What am I doing here?
Heiran sat on the thick velvet plush of the love sweet of a dimly lit consulting room, trying to find a comfortable position that appeared dignified. However, the dilemma with love seats was that they didn't allow one to relax in the dignified manner she preferred: legs crossed, hands clasped, and being able to look the enemy in the eye. Although Heiran had to admit that her psychiatrist Dr. Angela Kim was hardly her enemy, she couldn't help feeling highly intimidated as she watched the woman perched on her revolving chair, the sunlight that filtered in through the window behind her lighting up the outline of her chair and the sharp point of her heels. The rest of her face remained shrouded in shadows. Heiran could barely make out her blood-red lips in the haze and occasionally, she caught the glint of her toothpaste-commercial-white teeth.
It would have been an understatement to say that she was uncomfortable.
"Color me surprised," a slithery voice, as soft as a snake's, hissed from the darkness, "To what do I owe the pleasure of having you grace my office?"
Heiran was briefly reminded of her first meeting with Jungkook last year. Well, the first sober meeting.
"I...uh, I have migraines. Um, frequently."
A gasp. "Whyever would that be? I thought Ms. Ahn Heiran was all cured. After all, there's absolutely no reason for Ms. Ahn to get migraines."
It was hard to make out the doctor's expression but she had the distinct impression that her psychiatrist was being sarcastic. Heiran cleared her throat. "That's not true."
"It is not? Then I must get to the matter quickly. Let me order some blood work. See if there are any hormonal imbalances and also consider some physical illnesses. Maybe even check for other influencing factors... like a possible pregnancy, maybe."
Heiran choked on air and coughed out loud, "What?!"
"You have a boyfriend, you said?" Angela asked, innocently.
Her cheeks flamed as she sputtered out, "Y-yes, but—"
"Then we must definitely check. After all, we don't want any unnecessary surprises," she felt Angela's eyes flick to her belly. Heiran immediately folded her hands, covering her torso self-consciously as she opened her mouth to protest but she was interrupted. "I know, I know, Ms. Ahn. But we can't entirely place our trust in birth control. Accidents happen, it's better to be safe."
"I am aware!" Heiran managed to choke out, her voice a pitch too high. "But there's absolutely no way. It's not possible. I haven't... we didn't..." She winced in humiliation, her cheeks on fire as she helplessly trailed off.
"Aah," Angela made an exaggerated show of realization. "I understand." She emphasized, her voice coated thick with feigned sympathy.
Heiran's jaw hung open. She could have sworn she saw a faint smirk grace her obscenely red lips. Though many excuses sprang to her mouth, she bit her lips and held them back. Heiran had never met a woman who could truly defeat her like this before. It felt as if she had truly met her match.
"W-we don't need to do all that. It's just migraines from stress. This is going a bit overboard," she spoke up, shifting awkwardly.
"Oh!" Angela boomed, and she jumped as her voice echoed off the four walls of her room. "Stress! Now that's a word I didn't think applied to Ahn Heiran. So, do you admit that things do get to you sometimes, Ms. Ahn?"
Heiran resisted the urge to bite her thumb as she looked all around the room, unable to meet Angela's eyes. "Well, I am a human being."
"And yet, you seem to forget that quite a lot." Heiran made herself look into her eyes and she didn't find the mockery she expected to see there. Only a firm confidence that drained her resolve. Angela sank into her chair, her fingers crossed.
"Now tell me. What is the real reason you finally decided to come to your appointment?"
* * *
The image of a familiar pair of earrings from the Tiffany 2019 collection lit up Jungkook's PC screen. Heiran knew she had seen Saerom's earrings somewhere before until she remembered browsing through the web for Minseo's birthday present and seeing the earrings there. She noted the specifications of the jewelry with a tinge of admiration and paused as she saw the price tag. A low whistle breathed past her lips. "That's quite an expensive reminder, Ms. Saerom." It was a pricey reminder indeed for someone who worked menial jobs to survive.
Exiting out of the tab, she minimized the window and was about to shut down the PC when she found a video from her phone downloaded and saved on the computer. She narrowed her eyes with a shake of her head. Someone's been up to work despite her orders to lay off of it for a few days and take a break. She vowed to give Jungkook a piece of her mind for downloading the video from her phone without her permission as she hit the play button.
