**
The night is frigid with icy winds, but you are so far past numbness that you do not notice the frost, biting your sore nose, or the strong winds chafing your lips. You don't feel anything, not the cold, not the way your tears freeze against your cheeks in seconds before they even have a chance to run off your cheeks, not even the aching hole in your chest where memories of Jungkook cannot ease the emptiness there.
The salty tang of your tears seep into your wounded face and not even the sting of the burn against the sore skin awakens you.
You're numb, barely breathing, hardly thinking and completely... Completely broken.
You keep going, head dipped down, you have to move and not stop.
Throwing open the outer gates of the apartment you leave. Footsteps behind you echo through the night, causing you to wince in realisation.
You had just broken your own heart, and you couldn't take much more. You wanted to be in Jungkook's arms... But you wanted him to be safe more.
'Y/N stop! Wait... Please, please...' His voice shouts pathetically from behind you, sounding as awful as you felt and you knew that if you opened your mouth your words would be just as shattered.
So you don't look back.
Jungkook doesn't stop. He can't let you go. He's crying at you to just wait and you're crying uncontrollably now.
'Stop!'
He catches up to you and pulls at your body, drawing you back into his chest. For a moment you think to pull away, to wrench your body from his grasp and run.
But you're exhausted and hurt, so hurt.
Hugging you from behind he rests his chin on your shoulder and his breath tickles your ear. You fall into his embrace completely and his warmth begins to thaw the icy grip around your lungs.
You breathe shakily- A shuddering inhale of the crisp night air. Behind you, Jungkook grip tightens.
'Y/N, don't lie to me.'
You don't need to see his face to know if he is angry or not. His words hold an abyss of anger and disappointment and pain, and you know why. His mouth, a breath away from your ear, drips with heavy emotion, the kind that cloys on your tongue and stops you breathing.
The emotion that physically hurts you, you can feel it, right there inside you. The pain and the grief and the sadness.
You feel sick to your stomach knowing you did this, it was you. Your fault. You hurt Jungkook.
But you needed to remember why... Why you had to leave.
But Jungkook wasn't letting you, carrying on slowly, 'Your words, you can't imagine how much it hurt to hear, but I refuse to believe them. You're running away, again.. Y/N I thought you were brave? Won't you fight, for this? Us?'
You had been running your whole life, always moving, always surrounded by danger, you had learnt how to survive. But this time, Jungkook was wrong, you weren't running like always, you were running away to protect him, and the boys.
'Stay with me?'
His words stir something in your chest. You feel your pulse quicken and your face heat up, his body still pressed against yours.
'Jungkook,' Your voice cracks slightly, 'I'm tired of hiding my heart, of being scared. Yes, you're what I want. But I can't... I can't okay! This pain? It's tearing me apart.'
At the end you instinctively lean back slightly to get closer to his chest where you feel safest.
'I know, I know, you're scared and so am I okay. All I want is to help. But you need to stay. I can't let you leave. I can't okay, I need you.'
'Jungkook...'
You're not sure what to say.
'Maybe, maybe we met at the wrong time. I know how badly you want this, us. But right now it's too damn dangerous. And I refuse to put you in danger.'
'Then we get through this together.'
God, it sounded so perfect. But you knew the world wasn't perfect. And you couldn't let him change your mind.
'Jungkook let me go, I'm going back, I have to, you can't stop me.'
You feel his back stiffen and his arms tighten around you as you spoke. Suddenly he pulls you around to face him. Eyes wide with fear shining through them.
'Going back,' his voice barely a whisper, 'to Kang Sun?'
You square your shoulders, you can't show your fear, you have to be brave. 'Yes.'
He breathes out, 'Y/N no. No.' He can't believe it. 'You can't go back.'
'I have to.'
'Y/N please no...'
'No Jungkook, listen to me. I care too much okay- That's the problem. I don't want to leave, I don't want to go, I definitely do not want to go back to that monster... But I have no choice.'
He brushes your hair from your face and his hand rests against your cheek, the bandaged one, his touch feather light.
'We always have a choice.'
'I don't!' You burst out angrily. Pushing at his chest.
'They threatened you okay! They threatened you and everyone else.. Tae... Yoongi, Jimin, Hobi... Jin, Joon...'
Your voice cracks and still your tears fall, Jungkook looks at you astonished at the revelation.
'I didn't tell you, but when they gave me this,' you put to your cut, 'it wasn't just a warning, it came with a choice... My choice.
If I return they won't harm you. If I stay...' You trail of, Jungkook clearly understanding what you couldn't put into words. If you stayed, then no one would be safe ever again.
'I can't stay. Not if me staying, means your danger.'
'Please don't.'
'Jungkook I'm leaving.' You pull yourself out of his embrace slowly, his arms fall limply at his side once you are out of his hold, looking lost. 'Don't follow me. Forget... This.'
You carry on your path. You can't turn back now. As much as you want to run into Jungkook's arms. God, you're hurting, you're scared and you're broken. But if this was your last act of freedom? Then god dammit you would use it to save Jungkook.
The boy who deserves the world and so much more.
The night whistles past your ears, the cold biting your nose and cheeks. The tears you shed frosty against your pink skin. Your eyes stream and you think, I can't do this.
But you have to.
You want to turn back, to see Jungkook one last time, tell him those words you haven't been able to say yet. To scream that you were scared and lying to correct him, but really you love him so much it hurts, so much so you had never felt anything like this before.
But if you look at his face you know you will collapse right here on the filthy street.
'Y/N!... Y... Y-'
His wounded cry makes you freeze. The high pitched sound makes your skin crawl and your teeth grind, it sounded hurt, so badly wounded, like an animal.
Then the next sound makes your blood chill and heart skip a beat.
Jungkook cries out into the night, 'Y/N, help... Y/N. Help-'
The rest of his words are cut off into an unintelligible muffle.
Whipping round in an instant your eyes zero in on the distance and in that instant you know truly that you hate yourself and your every breath. You hate how far away you are, you hate that you left him, and you hate the narrow slits of evil eyes that stare into your soul with a vengeance.
Jungkook hangs limply in Hyun Shik's arms, his head lolling from being knocked out.
The vile man watches you for a second and the smile he sends you carries a message you can physically hear so clearly.
Your move princess.
They were still playing the game. And you were losing.
You couldn't look, but you couldn't bear to look away.
So you stand frozen as Jungkook is dragged into the back of a black van, men swarming around. A driver already pulling away.
You stand as the doors close and the last image you see is Jungkook's body thrown down violently.
You stand, too far away to do anything but scream into the night.
You want to cry.
You want to run.
You want to fight.
You need to get Jungkook back.
But all you can do is watch as the van drives away into the night, to a destination you know all too well...
The Mob's lair.
Full of dangerous weapons, and dangerous men.
Your old home.
**