calm man. I could handle Yoongi’s endless banter, but Namjoon unnerved me with his silence and sharp eyes. It was as if he was slowly uncovering every little dirty secret you had deep within you just by looking into your eyes, he didn’t even need to say a word and you just wanted to spill all your sins. He was a dangerous man, an intelligent one that knew how to use it to intimidate others.

“Our job,” Minjoon suddenly spoke up after focusing on the road, “is to go to Pied Piper and annoy and distract Yoongi, so Park can have a peaceful uninterrupted moment with Namjoon. He doesn’t want Yoongi to even text him anything, so we have to put on a proper show.”

“I see…” I replied finally, the reality of the task setting in. I was a little relieved I didn’t have to confront Yoongi’s right-hand man, but unexpectedly I felt embarrassment flood me. I’d been having some truly awkward encounters with the man, and he seemed quite fond of teasing me. I was a little afraid he might blab about what I’d been doing in my free time and put a mark on my back within my own unit. I knew he definitely wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to put me in a difficult position.

The whole ride over I was preparing myself for dealing with the jokester again and potentially having to stop him from spilling some secrets. So, when we walked up confidently to the bouncer and Minjoon showed him his badge, I was full on panicking, nervously picking on my scarf with shaking hands. While we waited for the bodyguard to relay to Yoongi the police were here, Minjoon must have misunderstood my nervousness as fear of facing the mafia boss again.

“Actually, this is why I wanted to bring you with me,” he said quietly so nobody could overhear, “I wanted you to get over the first meeting, so you could continue with this task. Once you meet him a few times, the novelty wears off and he’s just an annoying dude that commits crime in his free time.”

No, yeah, I already knew that. I could cry inside, that wasn’t why I was nervous at all. But it was better he thought that than knowing I’d actually met Yoongi twice more already and he seemed to be getting quite interested in making my life difficult back. So, I just nodded and smiled at him gratefully, thanking him for bringing me along.

“Alright,” the bouncer suddenly came back to us, “right this way.” With that he turned around and made his way inside the club. I scrambled to follow after him through the crowded area, wading through partying youngsters. I could barely hear anything over the pumping bass of the music and with the flashing lights and crowds I couldn’t even really see what the inside looked like. I saw some dark grey walls, some mirrors and flashy patches of silver met with dark stone, but the rest was covered up with smoke and dancing bodies.

Similarly to the club I’d been to some week and a half ago, we were led to a staircase and up onto a gallery overlooking the ground floor, but it seemed that Pied Piper offered completely private rooms that were in a corridor off to the right, while left side was occupied by a bar. Surprisingly, it seemed that the VIP area also served as a sort of a restaurant, as I saw several couples and groups enjoying a dinner. The sound of the music wasn’t as overbearing up here and it created sort of a constant hum in the background, lending the space some added privacy from eavesdropping.

I expected getting led to a cordoned off little corner somewhere like before, but instead we walked through the entire area all the way to the back, and then up another, albeit a little smaller, staircase to a sort of a half balcony hanging over both the ground floor and the VIP area.

There on a velvet red couch, was sat Yoongi, greeting us with an amused smile. His pitch-black shirt and dress pants were popping with contrast to the vibrant red, just as his pale skin and long black hair was. For a moment I was so consumed by the vision that was Yoongi, that I didn’t even realise there were two other men present.

On a couch to our left, Kim Taehyung sat in all black suit, all spread out with legs wide open and arms resting on top of the couch, wavy dark hair framing his curious face, mischievous expression slowly taking over as he watched us grow more and more restless. And finally, leaning on a wall behind us, was Jungkook. He was expressionless as always and almost blended into the wall with his also pitch-black t-shirt and cargo pants. What was visible of his arms was heavily tattooed and definitely served as make-shift camouflage in this dark space.

I snickered and before I could stop myself, I was speaking. “Did we crash a funeral or what? What’s with the fits?” I glanced at all three of them amusedly. Taehyung started giggling while Yoongi full-on laughed. His face was coloured by surprise at my words and once again, I’d managed to catch his full attention. The nerves I felt combined with my annoyance at the man helped me put up a more confident front than I was feeling and I needed to take full advantage of that.

“Well, personally I think I do look quite ravishing in black, darling,” Taehyung drawled out seductively, righting his posture to lean closer to me, “Don’t you agree?” Minjoon looked between us confusedly and I made a mental note to make some excuse about why I wasn’t a complete wreck in the face of the three men.

I ignored Taehyung’s words and instead sat down on a chair straight across from Yoongi and Minjoon, who finally came out of his stupor, sat down next to me.

“So, tell me, officer,” Yoongi asked noncommittally, “What are you here for this time?” Even though he aimed the question at Minjoon, he was looking at me the whole time and I knew he was also experiencing the same déjà vu as me.

“You know, just checking that everything’s fine here,” Minjoon replied cheekily, watching me out of the corner of his eye, “Weekends can get pretty rough. We wouldn’t want a fight to break out.” Yoongi just scoffed and gestured to the general area.

“You don’t have to worry that head of yours, Mr. Jang,” he replied with a snark that I’d never caught from him before, “We have quite the few very strong and very professional bodyguards and bouncers around here. People know not to mess with them.” He looked back at me and then added: “Would you like something to drink or eat? I must say the appetizers are absolutely stellar today.” With a swipe of his arm, he gestured to the table between us that was decked with food. From my left, Taehyung giggled and leaned in to grab a few grapes.

To be honest, it felt like we were two stupid little lambs that wandered straight into the wolf’s den. And the fact that they were all around us didn’t help. It was finally starting to catch up with me and I nervously rubbed the top of my thighs with my clammy hands. I gulped and looked at Minjoon, expecting him to lead the conversation. I wondered how Park was fairing at the office and whether he’d already met Namjoon.

“Well, it’s our duty to look out anyway,” Minjoon shot back, “Serve the public and all that. Just making sure nothing naughty is going on. People tend to get a little crazy on Saturdays after all.” He was rewarded with a toothy wild smirk, all sharp edges and dangerous glints.

“Yes, they do tend to do that. If I see anyone being naughty, you’ll be the first one I’ll tell,” Yoongi laughed and gestured at the bodyguard at the stairs. He immediately turned around and left. I was on high alert, trying to track him from the balcony and see where he was going. The conversation between the men continued as they traded thinly veiled insults and passive aggressive remarks, while I was frantically searching the crowd.

