Friday came around so fast that Taehyung once again found himself aware of how sudden time could creep up on a person. The last few days had passed him by in a blur so quickly and only looking back on it all did it fully hit him that he had spent close to four entire months inside of Haedogje Pa. Taehyung knew that undercover officers were usually only allowed eleven months on the job before being pulled out and in that time a great many struggled to gain enough information to result in decent charges and warrants. In less than half of that allocated time he had managed to do so much more but he wasn't going to brag about this particular fact. After all it was only through getting so close to Jungkook had he managed such a feat, and had he been left working the circuit just like the rest then he wouldn't have gotten this far. Taehyung had no doubts that he would have been one of three things by now: long caught, long turned or long dead.

He had been undercover for a third of the year so far and it was going to come to finish today.

Taehyung didn't really know what to feel with this knowledge, he just knew that he didn't feel the relief that he had once thought that he would feel upon knowing that he would get out of the gang. He felt a strong mixture of things, mostly anxiety, uncertainty and regret. Maybe there was a nice dosage of self-disgust added in too. Sitting at the kitchen table in the penthouse suite, a glass of water in his hand and the weight of the methadone pill on his tongue, he was pretty certain that the negative feelings far outweighed the positive, especially when his eyes settled on Jungkook.

Jungkook, who was completely oblivious to everything as he dined on his last breakfast that would be eaten as a free man, that would be shared in his and Jimin's company.

Jimin had lightened up over the last few days, had actually gotten close to his usual self and as a result Jungkook had pressed no further into his sudden melancholy that day. But Taehyung saw it when the younger man's back was turned, the way that Jimin's lips would sag at the corners and his eyes would go cold whilst Jungkook wasn't looking at him. Right now Jimin was picking at the remains of his food, stabbing and chasing around the odd mouthful with his chopsticks just so it seemed like he was still going to finish his meal.

Taehyung had eaten his breakfast already but the food felt much too heavy in his stomach, almost like a rock. That was probably what Jimin's stomach felt like too, and for the first time in what seemed like a long time Taehyung had a craving for the goddamn morphine again. The period might have passed when he physically needed it to stop him from getting ill but the cravings hadn't really went away. They were always lingering there, at the back of his mind, and today they were much louder than usual. Maybe the pill would quieten them down, he didn't know but he hoped that that would be the case. He just swallowed it hard with a sip of the water and hoped that that was the case.

He was already having to juggle his own feelings of disgust and shame today, he didn't need the morphine craving making it even harder to handle.

"Today's a busy day?" Jimin asked just for the sake of it, attempting to make conversation just like usual as his chopsticks played with the same piece of chicken. His spoon seemed to have gotten stuck in the congealed mess of rice porridge because he hadn't touched it in quite some time. Taehyung stayed silent rather than reply because he didn't really know what to say.

"I suppose," Jungkook replied as he placed his own glass down on the table. "It's a typical business day. Why do you ask, babe?"

"Just curious," Jimin said with a soft smile as he dropped his gaze to the table.

"...We won't be attending the meeting all day," he said after some thought and Taehyung noted that Jungkook's eyes shifted over to look at him as he did. His hair was still damp from his shower, parted and pulled back to reveal his brow, and he could see the slightest furrow between his eyebrows. There was something in his gaze and after a moment of thought Taehyung was pretty certain that he knew what it was. It was the beginnings of an idea starting to hatch in his mind. "Maybe just until the mid-afternoon, that leaves plenty enough time to be with you, babe."

"That would be nice," Jimin also lifted his eyes and Taehyung could feel the weight of his gaze on him too.

"You won't be alone for too long," Jungkook said as he shifted to get to his feet and moved over to his seat. The younger man leaned forward to press a kiss against his brow and Taehyung saw the way that Jimin's lips almost quivered at the contact, his fingers shaking around the chopsticks so much that he almost dropped them. "So until then you will have to play with Wangbi and distract yourself. You should..." Jungkook straightened up, one hand resting on his shoulder to brush along the silken bathrobe, "you should think of something that we can do together. Make plans, yes?"

"OK, but whatever I decide you have to do no matter what," Jimin declared as he placed the chopsticks down and dropped his still slightly shaking hands to his lap so the younger man wouldn't notice. Jungkook was much too busy staring at his face to notice, a soft and rather sweet smile at the corners of his lips. Since his father's death Taehyung had noticed a marked decrease in such smiles but since they had murdered Kim Jinwoo he seemed to do nothing other than smile. It was rather jarring. "No saying no to me."

"When have I ever said no to you, babe?"

About a thousand fucking times, Taehyung thought as he took another sip of water and dragged his eyes away to stare across the suite. Jimin just made a satisfied noise at this and he heard the sound of the younger man shifting to kiss him on the lips this time, the soft contact of an open but chaste kiss. Jungkook moved away to cross the suite in the direction of the stairs to continue getting dressed. No sooner had he disappeared inside the bedroom did Taehyung get out of his seat and move over to Jimin.

"Today's the day, yeah?" Taehyung said in a quiet voice, placing his hands on his upper arms to hold him in place for a moment. He shifted his eyes to look up at the first-floor balcony, on edge almost as if Jungkook would hear his voice in the bedroom. He wouldn't possibly be able to and yet he didn't want to take any chances. "Y'know what to do, don't you?"

"Yes, Tae, I know what to do," Jimin replied in a whisper. He didn't look over to the office room but rather just kept his eyes lowered to study the flooring. "I'll wait for the message, I'll...I'll take it out like I said I would."

"No going back," he intoned, fingers tightening firmly around his arms. "No changing your mind, yeah? Today is the day and I'm relying on you to pull through. My whole team are relying on you, and I know that's a lot of responsibility-"

"It is, it's so much fucking responsibility-"

"but you can do it," Taehyung continued without any hesitation. "Remember, I only trust you. No one else, that's why I picked you, so don't make me regret trusting you, Jimin."

Jimin looked like he might just have said something against this, a quick flash of irritation appearing on his face before he managed to curb it back in and not start an argument. It was not the place nor time to bicker and so he just pushed the urge away and instead reached up to pull his hands off his arms gently. Taehyung watched him cross the suite to sit down on the bed, drawing his legs up in front of him and holding his head rather low. The way that his shoulders were slumped was a discomforting sign but he understood why Jimin was feeling the way that he was. The other man had been forcing fake smiles for several days in a row now, had just forced himself to eat breakfast and pretend that everything was okay when it most certainly wasn't. It was really no wonder why he looked so crushed right now, but Taehyung just hoped that Jungkook didn't notice his sudden drop in moods like he had a few days ago.

