Jimin could not recall the last time he'd worn a tailored Armani suit.
Since meeting Yunhee, he'd grown rather accustomed to skinny ripped jeans and trendy t-shirts. Anything that matched the biker jacket that was gifted to him from the affable, purple-haired Jinnie.
Today, however, required professional attire.
Even Jin had abandoned his everyday polo shirt and slacks and pulled out his deadliest weapon. A classic steel grey three piece. One of the finest in the world that he was trying his damn best not to muck up as he dipped under the roller door of the garage.
'Are you sure this is wise?' Yunhee questioned, grimacing at the sheathed army knife in her hand as Jin plonked a cumbersome duffel bag by their feet.
'We're not leaving without backup.'
Taking the blade from her, Jimin added it to the bundle of ammo and zipped up the bag, his roaming gaze inspecting her apparel as he crammed it into the hidden trunk compartment.
Two scraggy pigtail buns, a battered denim jacket over a sun bleached button-down he was sure belonged to Jungkook, and leather boots creased with age. Far too large for her dainty feet and likely stolen from Suga's wardrobe.
If he didn't know and love the lady so much, he'd presume she was some street kid gearing up to pilfer his rich pockets.
'I know backup is good,' Yunhee sulked while scratching her frizzy hair, 'but if his men search your car-'
'It's a chance I'm willing to take,' Jimin replied with a wry smile as he tried to ram the hoard of weapons deeper into the partition.
Nine times out of ten, Yunhee's instincts were on point; it was probably a terrible idea to hide a mass of firearms and knives in their car and drive onto enemy territory, but without them, the mobster felt as lost as a goose in a snowstorm.
'Can't you just like...I dunno, pretend you didn't see his email?'
Abandoning the duffel bag, Jimin eased to his full height, empathetically eyeing his concerned girlfriend as Jin conveniently ignored their conversation and kept himself occupied by sharpening a switchblade.
As expected, Ji Changwook had fired a warning shot across their bow and summoned them to Ganeung-dong, but it wasn't online like Yunhee thought. A gruesome gift had been delivered to the house while they were at Namsan Park, an extremely unpleasant reminder of what could happen should they cross him.
Sweeping a loose piece of fringe into his slick backed hair, Jimin pressed his lips together and tried to think of a way to appease the worried sick woman.
'There was no dodging the email. He...he requested a "read receipt".'
Yunhee's features crumpled. 'Please don't go.'
'Yunhee,' Jin intervened, his gaze not leaving the metal rod as he swished it along the glistening blade, 'ignoring the drug lord to focus on Taehyung was damaging enough. Not showing a second time will be considered a sign of disrespect. We need to try and mediate-'
'Mediate?' Yunhee blustered. 'Changwook has you by the balls! He's going to make you work for him! Something you guys have strived to avoid for nearly ten years!'
'We have no choice, darling,' Jimin mollified calmly. 'If we don't show, he'll send a battalion of men to kill us all. Including you.'
'Ugh!' With a resigned sigh, Yunhee slumped against the tail light, eyeballing Jimin as she scuffed her boot along the floor. 'JK and Hobi are heading out to buy groceries. I think I'll go with them to take my mind off things.'
With a humourless laugh, Jimin closed the trunk and strode to the front of the vehicle with a tight jaw. 'Please don't make me look like the bad guy here. You know that's not possible.'
'JK and Hobi will watch out for me.'
'You're having a laugh!' Jimin retorted, avoiding eye contact with the unremitting female as he yanked open the driver's door. She was doing it again. Following him like a puppy while giving him that alluring smile under those fanning lashes.
He would not cave.
'I'll give you a foot massage when you get back.'
Jimin stalled, blinking at her while his fingers whitened around the window frame.
Goddamn this witch.
No. No, no, no, he thought as he rolled out his shoulders and plastered on a poker face.
'You're staying here with Yoongi and Tae and that's final.'
A derogatory expletive exploded from Yunhee's mouth as Tae entered through the pedestrian door and strolled over with his arms behind his back. 'Oof, someone's tetchy.'