I only relaxed when he returned to the balcony – a tray of drinks in hand. Each of the men took one – to my horror even Minjoon accepted a glass that was clearly meant for him and took a tiny sip. I gave him a pointed stare. He was the one that drove us here, for fuck’s sake! Not to mention there should be a golden rule about not eating or drinking anything given to you by a gangster in a club he owned.

The bouncer made his rounds, and the last glass was suddenly thrust in front of my face. It was a sex on the beach. It was the single cocktail I ordered and sipped on not to look too suspicious at Dynamite the other week. I shot the man in question a half surprised half horrified look. He was watching me from behind the rim of his own whiskey glass, eyes dark and curious for my reaction.

In the end, I took it because I’d started to feel awkward with the bouncer just standing there with his arm outstretched, but I immediately sat it down on the table, intent on not drinking it. I shot Minjoon another look, trying to signal to him he should do the same, but he was cooly sipping on his and only subtly shook his head at me. I pointedly ignored Yoongi’s gaze hungry for attention. I would not give him the rise he so wanted to get out of me.

“You see, right now I’m only trying to figure out in what club is your partner currently wreaking havoc, to have you here distracting,” Kim Taehyung suddenly joined the conversation, his silky deep voice catching me off guard every time. I jolted, but Minjoon kept his cool.

“You guys know us too well, this is getting a bit repetitive, isn’t it?” he joked back and drained his whiskey glass in a single big gulp, “Guess you’ll have to find out yourself. But entertain me here for a moment, otherwise you’ll just embarrass me in front of my boss and the newbie.”

Suddenly, four pairs of eyes were on me, and a wave of goosebumps ran through my entire being. I met Yoongi’s black eyes again and this time didn’t divert the eye contact. He leant forward, until he was leaning on his knees, and even though there was an entire table between us, it still felt dangerously close.

“You have been quite uncharacteristically quiet, officer,” he said and drawled out the nickname with a deep voice. I was afraid of what else might come out of his mouth, so I quickly butted in.

“What do you mean? You don’t know me at all,” it was both a warning to shut up and warning that we’d just begun, and he really did not know what I was capable of. My eyes were throwing daggers at him, but I tried to keep on a fake polite smile.

“Well, for someone who waltzed in here calling it a funeral and dissing our clothes, I was expecting some more smart comments out of you,” Yoongi explained, and I was relieved he was entertaining my threat to keep our previous conversations secret. He was looking thoroughly amused though.

“You’d have to be saying something smart, for me to have smart remarks.”

Kim Taehyung laughed out of surprise and pointed at Yoongi, who was fighting back his own grin. “She got you, hyung, you’ve gotta admit that,” he teased him good-naturedly and it was almost surprisingly wholesome to see them interacting as friends.

“There’s rarely anything smart said when talking to cops,” Yoongi retorted and it was more of a dig towards Minjoon than me, who stiffened next to me. It must have been a sore subject coming from Yoongi, which I understood with how hard he was making everything for us. Unfortunately, as a cop you sometimes did feel like the criminals outsmarted you… and then hearing them tease you about it, I’d be mad too.

“Okay, okay, we can sit here and call each other dumb the whole evening,” I mediated the situation before it went sideways, “Tell me then, Yoongi, what smart things do you want to talk about?” I spit out his name as if it was a curse, but I saw his entire being perk up at hearing it, a smug smirk tugging at his lips. I ignored it and waited for him to answer.

“Oh, I’ve got many things to talk about, one more interesting than the other,” he said dangerously, and I quickly realised we were nearing a no-go zone again. I suddenly understood why he was so interested in this, in letting me so near and never reprimanding me, playing with me like a cat does when it’s hunting for mice. He was getting off on knowing there was something I desperately needed him to stay silent about. At that moment, he was holding something over my head, something that could get me in a lot of trouble with colleagues that already didn’t like me, and if he threatened to press charges for harassment and stalking, he could most likely even boot me out of the force. But to him, it wasn’t about destroying my life. It was about amusing himself knowing I’m depending on him for something so important when I’m hellbent on taking him down. That way, he still remained in control of all of our meetings.

But I didn’t think he had the intention to truly rat me out. It was too much fun for him, and he seemed the type to let things play out. Ultimately, he must have believed once I became bothersome, he could shoot me down no problem, so why not amuse himself while the opportunity was there? So, I took a gamble. He wanted a challenge, maybe I’d give it to him. Maybe that’s why he encouraged me to do better and chase after him more.

“Yeah?” I said and trained all my attention to him, just as he always did to everyone around him, “I’m all ears.” He looked me straight in the eyes and I fought myself not to flinch away. The longer we stared, the more prominent the amused smirk grew on his face. He tested me, how long it would take me to break the eye contact and back down, but I steeled myself, squeezing the armrests with my nervous shaking hands, keeping the fear at bay by attempting to look as fierce as possible while falling apart with panic on the inside. Finally, it was him who looked away, but it didn’t feel like he ceded. It felt like we both won.

I released a breath I didn’t realise I was holding in and slumped a little into my chair, the tension suddenly draining out of my body in one fell swoop, leaving me almost boneless. Only now I started noticing the tense awkward silence the whole space sunk into, the other three men watching us with very different expressions. Jungkook as stoic as ever but with a hint of something in his eyes, Taehyung hungrily taking in the exchange with open curiosity and a playful grin, watching me as if I successfully tackled some kind of a challenge, and finally Minjoon, his face both confused and alarmed. I really had to think of some good excuse on the way back home.

Yoongi’s phone was buzzing on the table, but he barely paid it any attention. Instead, he gulped down his whiskey and gestured for the bodyguard to get him more, before turning to Minjoon once again.

“I’m sorry, but you seem kind of boring compared to the balls on this lady,” he mocked him, “this is the most fun I’ve had dealing with you guys.”

“I’m not here to amuse you,” I growled through gritted teeth. He flashed me a smile and said: “Oh, of course not, I know that. You’re here on a super secret, super important mission. But I am having fun, which normally doesn’t happen with these guys.” Minjoon snickered next to me, and his next words somehow felt like a punch in the face.

“I should have known that a pig like you would get off more on having a female detective grill you,” he muttered, fully aiming to insult Yoongi, but I stiffened next to him. I couldn’t figure out why, but his remark really didn’t sit well with me, putting me out of my comfort zone way more than anything the three gangsters did the whole evening, and Kim Taehyung’s first words to me were shameless flirting.

“Only a pig like you would only see the fact that she’s a woman and not that she’s just more interesting than you,” Yoongi retorted almost instantly, spitting out the whole sentence in a single breath, leaving Minjoon speechless with the quick comeback. Then he rolled his eyes, trying to stay as calm as he was when he came in.