"Look," Taehyung crossed the suite to get closer to the bed, moving to perch beside him. Jimin didn't even turn his head to look at him. "I'm sorry for what's going to happen, Jimin, I'm really fucking sorry but we talked about this."

"I know...I know," Jimin muttered under his breath.

"You're saving him from something so much worse than getting arrested, remember? You're saving his life, Jimin, like you said that he saved yours." Taehyung lifted his arm and he placed it over his shoulders so that he could drag him closer to him, press him up against his side. Jimin actually placed his head on his shoulder. "That's what you're doing."

"What I'm doing is betraying him," the other man said in a soft voice.

"No, that's me, I'm the one doing that," Taehyung argued as kept his eyes on the first-floor balcony. "You're not betraying him you were...coerced into it." He tried to not wince at this and failed terribly but Jimin wasn't even looking at him. "It's one small thing and then you're finally fucking free from Haedogje Pa, Jungkook too. No death, no pain, just freedom. He doesn't have to die, Jimin."

"It kind of feels like we're killing him right now," Jimin said.

Taehyung moved to get off the bed and go over to collect his holster belt from a table across the room. Ever since Singapore he had been allowed to carry heat inside the block rather than have the magazine confiscated by Dongjun on the check-in desk. So he slipped the gun free to place it on the table and grabbed the belt instead. He shrugged his arms through the holes, pulling the thin straps of leather and elastic up onto his shoulders and then securing it in place with a few adjustments to his belt. Then Taehyung picked his Cz75 Shadow and he hit the magazine release with his thumb so that the magazine popped out into his free hand. He made a show of checking that it was loaded, knowing that Jimin was staring at him the entire time and then he pushed the magazine back inside and heard the crisp clicking sound as it snapped in place.

"Remember," Taehyung intoned as he slipped the gun back into the holster and moved back over to the bed, "what you promised, Jimin. If you don't show and the operation gets fucked up 'cos of you, I'll come back here and I'll fucking murder you, and no one will give a shit."

Unsurprisingly Jimin seemed unable to give him a reply as he stared up at him with with wide eyes.

"So when you get the message you get that hard drive and you leave," Taehyung instructed as he crossed the suite to stand by the door. Jimin was completely unmoving on the end of the bed, seemingly not even breathing. It took another minute until Jungkook appeared on the balcony, shrugging his suit jacket on as he descended the staircase.

"Ready?" Jungkook asked him as he finished securing his shirt cuffs and reached up to fix his jacket lapel. Taehyung nodded in confirmation and spared one last glance at Jimin. The other man just kept his eyes on his lap rather than look up at them both, fingers fiddling with the hem of his bathrobe. "Then let's go."

They rode down the elevator together and yet Taehyung found that his mind didn't start wandering at all. He felt rather blank standing in the carriage beside Jungkook, blank of fear and of nerves, yet he didn't know why. The knowledge that he was guiding the younger man right into a sting operation should have terrified him but it didn't. He supposed after The Gold Monkey shootout not a lot of things scared him that much anymore. Hell, he had found being in the changing room with Jimin more unsettling than this. Maybe the added knowledge that his team were ready to act too and he wasn't going into it solo also helped alleviate that level of fear? For once in this entire operation Taehyung felt like it wasn't all on him, that he wasn't alone and solely in danger. No, he could finally feel that connection with his team back in the outside world again, and though the connection was only rather weak it was getting stronger with every passing minute.

The Mitsubishi Dignity pulled up to the curb and Taehyung was about to move over and open the door for him when Jungkook grabbed hold of his wrist and stopped him. The driver-seat door popped open and a man that he didn't recognise stepped out, not Yang but rather a different man.

"I rather feel like driving today," Jungkook remarked as the unnamed man climbed out and held the keys out to him, bowing slightly in respect. He accepted them and the man then quickly went back along the street to go down the ramp that led into the car pool. "It just feels like a good day today, Taehyung. Don't you think so too?"

"'Cos of the meeting?" Taehyung asked as pulled the driver-seat door open for him. Jungkook nodded as he climbed inside and so he slammed the door shut and went around the front of the vehicle. As he also climbed into passenger-seat Taehyung wondered what exactly that meant, and when he pulled the door shut Jungkook was already starting the engine so that he could pull the vehicle away from the road.

Taehyung decided to not press further and instead he just settled down in the seat and rested his elbow on the armrest. The younger man was much too busy driving to talk and he recalled that the last time they had been in the car like this Jungkook had remarked on his constant need to initiate small talk just to break the silence. But today there was no time for small talk, just deep reflection and some time to try and collect himself. During the ride Taehyung sensed that Jungkook was looking over at him, no doubt waiting to see if he would break the silence but he didn't.

It was when the warehouse finally came into view and Jungkook was pulling the vehicle into the lot that he felt the first hints of fear starting to appear.

It really wasn't that much of a surprise to him that the building made him uncomfortable because he knew that once he stepped inside nothing was ever going to be the same after that point. He was not going to leave the building as Kim Taehyung, Haedogje Pa joint leader. He was going to step out as Kim Taehyung, undercover police officer, and Jungkook would be leaving in a set of cuffs with hundreds of charges against his name. That was what made a lump appear in his throat that choked him and made it hard to swallow.

Taehyung popped the door open and went around the front to hold the other one open for Jungkook, allowing him to step out. The younger man did his usual routine, fixing his shirt and jacket before moving out of the open doorway and allowing him to slam it shut again.

"The weather is pleasant," Jungkook noted as he straightened out any creases in his jacket. "Don't you think?"

"Yeah, it's pretty nice," Taehyung agreed as he glanced over the lot and then turned to scan the horizon. Something caught his eye that caused him to squint, a starburst of light somewhat familiar to the red gun sight laser. Was that a slight hint of glass from way across the lots? Like a flash of sunlight reflecting off the glass of a pair of binoculars or maybe a gun scope? Taehyung didn't know but it looked right and so he dragged his eyes away and decided to not let Jungkook look in that direction lest he notice it too. It might have been nothing at all but he was pretty certain that it was so better safe than sorry.

"Maybe, when the meeting is over, we can take Jimin out somewhere instead of staying in the suite with him?" Jungkook suggested, back to the stretch of distant buildings and likely vacant lots. The entire area looked abandoned so he wouldn't be surprised if it was desolate save for them...and the entirety of the Yongsan-gu raid squad. "Whilst the weather is so nice?"

"I think he'd like that," Taehyung said as he reached inside his suit jacket, fingers brushing against his gun holster as he located the pocket.

"We will likely find him on the roof of the block with Wangbi, asleep in the hammock just like always when there's a slight hint of sun."