'Bite me, Casanova,' Yunhee muttered while Jin wrestled a smile and Jimin licked the corner of his lips.
After yesterday's unrehearsed excursion and Tae making a shameless advance on Yunhee, the air between them was so brittle it could snap.
Regrettably, last night's grisly token had left Jimin with no choice but to hold off on asking Tae to leave. They were going to need all the manpower they could get tonight, and so he'd bitten his tongue and stingingly agreed to extend his stay.
'Did you want something?' Jimin cuttingly asked as Yunhee stubbornly picked her fingernails with her canines.
'Oh, yes,' Tae declared, exposing the elusive item he'd kept behind his back. 'Remind me what you want me to do with this thing again?'
Jimin wrenched his collar away from his sweating neck as his vision homed in on the small cardboard box sitting in his hand.
There was no need to panic. Yunhee was chewing her nails and glaring at the cement ground. She wouldn't notice-
'What's that?'
For fuck's sake.
Now, she was on her tip-toes, opening the lid to peer inside. Before Jimin could plunge into a state of panic, however, Jin folded away his switchblade and snatched the box from Tae's grasp.
'Why do you always have to make a spectacle of everything?' Jin berated as he launched the offensive item into the trunk and out of sight. 'It's just a box of Winchesters!'
'You guys use Winchesters?' Tae ridiculed. 'You always struck me as Remington kinda guys.'
Running a palm over his reddening face, Jimin jumped behind the wheel to keep himself busy. The vindictive son-of-a-bitch knew damn well what was inside that box.
It was not ammunition.
'Who cares what they're called? A bullet's a bullet,' Yunhee surmised before leaning into Jimin's ear. 'Hey, if you give me a Raptor and a few of those Winchester things, I can protect myself-'
'Don't piss me off, Yunhee. Not today,' Jimin rumbled as he hit the button on the interior roof and the garage shutter rattled upwards. 'You're not going.'
Right on cue, Tae's inquisitive face emerged just over her right shoulder. 'Going where?'
'Grocery shopping,' Jin answered, nudging the nosey man out of the way. 'Yunhee wants to go with dumb and dumber.'
A patronising scoff spurted from Tae's lips while he sluggishly shifted his attention to the hopeful woman.
'Out of the question.'
Yunhee's lips puckered, her enlarged pupils drilling a hole into the man who'd just sealed Jimin's "no deal" argument. She looked like she was about to sucker punch Tae for speaking to her in such a magisterial, pedantic tone, and Jimin was itching to come to her defence and dent the bonnet with his cranium.
If he stood up for her on this occasion, however, he would look like a hypocritical fool.
Tae was right; helping her friends pick out food was out of the question when there were two madmen on the loose.
Keeping his mouth firmly shut, Jimin started the engine, using the angry rumble to drown out their chat as he tugged Yunhee onto his lap.
'Listen, I'm not trying to be a dick and order you around, but grocery shopping-'
'Is a stupid idea, I know,' Yunhee sighed as she mashed her forehead against his. 'I just...I don't know what to do with myself. The thought of you getting hurt makes me ill.'
God love her; he certainly did. It had been years since anyone had cared enough to stress about his wellbeing.
'I'll be back before you know it,' Jimin assured. 'I'd say wait up for me, but I know you'll be asleep and snoring like a tractor.'
'Hey!' Yunhee tried to whack his bicep, but he caught her hand, enveloping it as he brushed the tip of his nose over hers.
'There's a stash of guns behind the tumble dryer in the utility room,' he said while tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. 'Why don't you and Suga go into the gardens and work on your aim while I'm gone? I'm sure you can teach each other a few things.'
'Hmm,' Yunhee contemplatively gnawed her bottom lip, 'is it a stash of potato guns, or are you trusting me with the real McCoy?'
'I'm trusting you with the real McCoy. Just...try not to shoot my Pink-A-Boo azalea, okay?' Jimin teasingly cautioned before placing a prolonged kiss on her giggling lips. 'Meet you out front in five?'