“That’s not what I said, stop trying to spin this on me,” he said, clearly annoyed with the turn of the conversation, “We’re talking about you here.” I stayed silent and for the first time that evening yearned for taking a swig out of the now melting cocktail still standing on the table in front of me.

“Right,” Yoongi drawled out, running out of patience dealing with the officer, “And I’m a pig why exactly? Last time I checked that’s what people called the police. Not me. And especially not after I’ve just-“

“Shut up, both of you,” I jumped in, annoyed and not interested in whatever Yoongi wanted to say, “You can measure each other’s cocks when I’m not around. Act like adults.” Taehyung off to the side giggled again, thoroughly enjoying himself watching this all go down. I chanced a glance at Jungkook, who was attempting to hide an amused smirk by looking out of the balcony. I didn’t want to look at either of the men I had just reprimanded, but my attention was drawn to Yoongi when he cleared his throat and said: “Of course, I let myself get carried away. Sorry ‘bout that.”

I had been afraid he’d take it badly, but he was laughing when I looked at him. Minjoon looked angry, but stayed silent, instead he petulantly looked to the right, away from all of us. I guess I’d be reaping the consequences of that later.

The awkward silence was broken by the man I was least expecting to speak up. “They’re with Namjoon hyung at the office,” Jungkook briskly informed Yoongi from behind us. When I turned around, he was just putting his phone to his ear walking out of the space.

“Well, I guess the cat’s out the bag now,” my attention turned back onto Yoongi, who still wasn’t checking his periodically buzzing phone. I also pulled out mine to check the time. 7:43 pm. We’d been there for a little longer than half an hour, but it felt barely like ten minutes to my shock.

I looked at Minjoon again, seeking his advice on how to tie up this situation. He finally shook out of his embarrassed silence and was more or less back to his previous self.

“Well, thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Min,” Minjoon said, still a little strained and refusing to look at him for too long, “It was truly a fruitful evening.” Yoongi chuckled.

“Right, I feel like we all learnt a lot of things about each other,” he retorted mysteriously, giving me a grin and then turning to Taehyung, “It seems we both lost the bet. I said it would be The Rose and you betted on the hotel.” The Rose, another one of Yoongi’s clubs, was currently managed mainly by Park Jimin and situated on the other side of the city centre. It was another one of his high-profile entertainments, but most of the time it hosted the filthy rich and honed in on the feeling of privilege and prestige. That was definitely a club you couldn’t just get into from the street, no, you had to be invited in or taken by a member, that’s why the police were so interested in it.

“You were betting on us?” I asked surprised. Minjoon looked at me and grinned. “They do that quite often, actually. We do our best to try and keep them on their toes.”

I glanced at Yoongi, who as the entire time, was watching me closely. I hummed and pretended to think about it for a moment, and finally said: “Honestly, The Rose is a pretty good guess. Keep ‘em coming, I’m sure with an intuition like that, you’ll get it right once.” He laughed heartily and leaned in.

“I know it’s a good guess,” he whispered, “I get them right most of the time. I know you people, more than you think.” I shuddered and pulled away, hitting the back of the chair. With a slight flush of embarrassment at my earlier comment, I scrambled to get up and go on our merry way. That had made him even more amused, and I cursed both him and myself. I should really learn to keep my mouth shut sometimes.

Yoongi didn’t bother standing up as we were leaving, he didn’t even bother to check his phone, that had gone suspiciously silent. He just stared at me from across the room as the bouncer started leading the way back out and Taehyung waved at us with a little wink, looking annoyingly pleased and relaxed. I rolled my eyes at him one last time and then disappeared down the stairs. If I strained my ears, I could almost hear him laughing loudly at my antics.

Outside of the club, back by our car, Minjoon suddenly stopped in the middle of the empty quiet parking lot. I staggered to a stop as well, looking at him confused and slightly worried something happened. What if Park hadn’t managed to have that talk with Namjoon and was waiting for us mad at the station? Panic flashed through me, but I was surprised when Minjoon looked at me with worried sad eyes and started apologising.

“Hey, I’m really sorry about before,” he said and I could finally see the full extent of his embarrassment, “You’re right, we were bickering like a couple of little boys. It’s just- He always gets such a rise out of me. I try and not react, but he always does or says something that just pisses me off.” I softened a little at his genuine shame and a little awkwardly patted his shoulder.

“It’s okay, I understand,” I replied quietly, “He got a rise out of me too. Don’t worry about it.” He smiled at me, a little lighter and less sad, and I returned it. When we returned to the station, Park didn’t say anything about us or our mission and just launched right into his spiel about Namjoon’s behaviour at the office. I considered that a win.

Later that night, sitting in the empty meeting room, Minjoon turned to me and said: “I didn’t get a chance to say it earlier, but you fared surprisingly well tonight. I wasn’t expecting you to be like… that. It was amazing.” I blushed both from his words and his gentle embarrassed gaze and played with the edge of my sleeve to escape his eyes.

“Thank you… When I get nervous, I just start blabbing out the first thing that comes to mind,” I replied with a half-truth half-lie. He didn’t need to know I’d been getting some practice with dealing with the infuriating man in my free time. That would stay between me, Yoongi and the devil.

The next time I saw Yoongi was actually a few weeks later – in January of the new year. As I promised to myself, I took the time to scope out that one warehouse where I caught a glimpse of Hoseok. I had been staking it out carefully for almost a week, losing my mind with boredom just watching harbour workers milling about, when I came to the conclusion that he actually wasn’t there. The one time I’d seen him there clearly must have been a fluke, because he didn’t come at all the entire week. It was a pretty easy to scope out location, and when I continuously didn’t notice any evidence of Hoseok’s presence, I had to face the reality that this just wasn’t one of his spots.

So, that sent me back to following Yoongi around. And I had to figure out how to outsmart the literal king of snakes.

One day, when I was walking through the station, it hit me in a form of a single simple leaflet pinned to a noticeboard. I stopped so fast I almost tripped over my own feet and then hobbled back to the board to take in the huge bold FREE MOTORCYCLE TRAINING FOR OFFICERS FROM THIS PRECINCT. I had to stop myself from laughing maniacally right in the middle of the station and immediately saved the contact information into my phone. It was time to learn some new skills.