"You've been talking to him more, huh? About things?"

"Yes," Jungkook said, falling silent for a few seconds as if he was thinking the rest of his reply over. "Yes, I've been trying to talk to him more just like with you, but it can be difficult. Sometimes I don't like sharing things so I feel somewhat uncomfortable talking." He was talking about emotions of course, emotions and memories, Taehyung just knew that it was so. "But I've been trying, something that...that my daddy never did."

Taehyung slipped a cigarette free from the packet, shoving it back inside his jacket and then lifting his lighter to set the end alight. Listening to Jungkook talking like this was starting to make his hands shake. He took a deep drag off the stick and breathed it out his nose, taking another quick drag before slipping it out his mouth and offering it to the other man. Jungkook accepted the stick, held between his thumb and fore and middle finger, and he took a drag off the stick.

"Trying to make smoking a replacement habit?" Jungkook asked as he breathed the smoke out the corner of his mouth, eyes squinting slightly as he did.

"Nah, I'm still on the methadone," Taehyung explained in a quiet voice as he breathed in the younger man's exhaled smoke. "Two pills a day, I, uh, I'm not that sure I'll manage to cut down any more."

"Well, everyone has their vices," Jungkook said in a quiet voice. "So long as you're productive and not lying on the floor shitting yourself, two pills a day seems rather fine to me." Taehyung wanted to tell him that he very much didn't want to be taking a single pill and that his current addiction wasn't exactly a vice but he decided it was best to just hold his tongue instead. "Did your daddy have any vices?"

"Uh, no, he ain't got any," he replied with a head shake. "Not any that I knew about, I mean. Unless drinking every now and again is considered a vice?"

"No, no I don't think it is," Jungkook said as he took another drag off the cigarette and then held his hand up to let him take one. Taehyung leaned forward to do so, eyes moving to look across the stretch of lots again. Yes, he could still see that slight flash of light and he thought that it was sunlight reflecting off glass, meaning that Hoseok's squad was in the area right now watching their every move. "My daddy didn't have any vices either, just the occasional drink here and there. It seems like I have too many in comparison..."

Taehyung let go of the stick, smoke still held in his lungs as he straightened up to look at him. Jungkook was staring off across the lot with a rather hard to read expression and he recalled his words that night that they had shared whiskey in his office; of how he had thought himself a failure. Thinking about those words currently left a rather horrible stinging sensation in his chest because Taehyung knew exactly what was going to happen today. After everything that he had told him: that he wasn't a failure, that he was stronger than his father, it was going to fuck Jungkook up immensely when those warehouse shutters were knocked in and an armed team swarmed the building to arrest him.

Jungkook was worrying about how his vices made him look like a failure to his father. Not too long from now he would be the very reason that Haedogje Pa's empire was completely destroyed.

"Well, ain't nothing wrong with vices so long as y'know how to control 'em, right?" Taehyung remarked as he reached up to rub at his nose roughly.

"It gets hard to control them, after awhile," Jungkook said as he lifted the cigarette and hovered it in front of his mouth for a moment. "It's hard to tell exactly when the vice becomes an addiction."

Yes, like Jungkook's vice for pretty boys and sex that Jimin had told him about. Like his vice for murder and torture that scared his father's men and not in a good way, rather did so in a way that made them want him dead so he couldn't seize control of his own inheritance lest heads start rolling when he did. His obsession with power and control coupled with his illicit hungering to be dominated and used just made him so easy to please that Taehyung could hardly believe that he had once worried about his prospects in managing to get close to him; that he might just have ended up dead at his hands. No, the second that Jungkook had had first laid eyes on him and felt a sexual stirring deep in the pit of his stomach Taehyung had been set up for success.

Taehyung had used his own vice against him, had created a strange joint dependency in Jungkook that the younger man wasn't even aware of. At one point Jungkook had been controlling him, forcing him to commit acts of violence in the hopes of being rewarded and protected, but at some point that had changed. Jungkook was no longer the nurturing caregiver like he was with Jimin: patting him on the head and gifting him things. Jungkook had gotten deeper, had gotten intimate enough to find equal enjoyment from his rewards too. Now the younger man wasn't just praising and manipulating him, he was getting great pleasure from him too; pleasure that Taehyung had also been manipulating since the night they had filmed that pornographic video together. Namjoon had told him once that he was mistaking sexual gratification and codependency for love...

and Jungkook was doing the exact same thing just like Jimin.

Taehyung had become his vice, then his obsession and then finally his biggest weakness.

"Come," Jungkook said as he held the stick up for him to take another drag. Taehyung did so and the younger man took a final drag, dropping the stick and then crushing it under his heel with a hard twist of his ankle. "We should go inside," he finished as he breathed the smoke out his nose and reached inside his suit jacket to pull a key free. So Taehyung moved to get closer to the building, hunkering down to grab the padlock to unlock the shutter and drag it up. Jungkook slipped under it and then he stepped inside behind him.

The warehouse looked similar to pretty much every single one that he had even been inside. There was a wide area empty of everything save for two armchairs and a long stretch of a low coffee table, no boxes or crates in sight. A quick glance across the room showed high mesh walkways that ran along every wall, a set of steps to go up in them in the very far corner, and there was another door opposite the entrance shutter. Taehyung eyed it and wondered if that led back into the storage area before letting go off the shutter again. It bounced off the concrete flooring with a series of metallic bangs and Jungkook didn't even look back at him as he crossed the entrance to sit down in one of the armchairs.

"So, uh, who exactly's this meeting with?" Taehyung asked as he moved to get closer to him eyeing the warehouse interior as he did. Jungkook studied him from his position in the armchair, one leg folded over the other and his chin balanced on his palm. "You never told me so I dunno what to expect."

"Why do you feel like you need to expect something, Taehyung? It's just a simple meeting so you don't need to be prepared. If there were any transactions I would have notified you in advance."

"...OK."

"I can't help but notice that you're nervous," Jungkook remarked, still looking very comfortable in his seat and completely at odds to what he was feeling right now. Taehyung felt nauseous and the methadone was doing nothing to combat the sensation. He could just feel something unsettled deep down in his stomach and not much else.

"Well yeah, I'm a little nervous I mean, since Singapore I always like to know what's going on," Taehyung lied. "Even a simple meeting puts me on edge if I dunno who's gonna be present. I'm being paranoid, right?" he joked in the hopes that it would look natural and not at all fake. When he added a laugh it made Jungkook's lips lifting slightly at the corners.

"No, not paranoid. I understand. You could have died that day because you didn't know, neither of us knew," Jungkook shifted to settle back in his seat with a heavy sigh. "I too would find myself nervous after going through something like that, Taehyung."

