old cigarettes | min yoongi

lv.

today was the day. even though both jin-ae and suga had been trying to hype you up for today, you still were shaking with nerves. not only because you were one step away from winning, but because chiaye's words still echoed in your mind so vividly you could almost feel her faux nails against your skin where they had previously gripped your dress, just millimeters away from scraping your collarbone.

"listen, rat. i know and have evidence that you were working with dohyon in the past. and if you don't want me to cuss you out to the authorities, or worse yet, turn you over to dohyon to get the punishment you deserve for running away, i highly suggest you do something about those votes of yours. capiche?"

you'd done nothing to stop your votes from overtaking hers, despite your overwhelming fear at her words. if you were turned over to the police, not only would your slowly budding career be gone, but then jin-ae and suga would probably hate you after they found out what you'd done. you didn't even want to think about what would happen if dohyon caught you. you were lucky that one night because of min-hyuk, but there was no way you'd be that lucky twice in a row.

"you ready?" jin-ae asked, poking her head into your room, where you'd been getting ready. for the finals, you had to come up with your own proper stage costume, so you hoped what you'd done would be enough. you were wearing a white dress that went off the shoulders and some boots that went up just above your knees.

"wow. you kinda look like an ice princess," jin-ae giggled, bounding around you as you fixed your hair. "here, let me help." she did your hair properly, and it ended up looking a lot better than if you'd done it yourself. it was only a temporary fix, but it didn't matter, since there was hired makeup artists at the venue, waiting for you and donghyeon.

you gave her a weak smile. "thanks, sis."

"you ready to kick donghyeon's ass and win the competition?"

"i don't know if that'll happen," you chuckled a bit as you slid your phone onto your bedside table. as much as you wanted to keep it with you just in case you got a new message from suga, your costume had no pockets, unfortunately.

you tried your hardest to hide your shaking hands, but jin-ae was too observant for that. "you okay there?"

"just nervous," you smiled. it wasn't entirely a lie, it just wasn't the full truth.

it was only by pure luck that you'd managed to hide your wrongdoings from your sister in the first place. she has always been extremely perceptive to the point that your parents joked about her becoming a detective. one time the four of you had played one of those "escape the room" games in teams of two, and jin-ae's team won in a matter of minutes.

a part of you had always suspected that jin-ae had known something was up, but she'd never said anything about it. probably because she never does say anything until she knows what's up completely. and since you'd stopped talking about your friends ever since your parents had died, there was no way for her to know what had happened. you sometimes wished she knew, though. after all, two heads are better than one. maybe together, you could have figured a way out of this situation long before any of this had happened.

"if you say so." jin-ae said, backing out of your room with a shrug. "how about we leave after a fortune cookie?"

you shook your head, smiling, before getting up to follow her. "fine." jin-ae also had this weird superstition about fortune cookies. but then again, they were fortune cookies. who doesn't believe what they say every now and then?

you cracked open the fortune cookie that jin-ae had thrown to you, shoving half of it in your mouth before reading the little piece of paper inside.

"you will live long enough to open many fortune cookies."

"hey, that's nice! what does mine say?" jin-ae copied you, stuffing the first half of the cookie in her mouth before she read the piece of paper. but as she was reading, she almost choked on her cookie.

"what? what does it say?" you asked, and she thrust the paper out towards you so she could cover her mouth. you couldn't quite tell if she was laughing or not.

"all fortunes are wrong except this one."

it was clear now that she was laughing. "hey! that's not funny! what if i really die? you wouldn't like it then, would you?" jin-ae struggled to swallow her first half of her fortune cookie, waving her hand as she tried to stop laughing. you were pretty sure there were tears in her eyes.

she finally swallowed with one big gulp and wiped her watering eyes. "okay, okay, it's not really that funny. but we should go now; hurry up and finish your fortune cookie." you rolled your eyes, popping the other half in your mouth at the same time jin-ae did.

you grabbed your overcoat out of your room before meeting jin-ae by the front door, who was chewing at an incredibly fast speed. giggling at her, you opened the door and stepped out onto the street with the cold blast head-on. the weather forecast had said that you were going to possibly get a storm tonight, and you didn't doubt it at all as you shivered against the wind.

you didn't bother to take a glance down the road as you hugged yourself to walk across the road. no cars usually passed down here at this hour.

"nari!"

maybe it was because of the wind blowing your hair around your face.

maybe it was just your luck. after all, it seemed these things always happened to you.

either way, time slowed to a stop as you saw the headlights crawling ever closer out of the corner of your eye. and just as you made eye contact with jin-ae across the street, who looked like her very world was caving in, the car hit you at full force.