While I started taking lessons to be able to get a license for a motorcycle, I had to hold off from tailing Yoongi. Rolling up to his house in a car he already knew would be just embarrassing to me and explaining to someone else why I needed to borrow their car to drive around Seoul for 24 hours straight would be too difficult and, not to mention, extremely weird. There aren’t enough excuses in this world to borrow a different car every night and I didn’t even know enough people to achieve that.

Sometimes I would snoop around his office building or clubs when I knew he either was there or wasn’t, depending on what I was trying to achieve. I also still periodically dropped to the warehouse, just to chance whether maybe Hoseok showed up that time. But no luck. It was like he got swallowed by the earth itself. It did make sense for Yoongi to keep him in the shadows, considering what we suspected he did in the organisation, but I didn’t expect for him to be this hard to spot.

Here and there I would go through the other buildings Yoongi owned and tried to figure out where he could be spending most of his time, but there were just too many. Thus, one night I ended up buying a huge and very detailed map of Seoul that took up almost all of my bedroom wall and got to work on that. First, I marked all of Yoongi’s properties including his house in red, then I added properties that were known to be in possession of his six each with their own colours, and then marked with different colours who I spotted where. Finally, I added post it notes with details of when I spotted them or when Yoongi went there.

As I stood in my bedroom, proud of my hard work, a realisation of what I was doing hit me. There was no going back now, and whoever entered my house and found his way into my bedroom would be positively creeped out. I myself had to admit that sleeping next to a huge map detailing the whereabouts of a certain individual that I acquired through illegal means wasn’t ideal, but I had to do what I had to do to help catch him.

And like that, Christmas came and went and suddenly New Year was here, and I found myself sitting in the meeting room, first thing in January, going over new findings and strategies. I was barely holding my attention to what was said, itching to supervise Yoongi again and trying to come up with ways to check on what he’s doing.

“We’ve made contact with a new informant,” Park said suddenly, “He’s willing to pass info to us, he’s fairly confident that he can dodge the safety checks since he’s seen people fail them quite often. He knows very well the consequences he faces if he gets caught and agreed to help anyway.”

“Which faction does he belong to?” one of the officers present asked him. Faction, that meant under which member of the six he worked. Since they all had such different areas of coverage, a lot of the time the personnel under them was directly employed to them and not necessarily to Yoongi himself, though he owned the umbrella corporation. These groups of employees directly belonging to a certain member of the gang we called factions or squads.

“He works around the clubs and the hotel, so he’s Taehyung’s, but he mostly gets into contact with Jungkook,” Park answered readily, “But, and that’s most important, he gets his fare share of time with Namjoon. He runs a lot of errands for him and Taehyung when they’re together. Which is often.”

Suddenly Minjoon leaned closer to me and whispered: “Namjoon spends most of his time at the office building, but he does go to the clubs and checks on their offices and bookkeeping periodically. Taehyung’s and Jimin’s responsibility is making sure that everything is ready there for him.” I nodded at him and gave him a grateful smile. I thought back to the five days I spent sitting mostly in front of the office space and I did see him a lot. He seemed to be an avid smoker and spent a lot of time standing by the side of the building smoking and shouting something into his phone. Maybe he was like Yoongi and went to the clubs in the morning and then spent the afternoons there.

I leaned to him and whispered back: “It’s almost unfair how much information we have on them and still can’t legally even give them a parking ticket.” Minjoon smiled sympathetically and patted my shoulder.

The meeting droned on and as I sat there, I decided that parking tickets actually didn’t sound half bad. Next time I went out after him, I should take some just in case. I vowed myself to be the most annoying menace he’s ever come across and I fully intended to hold up to that.

About a week later I was once again sitting at my table punching some useless information into the national police database, trying to stay awake as I’d been spending the nights crawling around the industrial parts of Seoul checking out warehouses and the surveillance around them, when Park, as was his habit, stormed into the room letting his door bang loudly into the wall. I’d stopped flinching at this point, no one in the room was even fazed, all of us have heard it so many times it wasn’t even surprising anymore.

As usual when something happened with Yoongi, he went straight to Minjoon and Hwang, his partner, gesturing for them to grab their things and follow him out. I tried to catch Minjoon’s eye, hoping he’d take me with them again, but he just shook his head at me gently. When both of the other men left, he made a stop at my table and in a hushed voice explained: “I’m sorry, not today. Something happened at a warehouse that’s on Yoongi’s turf, probably some kind of fight with a rival gang or something. The police officers from the area are already there, but they’re waiting on us to see. It’s a pretty ugly and bloody scene.” With that he ran out of the door, barely managing to wave goodbye as he rushed to the scene.

I looked at his retreating back in disappointment, not understanding his reasoning behind leaving me out of it. What was he worried about? That I’d be upset if I saw a little blood? That I shouldn’t witness violence? Determination rose in me as I got angry at the perceived discrimination. I checked the clock. 4 PM, Wednesday. I scrambled out of my chair and quickly grabbed my badge and jacket and ran out as well.

As I gripped my steering wheel like an insane person and drove through the centre, I was hoping that his schedule was as solid as I assumed, even though I didn’t follow him for long. In a few minutes, I was parking in front of his office building and charging my way inside like a storm. There was a lady sitting at the reception and when she first saw me walk in, she attempted to talk to me, but quickly gave up and lost interest when I just brushed past her.

I’d never been inside but I hoped that all the movies and series didn’t lie, and his office would be on the top floor, so I flagged down an elevator and pushed the highest button. Now finally standing here, I started getting nervous. I once again acted before I thought about it and standing in an elevator taking me to Yoongi’s office, I didn’t even know what I’d say to him. If he even was here. I had nothing to talk to him about except for inquiring about the disturbance at a warehouse, but I doubt he’d ever tell me anything about it, not that I even had any closer information to ask about. This was reckless and stupid.

The elevator slowly rolled to a stop and the door opened. I self-consciously walked out and took a look around. It was a nicely furnished hallway lined with dark wood and deep scarlet details. At the end a huge vase with white lilies stood, right next to an abandoned desk of who I assumed must be Yoongi’s secretary. To my left, straight in the middle, was a black double door, no doubt leading to the man of the hour.

I loitered outside for a while, gathering courage and thinking about how I should explain my sudden appearance. Right as I moved to the door, it opened and a black-clad figure backed out, both of us colliding between the open doors. With surprisingly quick reflexes he turned around and grabbed onto my elbow, stabilising me before I embarrassed myself in front of Yoongi again.