"It's just, you said that it ain't an important meeting but this kinda feels like..." Taehyung studied the warehouse again, making sure to look up at the walkways as he did. "This seems like it might be pretty fucking important, y'know?"

"Well, I guess that today is an important day," Jungkook agreed as he fixed his suit jacket, smoothed out any potential creases. "The gala will be the true visual representation of my ascension as leader to Haedogje Pa but today is another form of ascension; the most important one, in fact."

Taehyung stared at him and he tried to figure out what he meant by that. It could have been one of many potential things but he had an idea, a very strong idea, what Jungkook meant. With every ascension came a total purging process and Jungkook had yet to undergo his own personal bleaching of the city to remove all traces of not only the Kim clan, but also his father.

"Today is the day that I will start purging this city," Jungkook announced with a wide smile. "Politicians, police departments, ambassadors, anything and everything that I want cleansing will be cleansed. Many men and women are going to find themselves disposed of power over the next few days, Taehyung, and quite a few might just find themselves missing their heads."

"It's about time," he remarked, seeing the younger man's grin widening. "And you told me that today ain't important."

"I don't think it is," Jungkook reaffirmed. "After all we're just having some conversations about select men and women and organising their removal of their power or their heads. It's not like we're actually going to remove heads today, Taehyung." At this Taehyung attempted to give him a smirk, lips twitching slightly at the corners. "That would be important, and much more exciting."

Taehyung held his gaze for a moment and he suddenly became aware of something, something that he hadn't been thinking of at all when listening to him speak a moment ago. All this time he had been wondering what the meeting was about but not who the meeting was with. Jungkook wasn't going to meet with his father or a man like Woo to sort out this cleansing, but rather someone else. Someone with enough power, resources and influence to be able to provide their full assistance to the effort. There was only one man capable of such a thing left on Jungkook's side and he knew exactly who that man was.

If Taehyung hadn't been terrified already, the knowledge that Bae Goohee was going to step through those doors in less than half an hour certainly would have struck terror into his heart.

"It's always exciting when heads start rolling," Taehyung managed to say through his numb lips and Jungkook laughed sweetly in agreement.

Jungkook and Taehyung had been gone for several minutes now and yet Jimin didn't want to move from the end of the bed. He liked sitting there because it meant that he could pretend that it was a normal day and ignore the fact that he was going to do something very very dangerous soon. He could just watch Wangbi eating her breakfast over by the kitchen counter, happily chowing down on her gourmet special order food without a single care. Like always, when studying the cat, Jimin found that he wanted to be a cat too. Being a cat meant that he had no need to worry about betrayal and hard drives, police departments and threats of being shot in the head. But sadly he wasn't a cat therefore it was useless daydreaming.

Jimin sighed heavily and he turned his head to study the suite door. After a few seconds he glanced over at the balcony, eyes running along the glass guardrail. The office was right up there, beckoning for him to enter it, and he felt his stomach tightening at the mere thought. He even reached up to press his hand against it, palm brushing against the silken bathrobe. On the bed beside him his phone was still and silent but he knew that it would make some noise soon. After all he was expecting a message from across the district, one from an unknown number with a location in it.

The urge to do something crazy like turn the phone off was so overwhelming and yet Jimin knew that he couldn't do that. No matter what urges came over him he couldn't do something like that because he had sworn an oath. There was no stopping Taehyung and his team from acting without him and if they did it would all get fucked up. If that happened then Jimin was pretty certain that he was dead no matter what, so he didn't really have a choice right now.

Yet the urges still lingered, still made him want to commit an act of brainless compulsion that he would instantly regret. Turn off his phone, throw it out the window, flush it down the fucking toilet. Call Jungkook and snitch on Taehyung, call Taehyung and refuse to do it. The list was almost endless and his mind just couldn't settle with all of the incessant thoughts racing through it.

Jimin knew that he had to get dressed and so he moved to get off the bed and cross the suite, phone tight in his hand as he did. He went up the stairs at a slow speed, finding that his legs weren't that steady as he did. He had to hold onto the rail as he ascended and when he reached the top he stepped into the bedroom. Jimin didn't really care about his appearance today and so he just shrugged his pullover on, the one that he had worn to go see Yoongi all those weeks back, and a pair of black trousers along with pair of pumps.

He stepped out of the bedroom to walk along the landing to go into the office, zipping up his trousers as he did. Jimin fumbled the buttons closed and his eyes settled right on the desk just a few feet away. The black whiskey box was still on the end, closed to keep the decanter inside like a treasure chest. Surprisingly enough the top of the wooden desk was clear of files for once for they looked to have been put away. The filing cabinet across the room had an open top drawer because it hasn't been shut properly so he wandered over to look inside. Jimin stood on tiptoe and he studied the file with very little interest before moving over to the desk. Then he hunkered down and pulled the second drawer open to reach inside.

Jimin slipped one of the hard drives free and he held it up for study. The box was several inches in length but not that much in width, a thick box of black plastic with several screw holes through it. When he turned it over he saw a sticker on it and along the sides there were thin metal teeth that would click in place to hold it inside the laptop. The hard drive said that it was 2TB of storage and there were a series of random things on the sticker that he didn't understand in the slightest. It was probably a variety of model specific information: serial codes, model, all kinds of technological shit that made his head spin. None of it mattered at all but Jimin couldn't help but study the sticker because he couldn't seem to take his eyes off it.

The plastic was cool and hard against his palm as he turned it back over and slowly curled his fingers over it. He managed to drag his eyes away and glance inside the drawer again. There were four more drives inside and from a single glance they all looked the same.

Jimin placed the one in his hand down on the desk so that he could pull the others out and quickly scan them. All of them were 2TB and he didn't have a clue if they were all filled with information or not. He had to bring just one but what if he grabbed an empty one, one that Jungkook had yet to store anything on? Did it matter? Did the contents even matter or was the physical object the only important part? Why hadn't Taehyung told him anything?

"It's OK, it's OK," he muttered under his breath as he looked between three of the drives held between his hands. "It's OK or he-he would have said something, right?" Jimin put them down and reached up to run a hand through his slightly damp hair, lifting his gaze up to see that Wangbi was sitting in the office doorway. "Right, Wangbi?"

The cat didn't reply and just blinked languidly at him, one ear twitching slightly.

Jimin swallowed hard and it felt like there was a lump in his throat, threatening to choke him. This wasn't right. There was something so fundamentally wrong about this entire situation that he couldn't shake the sensation. He shouldn't even be touching these hard drives let alone thinking of stealing one.