The familiar view of Lee Reena's doctor's office filled the screen and Heiran set to work. She watched as the camera panned over the shelf of accolades and photographs. Nothing stood out to her particularly. She squinted at the faces in the photograph but the low lighting of the room made the footage a bit grainy to pick out any particular details. Taking a screenshot of the scene, she wrote down a note to research each individual in the photographs. As the scene shifted, the freshly arrived boxes sitting behind the desk caught her attention. She squinted at a circle logo with a flower silhouette imprinted on the packaging and barely made out the name Black Rose Pharmaceuticals. Whoever designed the logo must have had very poor eye-sight or they had never seen a rose before because the silhouette on the logo looked nothing like a rose. Tapping the diamond on her nose, Heiran promptly wrote it down as Jungkook walked inside carrying a bunch of correspondence.
"Chief Moon's invited me to his retirement party. I have to say, he really does have his priorities straight, inviting a guy on his sick leave to a party." He tossed the invitation on the desk with a scoff. Chief Moon Jaeyoon had been the Head of the Prosecutor's Office at Mokpo. He was a great Silent Wolf enthusiast. Heiran wasn't surprised about Jungkook's invitation as much as she was surprised about hers.
"Huh? Yeah, I got one too. He's retiring real fancy, isn't he? Did you read the honored guest list? Even the Mayor's coming." Heiran commented, eyes raking over the PC screen.
"I'm not going."
"You should, you know? Let yourself loose. Get some fresh air. Enjoy."
"Oh love, a party attended by the Mayor is hardly the place to let yourself loose."
It didn't matter that she tried to reign it in. Her knee jerked up at the darned word and thumped painfully against the underside of the desk. She cursed under her breath.
"You okay?" Jungkook asked, a note of curiosity to his tone. She quickly dismissed his concerns.
"Yeah, I'm fine! I just hit my leg on the desk."
"Right," he drawled with a significant look towards her knee. She avoided his gaze. "So what are you writing down?"
"Looking for possible leads. I need to find something big. I'm hoping this video might offer a clue." She explained, speed-running the video once again.
Jungkook casually took a seat on his bed, a reluctant look on his face. "There's no one right answer, Ran. It's a whole organization. They had years to build themselves up. We must throw every weapon we have at their roots and hope we hit the right one before they get to us. That's the only way we can bring them down."
"You're right," Heiram murmured, intently staring at the video as she zoomed in on various objects on the screen. Jungkook sighed, "There's nothing much on there, Ran. I checked every possible lead. You should leave it and move on."
"No way, there must be something here. There's no harm in being thorough."
She didn't notice the way he shifted on his bed, a hint of worry in his eyes. "Come on, don't you trust me? I was thorough. There's nothing on there. I tried everything."
"You lost my trust, remember?"
Heiran had meant for the statement to be light-hearted but Jungkook grew deadly quiet at her words. Realizing her mistake she raised her head to face him. His expression was inscrutable as he stared back, his throat bobbing up and down. "Is that so?" He whispered ever so softly.
"Wait, I didn't mean— That's not what I was..." She scrambled for an excuse, to deny her statement but found it hard to lie. Because it would be a lie to tell him that she still trusted him with all her heart. Jungkook remained quiet, watching her.
Heiran looked away unable to bear the silence, feeling as if she had messed up. Nothing she could say would make it better so she didn't. Her eyes fell on the screen of his PC and for some reason, it lingered on the picture frame of the wedding photo sitting on the doctor's desk. It took her five seconds to realize why it was and gasped.
"Lee Rina is married to him?!"
She zoomed into the picture frame and gasped once again. "I'm right! It's him!"
Jungkook frowned. "Who?"
"Lee Suho. He's my ex!"
Two years back there was a time she used to date the man on her computer screen. Thinking back, Heiran mourned every second of it. In fact, breaking up with him was a decision she never ever regretted. She wondered what a cruel twist of fate it was that Suho was the one who married Lee Rina. She couldn't help but wonder if that was the reason her identity had been compromised at the clinic.
"He is your ex?" Jungkook questioned even though he had heard her, clear and well, grimacing as if the word left a bitter aftertaste on his tongue.
"He's one of the worst. The smarmiest guy I've ever dated. Seriously, I don't even know why I let him be my—'' She abruptly stopped, realizing where she was going, and sealed her mouth shut.
He narrowed his eyes, "Let him be your what?"
"Trust me, you don't want to know." She forced through her teeth, eager to get away from the subject.