“Oh! Sorry about that!” a cheerful high voice rung out through the corridor, “I gotta watch the road more.” He ended it with a melodic laugh and his other hand grabbed onto my shoulder, finally shaking me out of my stupor. I looked up to thank him, the cheerful personality putting me at ease a little more, but as soon as I laid eyes on him, the words died in my throat on an embarrassing half choked sound. I froze up and just stared at him for a moment, until I could see confusion paint his face.

It was Jung Hoseok. Hoseok was standing in front of me. Laughing and joking around, hands still holding me upright.

“Hey, you okay?” he asked, suddenly a little more serious, watching me with concern.

“She’s fine,” a voice from the inside supplied, “Maybe she’s just stunned with your beauty, with finally meeting you in person after staring at your picture for months.” All confusion and concern disappeared from the man and he started laughing again.

“Oh, so you’re the police officer,” he announced with a smirk and something a little more teasing crept into his voice. He finally released his hold on me and watched me with amused eyes as I stumbled away from him with red burning cheeks. So much for not embarrassing myself. It didn’t help that he most definitely was beautiful, almost unfairly so for someone who was allegedly a stone-cold killer. Damn these men to hell, what was it about being a mobster that attracted the good-looking guys.

“Thank you for catching me,” I gritted through my teeth, already staring daggers into Yoongi, who was leisurely sitting behind a huge dark desk in the room behind us, watching us with a lazy smirk.

“Don’t mention it,” Hoseok replied almost instantly and winked, “Well, I gotta get on my merry way. Have fun you two! Bye bye~” He waved at me cheerily and walked out. Then he backed into the room again and pointed at Yoongi in a teasingly reprimanding manner and added: “Not too much fun though.” With that, he was gone.

I walked into the room, completely flabbergasted by his surprising character. Yoongi watched me like a wolf, waiting for me to sit down on a chair on the other side of his table, as was our tradition by now. I could see the anticipation rolling off of him in waves, so I took the time to properly soak in the room. There was a lot of dark wood and grey tones with splash of colour here and there, but the darkness was offset by a huge three-piece window in the wall behind Yoongi. Right now, I could see the beginnings of what would soon turn into a sunset.

I knew I couldn’t win in a battle of will against him, so once I dragged it out enough, finally I moved over to the table to take a seat. Immediately, Yoongi had a cordial smile on his face, as if he was greeting an old friend and not a police officer. Speaking of that, I remembered something – I took the time to bring it for the sake of our second meeting.

Yoongi wordlessly watched me rummage in my pockets until I finally found what I was looking for. A second later, my hand slapped my badge on the table between us. I nodded towards it and muttered: “That official enough for you?” He looked at it shocked for a split second and then he was laughing.

When calm enough to speak to me, he said: “I see that whatever I joke about with you, you’ll take it to your heart. I’ll have to think about my words a bit more carefully from now on.” He stared at the badge for a moment and then thoughtfully hummed.

“Now, that reminds me, I should probably check whether you’re recording this talk,” he joked with me, “I won’t stop you of course, just watch my mouth.” Annoyed, I reached into my other pocket and this time I slapped my phone on the table. I went the extra mile of showing him it wasn’t calling anyone or recording anything, and then glared at him in challenge, all under his amused gaze.

“So, can we talk?” I bluffed, pretending like I showed up here for something specific. He made himself comfortable in his chair across from me and motioned for me to start. I took a moment to think about how to start. With no idea what I wanted to achieve here, it was hard to just start up a conversation. But it seemed I was worrying for nothing.

“Actually, I don’t need you to start,” he stated matter-of-factly, “I know why you’re here. With your colleagues currently running around in the docks, it doesn't take a genius to put two and two together. But it’s not their usual MO, they’ve never sent here someone while they were investigating.” I stuttered under his piercing eyes, and he smirked. “So… not that official, is it.”

“It still is, though, I’m here during work hours regarding an on-going police investigation,” I defended myself somewhat petulantly, following his figure with my eyes when he suddenly got up and moved to a small bar in the corner behind me. With his back to me, mixing up cocktails, I realised I’ve never seen him from this angle, always had to face him head on and fight for everything I was and everything I did. This felt as if we were supposed to be relaxed in each other’s company and I didn’t like it.

He hummed again and turned around, whiskey in one hand and pink gin and tonic in other. He motioned for me to move and sit at a small green sofa in the other corner of the room, and I mindlessly listened to him. To my surprise, he situated me on the sofa and pushed the gin into my hand, while he himself made himself comfortable on the fluffy carpet, leaning on the table. The sofa wasn’t super high, but I still found myself looking at him from above for the first time ever. It was putting me off – he had to be planning something. Why else would he behave this way?

I put the glass on the table and gave him a reprimanding glare. “I told you, I’m on duty and I drove here.” He scoffed and sipped on his own drink, ignoring my words.

“And the things you’ll learn here, you’ll share them with your colleagues? You’ll go back to the station and divulge your findings?” he asked seemingly innocently, but there was a dark glint in his eyes. It was the most serious I’ve ever seen him. I didn’t know whether I should lie to him or not. I knew I wouldn’t share it, at least not until a little later, when there was an opportunity for me to showcase my knowledge in the most impactful way. And it seemed that he was aware of that as well. And the longer I took to answer him, the more obvious the answer was. So I chose to be honest.

“When the time comes for it, yes,” I said, and the words felt like ash on my tongue. I could barely look at him in that moment. I was doing something wrong, I was aware of that, I was putting my career on the line and bartering the information for my own gain and putting it out into the universe somehow felt like a curse. But Yoongi didn’t seem to care. He nodded and took a sip again, humming. I regarded him with suspicion.

“Is that why you came here to find out the information your own colleagues wouldn’t tell you?”

His question hung heavy in the air, and I froze completely. I was embarrassed that I couldn’t even disprove it, even though I didn’t think that’s why I came there. They really didn’t tell me anything. I would find out eventually when it was important for me to know. Or if I was lucky, I’d pull it out of Minjoon when he’d come in tomorrow. But I was angry and frustrated. I spent a lot of time studying Yoongi’s warehouses trying to find Hoseok, and he didn’t even give me a chance to tell him and ran. Didn’t even tell me a reason why exactly I wasn’t supposed to be there. So, I went and did something foolish.

But I still had to play my cards right.

For some reason, Yoongi seemed to be suspiciously eager to let me in on some of his dealings, from speaking to me openly that one time in Dynamite, to letting me tail him and even entertaining my clumsy attempts at distracting him or getting information out of him. Whether it was because he didn’t see me as a threat or because he was trying to play a game of his own with me, I had to use this to my advantage. As long as he was this willing, I had to try and milk this situation.