"Maybe I can...can load one up?" he asked no one in particular, just talking to himself at this point. "I could do that right, Wangbi? That way I would...I would know if it was blank." He glanced back up at the cat but she was much too busy cleaning her face to pay attention. "I should do that, I should I'll-"

Jimin shifted to collect the laptop from where it was stored, placed inside a briefcase underneath the desk well out of sight. He had to get on his hands and knees to do so, pulling the briefcase out and unzipping it so. Both the machine and the charger wire were inside it and he tossed the wire aside without a care before grabbing the laptop and straightening back up again. He felt the hollow bottom section against his fingers and be had just gotten back upright when he heard an unmistakable sound.

His phone had just vibrated on the desk with a hard buzz, dancing along the wood as the screen lit up.

Jimin froze in place for a moment, laptop hugged against his chest and breath catching in his throat. He eyed the phone like he had never seen one before, seeing a series of unknown numbers and the beginnings of a message on the screen. After several seconds he managed to slowly move and place the laptop down, instead reaching over to grab his phone. His fingers brushed against it and twitched, making him pull his hand away again. He was treating the phone like it was snake that would rear up and sink its fangs into his hand. Jimin took a deep breath and held it before taking the plunge to grab the device and hold it up in front of him. He unlocked the phone with his thumb, hand shaking rather terribly as he did. When the message loaded he felt his breath escaping his lungs in a wheeze.

Apgujeong-dong, outside the Galleria Department Store. Please show between 9:30-10am.

The Galleria Department Store was the best place imaginable and he briefly wondered if Taehyung had told them about the store. It wouldn't raise suspicions at all if he were to ask to go there today because he visited that store at least once a week. Had the location been somewhere unusual then he would have raised a little suspicion with his request to go there. The fact that some thought had went into it made him feel a little better but he still couldn't shake that feeling that this was all going to go wrong so very fast. He dragged his eyes away from his phone to study the clocks on the wall facing Jungkook's desk, the five clocks spread across the length. Each one was labelled with the specific time zone and country and his eyes settled on the one labelled: Seoul, to see that it was currently 9:10am.

Jimin stared at the phone dumbly, unable to do much more than blink and take quick little breaths. That was it, the preparation was getting underway and pretty soon the ball would be rolling. Yet here he was, standing in Jungkook's office with a series of hard drives in front of him and not a fucking clue what to do next. The phone felt much too heavy in his hand, almost like an anchor and he closed the message just so he didn't have to look at it. Instead he was greeted with the image of his homescreen and that made his fingers tighten around the device involuntarily. He had taken the photograph not that long ago, perhaps a week earlier if his memory served correctly. It had been near the crack of dawn when he had taken it so his memory was a little fuzzy but he remembered taking it. Whilst Taehyung and Jungkook had been deeply asleep he had taken a shot of them both just for the sake of it, to make a silly joke about blackmailing them with it.

The irony of his current situation was not lost on him.

Jimin studied his screen, pulling his lower lip in to gnaw on it, and he felt a horrible panging sensation in his chest. They were both lying in bed, mostly buried underneath the covers that reached up to their lower ribs. Taehyung had always had a funny little habit of sleeping with his eyes not exactly fully closed and he could see the slightest hints of brown under his half-mast lids. His mouth was also open ever so slightly and his dark hair was fanned across the pillow off his brow. Beside him, lying on his side and pressed up against him, was Jungkook. Jimin had been lying on the other side of course, Taehyung between them both like Wangbi had sometimes slept when she had been a kitten. Jungkook's face was visible but mostly it was his profile. His dark hair was a mess around his brow and his lower face was pressed against Taehyung's shoulder. His lips were almost against the bullet scar and one of his hands was resting on Taehyung's chest. Taehyung's fingers were almost touching his, had likely been tangled together with them before sleep had caused him to relinquish their hold.

It was a beautiful photograph, Jimin thought. It was rather sweet and innocent all things considered. Much like all of the photographs and recordings that Jungkook had of him over the last near half year. Photographs of him with Wangbi, photographs of him reading or doing something mundane when he wasn't aware that he was being watched; the morning recordings of him lying in bed trying to cover his face with a pillow whilst Jungkook giggled and kept pulling his hands away so he could zoom in.

Those photographs and recordings could be on the hard drives too, backed up just like Jungkook said that he backed up everything. The police department could find them, could look at and watch them and then delete them because they were useless. All of those memories and moments would be lost with a few clicks of a button. Jimin had to put the phone down because his fingers were much too weak to hold it. They had gone all numb and kept twitching, a sign that he was going to have an attack if he didn't get himself under control. But how could he? How could he possibly get himself under control now, with what was to come?

"Wangbi," Jimin whined, unable to stop himself from doing so. His fingers were pulling at the neckline of his pullover so much that he was going to stretch the wool and ruin it. "Wangbi.", I can't do this, I can't. It's tuh-too much, holy shit, holy..."

The office room seemed to almost start spinning and he had to lean forward and place both hands down on the desk for support. His chest had done that horrible thing again, had constructed so tight that his ribs were aching and every time that he inhaled a sharp stabbing pain seemed to sink down deep into his heart. Jimin dropped his head forward to place it against the wood and he squeezed his eyes shut tight just to make everything go black. Except it wasn't black, not at all. His pulse was going so fast that he could see flashes of colour through his thin eyelids, mostly deep reds. Jimin let out a strangled groan and he ran his fingers across the desk, scrabbling to try and find something. After a few seconds his fingers found his phone and he grabbed it.

Jimin fumbled to unlock the device and he went straight to his contact list to locate a certain number. He probably shouldn't call but he couldn't help himself and he pressed his thumb against the button before holding the phone against his ear. Yet after nearly twenty seconds of waiting the call didn't go through. Jimin pulled the phone away and he tried again, redialing and listening to the dial tone for several more annoying drones. That was when the call got through and he heard a strange series of noises down the line. First it was a static crackling noise followed by a loud exhale and then the faintest sound of someone cursing repeatedly until a voice sounded.

" Jimin, what the fuck? " he asked in a surprised voice, foggy with what could have been sleep or drugs. He wasn't sure, all that he knew was that it was his voice and just hearing it was enough to make him feel a surge of relief course through him. " Excuse my language but, uh, what the fuck? "

"Yoongi, I-I, uh, well I-"

" Are you even supposed to be calling me? " Yoongi spoke over him, not rudely but rather rather anxiously. Clearly the other man really had bought into Taehyung's lies and he actually thought that he was supposed to stay underground in all meanings of the word.

