𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐓 𝐊𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐑 || 𝐉.𝐉𝐊 ✓

⊘ • ❷❼ • ⊘

Now I see it. Even though I would have traded anything to feel normal like them, despite this current dangerous situation we're in, I have never felt so alive until the moment I met Jungkook. I was living numbly, but when Jungkook took my hand and told me to run, the world came to life. I felt my heart race in the most beautiful way that I don't even have words to describe.

I woke up and suddenly felt I could do and be more than I ever thought I could be.

I can be a well-behaved daughter who is obedient to her father's every command and work tirelessly to keep him out of the poor house because that means I would be right there with him.

However, I can also be someone who is determined in ways that show my independence. I can choose a route that society hates and still feel more alive than I ever did while playing the game of life in this hellish city. I can be the controller of my dreams and rules without ever having to ask for someone's permission.

It's crazy to think about how everything has changed, and even crazier to see Jungkook standing in my room.

I can already tell, despite both of us being happy to see one another, that he has bad news.

"I'm not going to beat around the bush," he says quietly, rubbing the back of his neck when coming over to sit down next to me. "I paid your father, and he left the city. I paid enough for him to put this house up for sale and for whatever else he needed. I did it because, once we made it here which is the first place I thought you would be, he tried calling the police to report us for the reward money. He had the phone in his hand ready to take that money at any time, so I made a deal with him," he says softly, voice becoming lower.

"I told him if he didn't call the police and let us stay in the house I would get him as much money as I could. I told him I didn't have a lot saved up in hopes he wouldn't ask for way too much, but he asked for one hundred and twenty thousand, and I at least, had that much because I've been saving for emergencies. Of course, we could sit here and talk about how I got cheated out of a lot of money like everyone downstairs has been saying to me, but I don't think I did. He didn't call us in. He signed away his rights to this house and has a month or so left before he has to get his belongings, so we won't be bothered here."

He stops talking suddenly, taking my hand gently.

"Vee, I never wanted to run your father off. I only gave him the money, and he decided to leave. I never meant for this to happen because I only intended to see you once I made it here, but it was only him. I'm sorry for making such a deal with him," I can tell he means it by the way he's softly stroking my knuckles and the lack of his usual self.

"Where did you get the money? And please don't tell me it was everything you had saved up." He seems almost surprised by my response, but he acts like he should have expected that to be my first choice of words.

"Remember that place I took you before our first mission? The bricks with all the cash stashed behind them? I loaded them up with all of us when we came by there, and then we headed here. We only took the money in case we would need it. Thankfully, it came in handy. I told you before that money was taken from people who don't need it—people who we try to expose to the world, but we take all of that money from the rich who can afford it, not the families who desperately need it."

"And no, there's much more where that came from, but it belongs to the crew. It's not all mine, so that's why I wanted to pull off the money heist before I left the city. Seems like that won't be happening now." I watch the way his eyes shift to the ground again, almost unsure of everything, of what I'll do, or I'll say.