'You betcha.' Yunhee smiled at him, the beautiful image burning into his retinas as she clambered off his legs and skipped through the pedestrian door.
'Don't be too hard on her,' Jin chuckled as Jimin climbed out of the car. 'Being a royal pain in the arse is Hahm Yunhee's coping mechanism.'
'Really?' Tae pouted from where he leaned on the workshop bench, throwing and catching a shabby baseball. 'I presumed the painters and decorators were in.'
Aghast. That was Jin's expression as Jimin forced his Italian shoes to carry him away before they kicked Tae's sexist teeth in.
'We're moving out in ten,' he reminded Jin while popping the trunk. 'Tell Joon to be ready.'
Jin bobbed his head, ducking under the shutter as Jimin retrieved the troublesome box with a grimace.
Tiny crimson droplets painted the tattered lid, not enough to alarm Yunhee earlier, but he thanked God that Jin stopped her before she could look inside.
Dried blood framing a severed, wrinkly hand. A gold watch draped around what was left of the poor soul's wrist.
A classic threat, if ever there was one.
'You know, you could just show it to her?' Tae ambled over, wincing when he peered inside. 'Eurgh, Christ, that stinks.'
'If Yunhee sees this,' Jimin said, his mouth drier than sandpaper as he re-read the bloodstained note beside the gruesome relic, 'she'll freak out and smack me around the head with it.'
Don't waste my time, Jimin.
Tomorrow. 7PM.
There was a cruel irony to Mr. Ji's words.
'I don't care how you do it,' Jimin rasped, shoving the box into Tae's chest, 'just stop playing games and do what I asked. Get rid of it. Today.'
*
Salt n' Pepper, they sometimes called him.
Judging by the state of his hair these days, Suga considered scrapping the title. Black roots were the devil, but who had time to visit the barber when they were fighting an ubiquitous evil?
Deciding he'd seen enough, Suga flushed the toilet and deserted his weary reflection, drying his hands on his trousers as he vacated one of the four-hundred bathrooms with a profaning grumble.
Two hours had passed since Jimin and his loyal dogs drove out to Ganeung-dong, while Jungkook and Hobi were stranded somewhere outside of Pyeongchang-dong after getting a flat tyre en route to stocking up the cupboards.
That left him and his pain in the arse best friend to keep Yunhee preoccupied with some fruitful target practice until everyone returned. Tae, though, had done nothing but observe their training from the patio with a fascinated expression before vanishing off the face of the planet.
His tendency to go AWOL came as little surprise to Suga, but tonight of all nights, it pissed him off. Especially after his spontaneous, wooing tactics in Namsan Park yesterday. Tae had always been a law unto himself, but lately, he was seriously beginning to question the guy's ideology.
As the last bloke standing and now the sole protector of Yunhee, Suga had shepherded the little female into the living room to order pizza and - as per Jimin's stringent instructions - kept a gun close in case they were suddenly set upon by a couple of deranged doppelgängers.
Yunhee had stuffed herself silly, while he distracted her with memoirs of their past despite being inwardly concerned for the mobsters' welfare. After spending his adolescent years mingling in a few dodgy circles, Suga was all too aware of the notorious drug cartel.
Ji Changwook was ruthless. And the amputated hand was a stark reminder.
Funny old world. He thought he'd rue the day where he found himself holed up in Park Jimin's gaff and cheering for him, but if that fine looking, firecracker of a man didn't come back in one piece, he was going to be extremely upset.
Not because he'd grown to admire and respect the mob boss recently, but because Yunhee would be devastated should anything happen to him.
Speaking of; it was probably time to carry the sleeping beauty upstairs. Yunhee was out for the count after complaining about a food baby. If Jimin came home and found her crooked and drooling on the sofa, he'd probably decorate the ballroom walls with his intestines.
Switching off a couple more foyer lamps, Suga made his way back to the living room, but his stomach twisted into knots when he reached the threshold and saw a stranger looming over her slumbering form.
Coal black hair, a dignified posture. A rutted brow outlining strong, doe eyes that stared passionately at her.