"It's my mobile so-so I think that it should be alright," Jimin explained, completely bullshitting. He didn't have a clue if it would be alright and untraceable but that didn't matter at all seen as Yoongi actually had nothing to worry about. Hopefully the other man was as clueless on high-level knowledge as most Haedogje Pa men were and he would take his word as fact. "Yes, it's alright or else I wouldn't have called you, sweetie." The other man seemed to think this over for a few seconds before making a soft noise under his breath. "You're in Bali right now, yes? Are you all settled down now?"

" Yeah, I've been here for three days. " There was a series of faint rustling sounds that could have been clothing or sheets moving. " I guess I'm settled down, yeah? I mean, ain't been here in a few years but, uh, a few locals kinda remember me. Language barriers are fucking awkward and -" Jimin laughed softly at this even when it was still hard to breathe. " I ain't done much. Just...sleeping, I've been sleeping alot 'cos it's so fucking hot here, " Yoongi explained in that same groggy voice. " You're an hour ahead so I ain't sleeping in but, uh, I was kinda planning on sleeping all day anyway so... "

"Good, it's good, you deserve the rest."

" Jimin, what're you calling me for, huh? "

"Maybe I'm just," Jimin searched his brain for something to say, anything, "I mean, maybe I just wanted to make...make conversation so-"

" What happened? " Yoongi spoke over him, tone blunt and completely anti-bullshit. " What's going on, something must've happened, Jimin, I- "

"Nuh-nothing happened, it's-"

" can hear it in your voice, you're all shook up. What the fuck happened? Are you OK? Are you hurt or- " Jimin tried to talk him down but Yoongi just carried on talking, listing so many questions that he couldn't possibly track his words. He reached up to press his free hand against his brow and closed his eyes, just listening to the other man go on and on. He sounded concerned mostly, but under that also maybe a little panicky. " I swear to fucking God, why does shit always happen when I'm not there? It's like I'm- "

"Yoongi."

" fucking cursed or something, " Yoongi continued over him without even slowing down. No, you're not the cursed one that's me, Jimin thought but didn't say. " I ran off to fucking Bali and just left you back here like a-a-a pussy and- "

"Sweetie, I'm not hurt, I'm not hurt," Jimin managed to interject. "I called you because...because I needed to talk to you. I needed...needed guidance." On the other end of the line Yoongi stopped talking but he didn't fall silent. He could hear his breathing, a little irregular and breathless. "Have you ever...ever had to do something and you know that you have to, but you can't?"

"... What'd you mean? " Yoongi asked him after a moment of thought. " I've done a lot of things that I didn't wanna do. You need to be a little more specific, Jimin. "

"I can't be more specific but...but I don't really want to do it either," he replied as he moved his hand up from his brow to his hair. The other man asked him why he was driving himself to do this if he was so against it: a valid point. "I swore to do it, I swore and if I don't..." he paused for a moment and knew that he had to curb himself from saying too much. But it was hard to do so because he just needed to get this out right now. The clock was ticking and he didn't have long left. "Yoongi, I have to do it, I have no choice."

" Are you in danger? "

"Yuh...no, no I don't know, I don't know."

"... Jimin, if you gotta do it then you gotta do it, yeah? " Yoongi said in a low voice. " Wait, no, I dunno what the fuck I'm even telling you to do so don't- "

"Yuh-Yoongi, it's too muh-much," Jimin sobbed as he slid down the side of the desk and felt his ass bouncing off the flooring. His legs loosened on him and he ended up in a slumped position, back against the wooden drawers. "I cuh-can't, I thought I could buh-but I can't!"

" Can't what, Jimin? "

"I cuh-can't tell you, I'm nuh-no suppuh-possed to talk to you but I nuh-needed to hear your voice so bad, Yuh-Yoongi," Jimin gasped for air and then he slipped sideways to land on the floor, shoulder hitting the wooden flooring rather hard. He brought his knees up so that he could curl up into a ball. "I'm uh-all alone and I nuh-"

" Jimin, breathe, stop talking and breathe, " Yoongi instructed down the line, that same level of concern still audible in his voice. He tried to breathe and could only hiccup.

"I just cuh-can't do it," he managed to finish after a few hard hiccups. "I swore that I wuh-would and for a little while I thought that I-I could do it but now...now I'm scared and I duh-don't think that I can do it."

" Why can't you do it, huh? Why the fuck not? "

"I'm tuh-too scared I'll fail becuh-cause I fuh-fuck everything up, Yoongi. I'm fuh-fucking useless I can't do anything wuh-without-"

" Listen to me, angel, just listen, " Yoongi instructed in a firm tone. " I dunno what you're doing, or why, but I do know this and you need to listen to me. You're so fucking strong, Jimin, and I know that you're scared right now that you can't do something but listen to what I'm fucking saying. "

Jimin took a deep breath and tried to hold it in his lungs but it was too hard and he ended up snivelling instead. He knew that he needed to stop doing this to himself, making himself hysterical, but he couldn't help it. Everything just seemed to be hurting right now, not just his chest but his entire body and his mind too. Jimin was in agony and he couldn't stop himself from crying because it was all too much for him to handle. Yoongi's words were supposed to encourage him but he struggled to accept what he was saying.

Strong people didn't piss themselves in fear because a gun was pointed at them. Strong people didn't drag other people, vulnerable people, into their troubles like he had just done. And they most certainly didn't agree to backhand deals to sell out others like fucking cowards.

" You ain't a bad person, so if you think that you're doing something bad then that's bullshit. You've been through fucking hell, Jimin, but you've never let that ruin you like the other men I know. You ain't weak, you're strong. So much stronger than Kim and-and Master Jeon. You're...Christ, Jimin, you're too good for this piece of shit world and ain't no way in hell anyone could make me think you'd do something bad. "

"But it is buh-bad, Yoongi," Jimin disagreed as he reached up to rub at his damp cheeks. "It's ruh-really bad and-"

" Nah, it ain't bad, " Yoongi disagreed. " It ain't bad 'cos you wouldn't do bad shit, OK? It just feels bad 'cos...'cos you're scared, yeah? That's all this', it's 'cos you're scared. "

Taehyung had told him that he could help save Jungkook's life by doing this, and through bringing down the empire that would save so many others too. Was it really 'bad' what he was doing? Jimin didn't even know any more, he just knew that he was scared and nothing could change that fact. Yoongi was right about that, as he often was about a great many things.