"I do want to know. I want to know everything about your life in the last eight years." He insisted as he rose from his bed and walked up to her.
"That's a very bad idea, my dude." She warned vehemently with a shake of her head. He paused near her chair and crouched down on his knees. As she watched suspiciously, he took her hand and encased it inside his palms. A wolfish grin flitted across his lips, his thumb stroking the back of her palm. The gesture sent an electric sensation up her arm. Her breath hitched. Heiran was unexpectedly hit by the realization that he was quite handsome. Too handsome as he watched her with his two glittering circles of stars. The faintest of his dimples knew exactly when to make a show. It did things to her that she couldn't explain. Her heart suddenly began to go haywire, beating to an erratic tune.
"Ah..." She tried to form a coherent word, but any logical thought soon disappeared from her brain as his traitorous hand moved up and down her forearm, erupting goosebumps in its wake. Her throat felt choked up and her mind went absolutely blank. Jungkook had a leisurely smile on his lips that suggested that he knew exactly what he was doing.
"W-what are you doing..." His other hand snaked around the back of her neck. With a tug, he brought her face so close to his that his lips were just a hair's breadth away from hers, close enough that she could feel his warm breath against her face. She remained deathly still, too afraid to move.
"Now tell me," he spoke, his low voice honeyed and hypnotic. "What are you hiding from me?"
"What am I hiding..." she whispered back, too lost to process his question. Then it was as if a bulb went on in her mind and she jerked back to reality, "Wait, what?!"
"About Suho," he blinked innocently. The look in his eyes was, however, not to be trusted.
"I'm not hiding anything. I just don't think it's a good idea to tell you about my past relationships," She clarified, still a little breathless from his antics.
"Why? Are you afraid that I might get jealous? You shouldn't. I'm not that kind of person," he stated calmly.
Like hell, you aren't. The conviction in his voice would've almost fooled her. "Yeah. Right."
"Really," he pressed. "Do you know why that is?" He asked with a quirk of his brow, his head tilted to the side. There was something odd about his tone.
"Why?" She humored him.
"Because I trust you. With my whole heart."
Her face paled; her fingers curled into fists. Did he know? Did he find out what she was hiding from him? Jungkook noticed the reaction and she quickly relaxed her hands. Something in his gaze had changed. Heiran had only realized it just now. It was a look she knew too well. A look she wasn't accustomed to receiving from him. "Oh."
"Yes. So tell me. About Suho. What kind of guy was he?" And she realized what that look was. She had seen it often on his face when he interrogated criminals and liars he prosecuted. Jungkook was trying to read her.
His thumb brushed over her knuckles, back and forth. It no longer held the same allure it had moments before. It was like poisoned honey, addictive but deadly. It made her feel entrapped. With increasing clarity, Heiran realized just how dangerous Jungkook was. This man who could make her lose her mind and reveal her deepest secrets with a few honeyed words was truly fatal. And he was onto her.
Heiran had to keep her guard on. She looked away from his scrutinizing stare as she began to narrate. "Suho was really creepy. Always acted like he wanted to dominate me or something. Guess I was into that at that time..."
* * *
Although three days had passed since Heiran realized Jungkook suspected her, it was hard to shake off the odd feeling. The feeling that he was the one person she should be the most aware of. For three days, Heiran took care to not be caught alone with him for the fear that she might not survive another attempt of him to catch her off guard and strip off her defenses. Unfortunately, despite her considerable acting skills, the man had caught on.
Impostor
Haven't seen you around much lately
Are you avoiding me, Ran?
Scared?
Scared of what? Heiran bit down her lips grudgingly as she reread the text. Jungkook was a talented beguiler who knew exactly what that one word could do and knew just how much it got on her nerves. He had asked the exact same question ten years back when she'd failed to honor her promise.
"You brought this upon yourself, Ahn Heiran. You had the audacity to write that note but you don't have the nerves to accept the consequences? Scared?"
"I'm not scared!"
"Seems to me like you are."
"I. Am. Not."
"Then prove it."
Well, he left her no choice but to prove him wrong when he asked her such questions, didn't he? Determined to make a statement, Heiran slammed the door to her car shut that evening and marched inside his home, the invitation to Chief Moon's retirement party clutched in her hands.