“Just trying to get all the points of view,” I answered cooly and tried to put up a strong front. I hoped that Yoongi had enough decency not to point out my obvious frustration and would take my words at face value. Which, thankfully, he seemed to do. He flashed me a smile and said: “Ah, I see. Just being a good cop.”

He looked at me for a moment and then suddenly got up. I was about to also get up, but he gestured for me to stay seated. He walked over to the table and leaned on it with his hip.

“I can’t tell you much more than what you’ll eventually find out about it,” he said, and it felt both like a ceding and a challenge, “But whatever happened there, we had nothing to do with it. A petty criminal allegedly affiliated with a group attacked another petty criminal allegedly affiliated with another group and it didn’t go as well as he hoped.” I wished I knew more about the situation to ask additional questions, but I knew this would be all I’d be getting out of him either way.

“Well, that’s not much,” I couldn’t help the dig and he scoffed. “Don’t complain when I’m being this gracious,” he retorted jokingly and pointed a finger at me much in the same manner as Hoseok did to him earlier.

I was about to retort too, when the door flew open. For a moment I almost thought it’s Park and my heart jumped into my throat, but the panic disappeared as quickly when I recognised the man as none other than Kim Taehyung. He waltzed in straight to me, paying Yoongi no mind and sitting down on the sofa next to me.

When I moved to stand up, he quickly caught my hand and gave it a swift kiss. “We haven’t been formally introduced yet,” was the first thing that came out of his mouth, “My name is Taehyung, but feel free to call me Tae.” I raised my eyebrow at him as he gave me a million-watt smile and slowly settled back into the couch.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Kim,” I replied, deadpan, and pulled my hand free. Somewhere in the room Yoongi laughed, but before I could turn to look at him, Taehyung spoke to me again.

“How mean,” he fake pouted and slumped into the sofa, only to spring up again immediately, hands going for the pink gin and tonic, “Is this free?”

“Yeah, knock yourself out,” I replied, stunned. I could have stayed silent though, as the glass was already halfway to his lips and there was no stopping him. He gulped down half the glass in one go and then offered me to take a swig too. I was so surprised by his erratic behaviour that I subconsciously grabbed the drink thrust into my personal space and froze.

“Come on, just one little sip,” he goaded me, seemingly all in good spirits, but I knew listening to whatever gibberish he had to offer me was a one-way ticket to hell. I pushed the glass back into his hands and said: “I’m sure you’ll enjoy it much more than me.”

Taehyung suddenly leaned into my personal space and seductively whispered: “If that was right, then I would be doing it wrong.” With his suggestive words hanging between us, obviously no longer talking about alcohol, I blushed so aggressively I might have combusted on the spot and pushed him away until he was squished into the other corner of the sofa.

Alarmed at his words I instinctively searched for Yoongi, holding out hope that he would sort out his friend and school him on how to act in front of a detective and a woman, but I found him half sitting on the armrest of the chair I previously sat on, attentively watching us with a light amused smirk.

“Sorry about that,” he muttered cocky, “He still hasn’t been house trained.” There was a whiny “hyuuuung” coming from somewhere behind me, but I was done with this conversation. I had just had enough of interacting with these lunatics, so I got up and started getting ready to leave.

“Oh, don’t be embarrassed,” Taehyung teased, “I’m just joking around, I always try this on new people to see how they react.” I huffed, slightly angry but more humiliated. “You mean new women.”

“Actually, he doesn’t care about that at all,” Yoongi answered for him, “You should have seen him when he first met your boss and the other cop, Jang. He almost got arrested for public indecency cause he made them so angry.” I turned to look at Taehyung to gauge the truth to this statement, only to find him properly embarrassed and almost as red as me. The image of Taehyung shamelessly flirting with a seething mad Park while Minjoon watched completely horrified entered my mind. I snickered at him and relaxed again.

“I should have known that cops have no sense of humour,” he muttered for himself, but then quickly shot me a wink and added: “No offense.”

“Don’t worry,” I replied, “That’s the least offensive thing you’ve said to me today.” Taehyung only smiled at me sweetly, as if he was the picture of sainthood and not whispering naughty words to people he barely knew on the regular.

I went to check the time and with a start realised I’d left my phone and badge just laying on the table when I earlier moved to the sofa. After quickly grabbing them, I walked over to the door and turned around. Both men in the room were looking at me curiously. I gave them my own wolfish grin and said: “Thank you for your cooperation.” With that I was gone.

So, that wasn’t the most fruitful thing I’ve ever done. I found myself even more confused about the strange behaviour of a man with such a reputation as Min Yoongi. For a moment teasing, for a moment dangerous, for a moment honest and genuine? I had no idea what he was doing, what he was trying to do and why was he letting me get away with so much, but everything about him and every one of our encounters was extremely suspicious.

Well. Even though it disappointed me a little, I knew that it was most likely because he kept underestimating me. So, I had to change that.

A week later I’d finally gotten a license for a bike. I was spending so much time there that I even became somewhat of a running joke between the lectors, but I couldn’t explain to them I was in a time press because I had a gang to dismantle and a mafia boss to humble. That would have made things real awkward real fast.

But now, with a license and slightly used black bike, I was virtually unstoppable. At least in my mind. From there I slowly got back into my routine of tailing Yoongi. During the month and a half I was out, I had been spending a lot of time staring at a map of Seoul and embarrassingly enough, I’d started to remember the streets to a point I could have become a cabbie. Maybe one day when I’ve inevitably lost my badge because Yoongi snitched on my unprofessional misconduct, I’d give it a shot.

I was absolutely sure to him I was just some cute little animal that sometimes barked and growled a little but would never do much worse than piss on the floor, but the moment I’d actually bite a nerve, he wouldn’t hesitate to get rid of me. I had to work quickly, before I became too much of an eyesore to him.

Speaking of which, Yoongi didn’t stray from his routine too much. In the mornings he would alternate between visiting the clubs, restaurants and his hotel, then he would either stay at the hotel’s office or move to his office building. In the afternoons he sometimes went to certain warehouses, but from what I could gather, it was mostly Hoseok, Jungkook and surprisingly Namjoon, who came to him with information about these places. The weekends he’d spent in his office until the clubs opened and then went either to Pied Piper or The Rose, both in which I wasn’t able to enter again.

Sometimes I would let Yoongi sit in the office and move to the warehouses. I alternated between them, checking on them to see who was where, and saw Jungkook and Namjoon very often. Hoseok stayed ever so elusive he might as well have been a ghost, but I was absolutely sure he must have been actively communicating with Yoongi.