" The Jimin I know don't do bad things, " Yoongi continued in that same soft time as earlier and Jimin could feel that tightness around his chest starting to loosen again. " The Jimin I know is a fucking angel: he cares for people, he listens to people, he doesn't hate he just luh...loves. Yeah? "

"Yoongi, after today you...you might not get to see me for a while, " Jimin explained in a quiet voice. "You might see some things, hear some things, but trust me: not you. Never you." Yoongi was silent on the other end of the line, no doubt trying to figure out what the hell he meant with his words. Did he understand what he was trying to tell him? Did he understand that Jimin wanted him to know that he would never rat him out to the police for hurt him in any way? "I would never. And, and even when you see and hear those things, you know me right? You know that I didn't...didn't want this but I had to do it."

" I know you, I know you wouldn't," he agreed.

"Because you're my friend, Yoongi, and I love you."

"... I love you too, Jimin. "

"Muh...maybe I can come and see you some...time soon?" Jimin suggested as he finally felt some semblance of control coming back. "In Bali, yes?"

" Sure thing, " Yoongi said in a soft voice and the warmth in it made him close his eyes again. A single tear that hadn't spilled free slipped out the corner and rolled down into his hairline. He didn't deserve this warmth from anyone. Not with what he was planning to do. Yoongi should fucking hate him just like everyone else was going to do, like Jungkook was going to do. Yet the other man had spoken to him with such affection and concern that Jimin felt guilty. " You always entered my fucking den without permission so why not this home too, huh? Gotta say though, I think Master Jeon'll complain about that day trip. "

"No, no he won't, sweetie," Jimin disagreed. "He won't mind at all, trust me."

" D'you have to go now? "

"Yes, yes I think I have to go now."

" I'll wait for you, yeah? Just you, no one else. Not even Master Jeon. So when the time comes, just let me know and I'll be there. "

"You'll keep me safe," he said in a voice barely above a whisper.

" I don't break my promises, angel. "

Jimin ended call a moment later, pulling the phone away so that he could study the screen. He noted that Yoongi hadn't ended the call but had left that up to him, so after a few seconds he swiped his thumb across the screen and ended it. He stayed lying on the floor for several minutes until he managed to get his breathing under control and when his chest was no longer hitching he got back upright and left the office to go downstairs and enter the bathroom. In one of the cupboards over the sink he found his bottle of Valium and so he pulled it free and unscrewed the cap, hearing the satisfying popping sound as it came free.

Jimin shook the bottle hard to spill half a dozen pills onto his palm and he eyed them in a mixture of disgust and desperation. The little pills had the cutout in the centre shaped like a 'V', the shape almost resembling a little heart. Jungkook had always used to joke about that, had called them his little love hearts. Jimin knew that he shouldn't take too many but it wasn't like he was going to mix it with champagne like usual. No, he was just going to swallow a few and let the drugs take over and numb him.

Jimin knew that he shouldn't take them but he couldn't help himself. If he was going to step out of the penthouse in a few minutes time then he couldn't do so without being doped up. He was shaking like a leaf in a hurricane and he might just have another anxiety attack like he had that day in the den and fuck it all up. If he collapsed then Jungkook's men would carry him back up to the suite and he would never get out.

"So what?" Jimin muttered under his breath. "So fucking what if I take them?"

There hadn't been a single day since Jungkook had first given him a bottle that he hadn't popped half a dozen pills over the day. First to numb him and stop the aches of recording, then to soothe his anxiety and help control the nightmares, then for him to be spaced-out and passive and well-behaved. Why did it matter if he swallowed them now? It wouldn't change a thing. All that it did was prove that he was fucking weak and he was already well aware of that.

Jimin placed the pills down on the side of the sink, on the long stretch of marble so that he could reach up and shove his fingers into his mouth. His instinct to pull them free when he gagged was very strong but he forced himself to keep his fingers in his mouth, to push them that much further back until he gagged hard enough to taste bile at the back of his throat. Jimin pulled his fingers free just in time to vomit his breakfast right up into the sink. He dropped his head as he retched, hands gripping into the edge of the counter tightly. It had been so long since he had actually vomited like this that he felt a strange wave of confusion wash over him. The last time this had happened had been because he had drank too much champagne and had damn nearly poisoned himself, crying and vomiting alone in the bathroom at 3:30am; not at 9:25am completely sober.

"Oh fuh...fuck," Jimin groaned as he spat in the sink. His stomach didn't feel any better yet, still felt full and heavy, so he shoved his fingers back into his mouth again to force the last of his breakfast up. He couldn't help but choke on the mixture of bile and undigested food until eventually he was doing nothing more than dry retching. Satisfied that he was now empty he turned the tap on to wash away the vomit and then he grabbed the pills, tossing them into his mouth. Because of his dry mouth the pills stuck to his tongue so he couldn't swallow them; uncoated and starting to dissolve. Jimin cupped water in his palm and he splashed it into his mouth so that he could swallow the pills this time.

There, not only was he now empty but he was also going to be doped up in a few minutes too. Blissful numbness would soon take over and then nothing would even matter.

Jimin studied his reflection in the mirror for a few seconds, seeing puffy eyelids and dribbles of water on his chin that dripped down into the sink. This was the same face that Yoongi had told him could do no bad things; the face of an angel. He didn't think he looked like an angel and he certainly didn't look strong either. Jimin wiped his chin dry and then rubbed at his eyes roughly as he sniffed. The taste of vomit was lingering in his throat but he didn't care right now. He left the bathroom and went upstairs to collect the hard drive and his coat, one with a nice inner pocket that he could slip it inside.

Jimin just grabbed the first one that he saw, regardless of the possible content. He really didn't care at this point, he just wanted the drugs to kick in and take him away. As he descended the stairs to get to the ground-floor he sighted Wangbi lying on the end of the bed and he stopped to study her for a moment. He couldn't bring her with him, that would just complicate things. But the idea of leaving her behind was enough to make another wave of emotions wash over him; disgusting and pathetic. He couldn't stop himself from going over to the bed.

"Daddy's just going out for a little while OK, princess?" Jimin said as he cupped her head between both hands. "But I'm not leaving you, I promise I'm not leaving you." Wangbi just let out a rumbling purr so he leaned forward and pressed a kiss on the flat plane of her head.

Jimin left the suite and it was as the elevator carriage began descending that he finally felt the Valium starting to affect him. Suddenly he didn't feel so heavy and tightly wound up but rather airy and almost weightless. He leaned back against the wall and waited for it to reach the ground-floor. As if it hadn't been hard enough, the worst was still to come and he was thankful for the Valium for giving him the slight burst of stupid bravado that he needed. All he had to do was leave the building alone, that was all. Leave it alone and not get searched, but Jimin hadn't been searched for practically the entire time he had been staying in the apartment block. Why would that change now? He could have smuggled so much shit out and yet he had never even been tempted to do so because he had never needed to.

Until now that was.