Her heels clacked loudly in his empty apartment building as she punched in his passcode and stepped into the living room. Jungkook was on the sofa, his laptop perched on his lap, facing away from the front door. A pile of paperwork sat by his side. He had only recently returned to his work at the Prosecutor's Office after his sick leave.
"Sacred of what?" Heiran asked in greeting, crossing her arms in defense. Jungkook raised his head at her voice. He didn't turn around to look. Heiran had the eerie sensation that he had predicted this outcome. Returning back to his work, he simply issued an order with a tone that left no room for argument.
"Stay the night."
Did he just... Heiran blinked in speechless silence, unable to believe the audacity of that man. She shook her head and collected herself, refusing to acknowledge the way her heart raced in anticipation. She rejected even the thought of wondering what he had planned for her. "I'm afraid I can't do that."
"Can't you?"
A delicious shiver ran down her spine at his tone and she ignored it as promptly as a stingy man ignored a beggar on the streets. Inhaling a deep breath, she changed the subject.
"We must be at Chief Moon's party right now and you're not even ready for it."
"I told you I'm not going to that party," he replied with a tinge of annoyance.
"And I told you that you need to let yourself loose. Hurry up. It's a good thing I came early. We still have thirty minutes to make it." She walked over to the sofa, her hands on her hips although, facing him up front was the last thing she wanted.
"And I told you that a formal party is the last place to let yourself loose," Jungkook argued, his eyes on the computer, irritation blatant on his face. "Stay here instead. We have some things to... discuss."
Heiran cleared her throat loudly, disregarding the way her ears heated. "No. You're coming with me to the party and that's final."
"Why are you so hell-bent on going to the party—"
Jungkook sputtered to a stop as he raised his head and saw her at last, his eyes widening in surprise. Heiran tried not to squirm. His gaze traveled from her head to toe, something wild coming alive behind them. She hadn't quite expected such a huge reaction. Since it was a formal party, she had thrown over a little black velvet dress that ended a few inches above her knees. It had puffy off-shoulder sleeves that showed off the curve of her neck. She had a string of diamonds resting above her collarbone and a part of her hair was held up in a little ponytail by a simple black bow while the rest of her white locks cascaded down in wavy curls. The outfit was prim and proper but it showed the very least of her true potential.
Still flattered that she had managed to impress him, Heiran twirled and spread her arms with a theatrical flourish. "Why? Do I truly look like the goddess Aphrodite now?" She questioned with a smirk, batting her lashes at him.
He had no reply as his eyes finally came to rest on her face. He simply blinked and stared. Heiran held the position for approximately ten seconds before she awkwardly lowered her hands, reconsidering her assumptions.
"Is it..." she cleared her throat self-consciously, "Is it bad?"
"How long did you say we had to make it on time?" Jungkook asked, closing the laptop.
"Uh, yeah, thirty minutes." She supplied, noticing the fact that he had avoided the question. She internally winced, embarrassed, trying to console herself with the fact that Jungkook hadn't seen the best of what she could do. Really, she had a thousand other outfits that could floor a man in a second. The best was yet to come. Heiran was definitely not disappointed.
"Thirty minutes. I can do with thirty minutes." He muttered, rising from his seat. She nodded her head, trying to school her features to not let her disheartenment show.
"Good. Take a shower first cuz you stink. I'll be waiting right—" Jungkook caught her by her elbow, pulling her along with him as he strode off to his room. "Whoa, whoa, where are you taking me?" Heiran questioned, stumbling to keep up with his pace in her high heels.
"You don't know that your actions have consequences, do you, Ahn Heiran?"
Full name. Jungkook never addressed her by her full name. Unless, he was really, really angry with her.
"W-what actions?"
"It's time you learned to take responsibility for them."
"What responsibility? I don't get it. What'd I do?"
"Come. It's time to pay the price."
"What did I do? I really don't know what I did!"
The door to his room slammed shut.
"W-wait, Jungkook. I seriously don't get it. What did I—"
But there was one more exception to that rule. He never used her full government name unless he was angry, or...
"Look. See what you did?"
"Oh."
Or he was thoroughly, utterly, and absolutely turned on.
The outfit wasn't such a failure after all.
A/n: Imma let all your imaginations run wild ;)
Y'all asked for longer chapters, I delivered. I want to know what you Cats think about the plot so far. Does anyone have any interesting theories? Guesses?
Also fun fact: Jungkook's preferred manipulation tactic is charming or seduction. ( ͡ ° ͜ʖ ͡ °)