If not for the oversized t-shirt and cargo pants he'd seen Tae wearing earlier, he'd have tackled the son-of-a-bitch straight to hell.
'For fuck's sake,' Suga hissed, trying not to disturb Yunhee as he trudged into the room. 'Where have you been?'
Startled out of his reverie, Tae pivoted away from the dozing woman and pointed at his altered tresses with a guilty grin. 'Years of bleaching fried my hair, so I asked my barber to fix it.'
'Couldn't it wait?' Suga rasped, boggled when Tae tossed his phone onto the coffee table and indolently took a seat in the tub chair.
'Not really,' he shrugged as he scraped his fringe off his forehead and tucked into a slice of pizza.
Not only was Tae's hair getting longer, but the golden tint was gone, replaced by a raven curl akin to Taehyung's.
He'd officially lost the plot.
'No one back yet?'
'No.' Suga tilted his head, regarding Tae with a wrinkly frown. 'Jimin said it would likely be pushing midnight, and while you were out pampering yourself, JK and Hobi got a flat.'
'Oof, unlucky,' Tae chortled before gulping down his food and thumbing towards the doorway. 'I'll stay here and watch Yunhee if you wanna go collect them?'
'They're fine,' Suga clipped while Tae shoved the rest of the pizza into his mouth. 'JK is changing the tyre as we sp-'
Both men gave pause, glancing at Yunhee when she smacked her lips together and stretched her arms and legs like a rousing cat. Lashes fluttering open, her first point of focus was not Suga, but the man who'd recently undergone a makeover without her knowledge.
'Easy, squirt,' Suga groaned, 'don't freak-'
Too late.
Yunhee vaulted from the couch, using an empty pizza box as a shield as she backed away from the raven-haired man.
'What you gonna do with that?' Tae challenged with a swipe of his tongue while lazily reclining in his chair. 'Paper cut me until I bleed to death?'
Realisation dawning on her face, Yunhee lowered her useless weapon with sagging shoulders. 'Jesus H. Christ, Tae, you could have warned me earlier!'
'You don't like my hair?' Tae's face was riddled with faux disappointment as Suga clenched his teeth in exasperation.
'No,' Yunhee protested, 'I don't, actually.'
'I think it suits me,' he said while ruffling his feathery bangs.
With a threatening lour, Yunhee chucked the pizza box at Tae's chest, rolling her eyes when he single-handedly caught it and flung it aside, while Suga shook his head and peered at the heavens for a shred of patience.
The unexpected transformation had done Tae no favours. Yunhee was troubled. She had every right to be after yesterday's incident, and yet here he was again, behaving like he didn't give a hoot about the danger they were in.
'I'm going to bed,' Yunhee petulantly announced as she padded to the living room door. 'Wake me up when the guys get back, Yoongi.'
'I'm sure Jimin will,' Suga smiled warmly, but Tae's flagrant scoff made him whirl around with a face like thunder the second Yunhee was out of earshot. 'Okay, dickhead, enough is eno-'
The overdue lecture was short lived, a shrill ringtone dicing through Suga's speech before he could tear into his friend. Tae - on the other hand - appeared nonplussed about the escalating tension, making no attempt to answer the phone on the coffee table as he glanced idly at the caller ID.
Hoseok.
'Oh, dear,' Tae clucked his tongue while laying his temple on his fisted knuckles. 'Do you think they're looking for a ride?'
'I swear to God, these two buffoons...' Suga irritably seized the phone on Tae's behalf, swiping the screen and slapping it against his ear. 'Of all nights, Jung-'
'Hate to press, boss, but I'm gonna need an eta real soon.'
'Huh?' Suga blurted, the ridge of his nose scrunching as he tried to make sense of Hobi's peculiar words.
Since when had he called Tae boss? His unpredictable friend was the king of high and mighty from one day to the next, but they'd never used a hierarchy system, not even as a joke.
The only boss around here was Jimin and...