I even tried to tail Jungkook, but the man was impossible to track down. No matter what I did, I’d always lose him after a few minutes, and I never managed to stay on him for longer than a few streets. I’d become so good at taking all kinds of back streets and alleys to keep out of sight that his ability to just disappear was truly mind-boggling to me.

While when I tailed Namjoon, I quickly realised that he moved in a very constricted area between the offices, some of the clubs and some of the warehouses. He never lingered for long when he was out but was capable of sitting for hours upon hours in the office building, so that ultimately also went nowhere.

The map in my room was quickly becoming crowded with differently coloured strings and post-it notes, in the evening (or sometimes early morning) I’d come home and add another new little thing and I was feeling like an obsessed stalker a little more every day. From Yoongi’s point of view, I most likely was. But it had to be done.

It had to be done.

It was one regular Tuesday when I chanced upon gold. I was sitting on my bike, bored out my mind, stuffing my face with fast food watching Yoongi laugh about something with Jimin and Taehyung outside of one of his clubs, when a black car with tinted windows pulled up. It was a car I sometimes saw with Jungkook, so I more or less knew to expect the young man, but when Hoseok in all of his glory jumped out and walked over to hug the two youngsters, I was so surprised I almost choked on a hot dog and fell off my bike.

Jungkook came out of the car right after him and immediately started looking around, so I ducked and started pulling my bike a little more behind a corner. The five men conversed for a moment and then Hoseok waved and started walking towards a different car. I watched him full of anticipation, my fingers flexing on their own, eager to try my best at tailing Jungkook if it meant I’d get to find out where Hoseok worked. But to my absolute elation, Jungkook wasn’t following. Hoseok was leaving alone. Fucking jackpot.

I was so happy I almost passed out. I didn’t know what sort of luck this was, but I wasn’t about to complain.

Hoseok walked over to a sleek silver sports car and sat in the driver’s seat. I was getting ready as if I was about to run the marathon, my sweaty hands nervously fidgeting with the handles of my bike, body taunt as a bow. He stayed still for a moment, a moment that felt like hours to me, but then I heard the faint sound of a running engine. He waved to the others again, and then he was off. I pressed myself into the building as he was passing me and then quickly followed.

I’d never been that nervous about tailing someone, not even when I first went after Yoongi almost two months ago at the beginning of December. This was most likely my only shot for a long time, there was no telling when I’d be able to spot him again.

He drove to one of the many docks that were under Yoongi’s control. In this particular area, they owned a whole three warehouses that looked over some of their ships and imported goods. I was here a lot when I was trying to find Hoseok on my own, I figured this was such a hotspot, if he went somewhere, it would probably be here, but I never caught sight of him. Now I was proven right but felt annoyed that I missed him so many times.

The reason for that turned out to be quite simple. The biggest warehouse, situated closest to the water, had another door that I haven’t noticed. It was in the back and blended into the wall so well I almost thought for a second Hoseok’s just loitering in the back banging on the walls. When a patch in the wall suddenly opened and he disappeared inside, it was like unlocking a whole new world in my mind. No wonder I’d never seen him, the whole time he was coming in from the other side.

I admit, it was a bit reckless to pour my attention here after a single sighting, but I was willing to risk it. I took the time to scope out the area while Hoseok was inside (if he was anything like the others, he’d be spending hours there anyway).

A little ways to the left was a small building, but right behind it I saw an abandoned half constructed concrete monstrosity, most likely a leftover of attempts to redevelop this part of the capital city that crashed and burned on the involvement of gangs in the area. I made my way to it.

It was fenced off, but a little probing here and there, I was able to break into one of the fence gates. Inside I apologised to whoever owned this building, but it was very obviously uncared for, so I justified myself in that way. I probably wasn’t even the first person that broke in, I told myself as I made my way up the stairs. I swallowed the sour sensation that left me with and trudged on.

Within an hour I found a perfect spot to stake out. It was high and secluded enough to see the warehouse and its surroundings without a problem if I used a telescope, while I wouldn’t be risking being seen by the people on the street. It faced the second exit, which must have been used by Hoseok enough to escape my notice the first time around. In two days, I’d return here and watch.

It almost felt like things were looking up, like I could finally stop mindlessly following Yoongi around and move forward with this case, and for the first time after a long time I felt some sort of joy and relief.

I reached into my pocket to take out my phone and take a photo of the number on a nearby column, so I’d be able to find it easily again, but found it missing. For a hot moment of panic I thought maybe I had dropped it somewhere around Yoongi’s club, which would mean he now no doubt had it and I’d have to go get it from him, and it would be extremely embarrassing. But then I realised I must have left it at my table at the station that morning when I stopped by to hand deliver some documents to Park. I looked around to find something that would immediately catch my eye upon entering, but in the end I decided to just luck it out and left.

On my way home I’d stopped by the station for the phone and ended up having a coffee with Minjoon. For a brief moment, when I sat in a cafeteria, drank that shitty coffee and laughed at some story Minjoon was telling me about his first few months in the force, I found myself thinking I wish all my days were this nice.

I should have known it wouldn’t last, though.

Due to the fact that it was still January, I was absolutely freezing my balls off on stake out the next few days. Sitting in an open room in minus temperatures staring into a telescope the whole day turned out to be a pretty bad way to spend one’s time and quickly I was turning very cranky. I was hungry, cold, thirsty and even though Hoseok turned up and took the back entry, he just sat there for the whole day and didn’t come out until evening. I was mostly just watching some of the low-tier mobsters mulling about, moving about crates, caring for the ships and continuously walking in and out of the warehouse. Which was something I had already seen when I was staking out here before.

It seemed that the reason Hoseok was so hard to find was because he spent literal days holed up in that metal building, doing god knows what.

On my fourth day I was absolutely losing it. I spent the morning at the station and then went straight here. Hoseok’s car was already present, but other than that there was no other trace of his existence, just like the other days. He didn’t even come outside to smoke like Namjoon would. Not one of the other boys came here either, which was weird since they always seemed to be in close vicinity of each other. I was tired and frozen and I could feel the beginnings of a nasty cold and I was getting nowhere.

My day got exponentially more interesting though, when Yoongi’s black car rolled up to the back exit. It was the first time in the four days he came here, and the first time since I’d started tailing him that he came to this exit. That should have been my first warning.