Suga's desiccated lips slumped, the realisation crushing his chest like a Mauritania railway train as a disturbingly serene Tae rose to his feet with an arrogant smirk.
No, a purposeful smirk, one that rapidly settled into that award winning, sullen expression he'd seen a thousand times before.
Boss. As in mob boss.
Tae's doppelgänger was in the fucking house. Moreover, the sly bastard had decisively permitted him to take Hoseok's call knowing that it would reveal his identity.
Get your arse upstairs to Yunhee, Suga's subconscious screamed amidst a torrent of jumbled thoughts. Move, now.
Remaining as calm and collected as his nerves would humanly allow, Suga extended the phone to Taehyung.
'He's asking for you. Something about checking to see if we have a spare tyre?'
'Is that so?' Unnervingly, the tyrant continued his performance, pinching the device from his hand. 'Hobi, what's up?'
While Taehyung was distracted, Suga deftly scanned the sofa for the Glock he'd left next to Yunhee. Unsurprisingly, he could no longer see it. The dipshit pretending to have a conversation with his cheerful friend had hijacked it while he was in the bathroom.
'A couple of hours, maybe more,' Taehyung said to Hoseok, his cunning eyes slamming into his as he backed towards the door. 'Sure. I'll check the garage for a spare and let you know when I'm en route.'
When he flitted off into the foyer, Suga pelted out a lungful of air, his mind spiralling out of control as he tried to get his shit together.
He needed to stop Taehyung before he got to Yunhee, but a sinister energy he'd never before experienced swooped through his body, fastening his feet to the ground like dead weights, all the while reminding him of what he was up against.
The unavoidable, lengthy conference with Ji Changwook. Jungkook and Hobi's flat tyre.
This was no ordinary man. This was The Dark Energy. A cleverly distorted force that had set up a chain of events to ensure that not only everyone vacated the premises, but that they stayed away for the rest of the night.
Suga was the only remaining obstacle.
A taunting spell of laughter permeated his senses, the invisible shackles that bound his legs falling free so that he stumbled onto his hands and knees.
Having little time to waste, he staggered up towards the sofa, flipping the upholstered cushions upside down in search of his gun while shakily making a call to Jimin. He needed the mob crew home ASAP before-
'Are you fucking kidding me?' Suga snarled, springing to his feet when he was greeted with an automated message.
Of course, Jimin had warned him that Changwook made a habit of confiscating all hi-tech devices while in his company.
Their phones were switched off. There wasn't even an option to leave a voicemail.
'Crap,' Suga rasped, his eyes flicking to the ceiling before he quietly shifted to the living room door.
The foyer was abandoned, not a trace of anyone in the shadowy crevices. Yunhee's bedroom was directly above, the staircase a few metres away.
The woman was sharp and nimble, they could easily escape over the balcony and into the gardens, but Suga was pretty certain that Taehyung was not mooching around in Jimin's garage for a tyre.
He was likely up there right now, armed and dangerous and ready to empty a full magazine into his chest should he try to intervene. There was, however, an abundant stash of weapons tucked away in the utility room.
Double-checking the coast was clear, Suga moved swiftly into the east wing, making a hasty dash to the end of the hall. He was sweeping the darkened passageway for any sign of Taehyung when he heard it.
Two clipping footsteps, and the distinct sound of a safety catch being released.
Suga spat out a vicious curse, gradually raising his hands to either side of his head when he felt a circle of cold, hard steel digging into the back of his neck.
'Outside,' Taehyung barked, forcing him into the utility room with the gun barrel.
'A little unfair, don't you think?' Suga growled as he opened the outer door and stepped out into the cool night air.
'Would you like me to return your weapon and even the odds?'
Despite his heart hammering beneath his ribcage, Suga chuckled, chancing a peek over his shoulder as his enemy drew the door shut. 'You wouldn't stand a chance.'
'Ah, yes,' Taehyung droned sarcastically, 'Min Yoongi, my excellent marksman.'
'Deceased marksman,' he retorted while carefully rotating to face him, 'dickhead.'