I watched as Yoongi walked around free of all troubles, wide smile on, and if I wasn’t currently more than 100 metres away from him, I’d punch him in the face. The door opened and Hoseok stepped out to greet him. I could cry with happiness at the first appearance of the man in days. And also punch him in the face. Together they disappeared inside, and I was left with the same sorry view as before.

Impatiently watching the clock, I saw the minutes drift away into two hours of silence and no movement in the back. Just when I thought about just slipping into a coma to escape this hellhole, I heard movement outside my little spot. Instantly alerted, I quickly stood up and pressed myself closer to a wall where I wouldn’t be immediately noticeable from the entrance into the room. My whole body was stiff from coldness and hours of just sitting, my muscles protesting and painfully pulling until I was barely able to hobble away.

The steps got closer and closer until a figure clad in all black stepped in. For a moment I thought it was Jungkook and was a second away from wailing in frustration, but it wasn’t him. It was a young man, based on his clothes he must have been part of Yoongi’s security, but I didn’t remember his face from before.

He located me in a second – after all, there weren’t many places I could be hiding in a completely bare concrete room. Without a word he thrust his hand to me. My eyes slid down to see a take-out coffee. When I wasn’t taking it, he impatiently moved his hand, trying to get me to relieve him of this definitely extremely bothersome task.

I did take it, mostly because I didn’t want to annoy him more when Yoongi was already doing such a good job of it and sighed in defeat. How the fuck did he even sniff me out here? The guy looked at me and then said: “Boss wanted me to tell you that he truly thinks it’s admirable how hard you work in such cold weather.” His face was completely unreadable, but I knew he must have thought this was such a laughable situation.

I wanted to feel angry, I really did, but I didn’t even have the strength to do it. Instead I sighed and pinched the root of my nose between my fingers. Frustration coursed through me and now I was annoyed with Yoongi too. Did he become omnipotent or what?

I returned the poor guy’s gaze and said: “Please send a message back. Tell him that he’s annoying and I hate him.” He nodded and left, no expression on his face. A true professional.

From then on, whenever I got closer to them, Yoongi would send me a subtle message that he knew about me. Either he would send me food or drinks or just stand in my line of sight and wave in my direction. Sometimes when I knew he could see me too I returned the gesture by flipping him off, to which he always laughed. Taehyung also caught on and to any birds sent their way he sent back a kiss and a wink.

It took me embarrassingly long to figure out that they planted a tracker on me. One night in a mad fit to find it I turned upside down most of my apartment. At 3 am I was standing on the street, pawing at my bike like a crazy person, attempting to stuff my fingers to all the nooks and crannies. A passing woman looked at me as if I was sexually harassing my own vehicle and after that I rather returned back home, not interested in getting the cops called on me.

Every time I went to stake out, I would leave home an item, just to try and narrow down where it could possibly hide. I decided to trust that my bike was tracker free and I bought myself a set of completely new clothes even though I thoroughly checked the old ones. I would wear different shoes, even if I knew there was no way they got to them. One day I even chanced moving about without my wallet. They still found me. And that’s how I realised what the only thing that I had on me all the time, no matter what was. My phone.

I thought back to the day I stormed into Yoongi’s office, distraught and upset, how he acted strangely nice and comfortable. Taehyung’s strange behaviour and my phone. Lying on a table, away from me, but close to Yoongi wandering around. He was messing about that table even when I stayed sitting on that damned couch.

All I could do was laugh at his craftiness. At how easily I fell into a trap of his softer demeanour because I was surprised he sat on the floor and talked seriously, how I let Taehyung completely consume my focus by flirting and teasing me. I had to applaud them, really. It was brilliant and I walked right into it. I was so stupid, I let him fool me even though I was suspicious of him the entire time.

At first I feared he was tracking me through the phone itself, but when I inspected it closer, I noticed a little bump under the case. When I took it off the phone, there it was. A tiny little tracker attached to the plastic.

I wondered what Yoongi was trying to accomplish. He put a tracker on me, but then also made it obvious that he knew more about my whereabouts than he was supposed to. He was quite literally giving it away. Therefore, knowing about the tracker didn’t necessarily put me at an advantage since I had no idea what his goal was. I decided to keep it there until I made up my mind about what to do.

But I was petty. Really petty. And as impressed as I was with my ability to fall for Yoongi’s cheap tactics, I was also peeved. That’s how one day I found myself at our station, loitering around an office where the IT guys had their stuff. When one of them rounded the corner, I immediately took my chance. It took a lot of persuading and lying. A lot of “I’m from this department” and “I was tasked with getting one for the next mission” and such, but twenty minutes later, I was leaving the room with a tracker of my own. Was it technically illegal? Yes. Would Yoongi find the tracker within the first 24 hours and then triumphantly return it to me while telling me to try better next time and I would return it right after before anyone noticed I ever had it in the first place? Also yes. No harm done, just a little revenge.

After that, every day for a week I went straight to Yoongi’s office. Whether I was on duty or not, every afternoon I was sitting on his stupid little sofa, grinning at him mischievously and sipping on tea that he started offering me instead of stiff drinks. I would find anything to talk about, I joked and played and asked stupid questions I knew he’d never answer.

And I could see it on him, he was trying to figure out where this was going. He would look at me, intrigued and confused, his head just whirring with ideas of what my new plan could be, and I was enjoying it so much. Sometimes he’d just stare at me in that way he did to people, and I’d stare right back at him and I was able to laugh. For the first time it felt like we both were trying to catch the other off guard, and not as if I was just mindlessly walking straight into his traps. For a few brief moments, the scales were balanced, and I liked that I was able to keep him in suspense. But I also had to move on from this.

At first his eyes would follow my every move, sharply watching me interact with things he had in his office, but once he'd become used to my presence, become used to how I hovered over things and examined the décor and played with the little trinkets he had on display, I was sometimes able to slip his attention. And then, on the seventh day, when he left the room for a split second to call for Jungkook down the hall, I slipped the tracker into a little tear I had noticed on his jacket, along with a little surprise for him, when he found it (which would be soon).

I walked out of there without saying much, wearing a mysterious smile on my lips when both men turned to watch me leave. Once outside, I took the tracker off my phone and slipped it into the bag of a random guy passing me by on the street. Let’s see how long before they figure that one out.

The game was on.

Series masterlist | Next part

A/N: thank you so much for reading this! i hope you enjoyed yourself, feel free to interact, i will be grateful for comments or asks of all sorts :)

Divider from the amazing @saradika-graphics <3

Taglist (open) : @wobblewobble822

172 notes · View notes