A mercilessly ugly laugh escaped Taehyung as Suga studied the silver firearm glistening beneath the overhead security light. It was a magnificent weapon. A custom-made Kimber Raptor like Jimin's, except the slider was etched with intricate swirls around his poisonous name.
Lethal. But it belonged to an egotistical cunt.
Rallying up the fearless kid who'd once upon a time fought for survival on the streets, Suga plastered on his legendary gummy smile, thinking only of the clueless woman inside and not the damage a bullet would cause if Taehyung pulled the trigger.
'Come on, then, hotshot. What did you do with Tae?'
'Why, my troublesome twin is just dandy, thank you,' Taehyung grinned from ear to ear. 'Albeit, milking the luxuries of my penthouse after nine days of pure boredom. Can you believe he set my copy of The Iliad on fire?'
Suga's confident smile wavered under a ripple of sickness, his feet retreating over the gravel path as Taehyung's jarring revelation ate away at his conscience.
Tae had been captive for nine days?
'That's right, Yoongi,' Taehyung teased with a conceited simper. 'The granary bread was not to my taste, but Yunhee's sunny side ups were splendid.'
'How...?' Suga panted as he struggled to heave air into his lungs.
Taehyung hadn't taken his place tonight. He'd stolen Tae's clothing and passport and walked in under a pretence days ago. He'd been here the whole time, delivering the impersonation of the century that not one of them had questioned.
Temperamental mood swings, mind-numbing flippancy. Late night talks discussing a past that only Tae could know about.
Now, though, countless oddities sprang to mind. The lack of interest in baseball, sneaking out for cigarettes, his blatant longing for Yunhee when he'd promised to focus on himself. Suga had swept everything under the rug, putting "Tae's" peculiarities down to pressure for one sole reason.
His flawless complexion.
'Impressive, is it not?' Taehyung drawled as Suga frantically roved his cheek for any hint of a scar. 'So impressive I managed to fool my closest friend. No, wait,' he paused for theatrical effect, 'the entire household.'
'You motherfu-'
'You, on the other hand,' Taehyung jeered, rubbing salt into the wound of the colossal mistake they'd made, 'you failed your closest friend. And now you're going to fail Miss Hahm.'
Was it physically possible to tear a man's face off? If not Taehyung's, then his own for the guilt that currently shrouded him.
'I did consider it, you know? Taking you onboard,' Taehyung whispered as he waddled closer. 'You remind me of him a lot.'
'Hurtful,' Suga's nostrils flared, though his sarcasm was ironically unparalleled. 'We could have been the next Thelma and Louise.'
'Perhaps, but you see, the problem is,' Suga stiffened when Taehyung tucked the Raptor under his chin and viewed him with a disdainful sneer, 'you're too fucking loyal for your own good. The intrepid, acerbic Min Yoongi, filled with so much potential, wasted on Park Jimin and his pitiful mutts.'
On a whim, Suga wrapped his fingers around the slider, ready to welcome death with open arms if it meant Yunhee would hear the deafening blast.
'Go on, blue balls. Do it.'
'Smart, but I don't think so.' Taehyung snatched the weapon out of his palm while twitching his head to the front of the property. 'How about you and I go for a little walk in the woods?'
A bead of sweat trickled over Suga's temple as Taehyung pointed the gun at his torso with thinning lips. He was on the same page. He didn't want to pull the trigger. He knew damn well that it would alert Yunhee and lessen his chances of taking her.
Dark Energy be damned.
'I'd tell you to go fuck yourself, Taehyung, but I'm pretty sure you'd be disappointed.'
Suga pounced in a split second, driving Taehyung's forearm skyward while clawing at the Raptor to try and pull the trigger, but when his opponent's features shrivelled and a burst powerful energy exploded around them, he knew it was game over.
Controlled by a force far greater than him, Taehyung's long fingers smothered his face, and the fear of what would become of the loveliest woman he'd ever met flashed before Suga's eyes right before his skull smacked the wall and he tumbled into a trench of blackness.
***
Cliffhanger. Sorry, not sorry.
12th April 2022