The carriage doors opened with a soft swishing sound and Jimin let his breath out in a heavy sigh before stepping out of the elevator and into the entrance area. Just like always there were three men present: Dongjun, Siwon and Woosang. Dongjun was on the desk and the two other men were standing by the doors, and at his arrival they all turned their heads to look at him. Talk about being put on the spot.

"I...I'm going out," Jimin announced in his best attempt at a casual tone. He probably sounded like he had shit himself and his lips might just have been twitching at the corners. They felt rubbery and he wouldn't be surprised at all. At his words Dongjun turned to look at the two other men, lounged back in his chair looking bored and half-asleep. It seemed that he was silently telling one of them to volunteer, and after a moment Siwon stepped forward. "I don't need an escort."

"...What?" Dongjun asked, brow furrowing behind his shades.

"I'm just going to The Galleria," Jimin argued, refusing to look away from him as he did. "I'll be less than an hour, I don't need an escort there it's ten minutes away. I'm not going to be in danger."

"Master Jeon said no, you're not allowed out without an escort," Dongjun repeated almost wearily, clearly tired of his attempts at a petty rebellion. This was the first time that he has ever requested he be let out alone and yet the other man was reacting like he had tried hundreds of times before. No, usually he just demanded he be allowed out with one of them at all hours of the night because he just wanted to get out.

But that could not happen. Jimin couldn't leave this apartment block with an escort because that would fuck everything up. The man would be armed and Jimin couldn't climb into a car with an armed bodyguard to go to the location. That could end in trouble, that could result in gunfire and Jimin didn't want to be anywhere near a gun after what had happened with Taehyung. Yet Dongjun sure as hell wasn't going to let him step outside on his own because he was still rigidly following Jungkook's orders like a good little ass-licker.

"Kim Jinwoo's dead, who else has wants to kill me?" Jimin asked as he looked over the men. "Do you know anyone? Because Jungkook only ever told me that I needed an escort because of him. If he's dead then what's the point?"

"Yeah, he might've have said something about him but he also told us to not let you out without an escort," Dongjun stated. "So that means that you're not leaving without one."

Jimin realised that he was very much caught up in a net and if he didn't think of something quick then he was fucked. He would either have to agree to leaving with an escort or go back up the stairs and lock himself up in the penthouse and wait for hell to be unleashed. But he couldn't do either thing. He couldn't back out now, that was too dangerous, however bringing an armed man to the meeting location was just as bad. Jimin didn't want to end up riddled with bullets for this, his life was not forfeit for the stupid hard drives.

"...They sell alcohol in that department store," Jimin remarked after a few seconds of silence. That had been the first thought to come to mind that wasn't either 'run' or 'start crying'; the thought about some nice bribery to swing things his way. "All varieties, imported. Let me go out for a single hour without a babysitter and I'll bring some back for you. Rum, whiskey, whatever you want I can get it. Master Jeon doesn't need to know, he never checks what I buy so he'll never know."

The entrance area fell quiet at this, all of the men studying him. Jimin didn't want to assume that he had struck gold with this bribe but it seemed that he might just have done so. The men were used to him throwing temper tantrums to get to go out with one of them in tow so to finally be offered a nice reward for once might just have been the slight incentive that was needed. They didn't have to have him dragging them across some store, carrying dozens of bags, but rather they could relax and enjoy a nice drink of imported booze when he got back. How many other Haedogje Pa of their rank got to drink such luxury brand items?

"Just a single hour," Jimin repeated in a soft voice. "When was the last time Jungkook rewarded you, hmm?" He heard Dongjun mutter "too long" under his breath as he glanced at the check-in desk computer monitor. "I know that you like scotch and I know that there's a dozen varieties there, so just..."

When Jimin slowly crossed the room to get to the door none of them tried to stop him, instead allowing him to shove the door open and step out onto the sidewalk. After perhaps ten seconds of waiting a car pulled up out of the pool under the block, turning off the slight ramp to park in front of him. Clearly one of the men, likely Dongjun, had contacted the drivers to request one be dispatched. So Jimin grabbed hold of the back door handle and popped it open to climb inside. How very unfortunate for them, there would be no alcohol being delivered here but rather a squad of police officers.

Jimin had never imagined that he could get this far. Sitting in the back of the vehicle he didn't know whether to start laughing or crying because both things seemed fitting. He even reached up to bury his face in his hands for a moment before lowering them with a heavy sigh. They were shaking so much that he had to clasp them together on his lap to try and stop his fingers from twitching. The driver started the car and as the engine purred to life he asked him where they were headed.

"The Galleria in Apgujeong-dong," Jimin replied in a flat voice. The vehicle pulled away from the curb and he kept his eyes on the window, watching the apartment block get smaller and smaller until he couldn't even see it in the rear-view mirror. The temptation to look over his shoulder through the back window was great but he managed to not give into it. When the car turned at the end of the street he got another second to study the building and then it was gone out of sight.

That just might have been the last time that Jimin would ever see that building ever again.

As they drew closer to Apgujeong-dong Jimin felt himself getting on edge, both figuratively and literally. He couldn't help but move forward so that he was perched on the edge of the backseat, even when he felt the driver looking at him in the rear-view mirror. The weight of his hard drive in his coat pocket was like that of an anchor and he just wanted to be rid of it. Or maybe it was closer to a loaded grenade instead, one that could blow any second from now.

"Are you alright, Master?" Master, that was new. Jimin looked up to glance at the rear-view mirror and he saw that the man looked rather young, had maybe only just started working for the hire service recently. How very unfortunate for him.

"Yes, yes I've just been unwell recently," Jimin replied in a low voice as he turned back to the window. That was all that he needed to say because the driver fell silent and turned his full attention back to the road.

What were Jungkook and Taehyung doing right now? Jimin knew that there was still some time until the meeting happened but clearly they had gotten there early for a reason. Did Taehyung feel like he felt like right now? Was he on the edge of his seat in anticipation, or did he feel nothing? After his behaviour that day in the changing room Jimin could easily believe that he felt nothing but he knew that that wasn't the case. Taehyung was probably just as nervous as he was, if not more so. The Valium had greatly numbed most of his emotions and Taehyung didn't have that nice little privilege.

When the Galleria Department Store appeared in front of them Jimin turned his attention to the front window. What he saw was three cars parked close together, two on one sidewalk and the single car on the other, and a police issue barricade blocking off the end of the street.

"Stop the car," Jimin said as he leaned forward on the seat. "Stop the car, this is the location." He could sense that the driver was very much unwilling to stop the car because it was obvious that he was driving right into a setup. Just one looked showed that the four men standing on the curb were police and at the sight of their vehicle drawing close quite a few of them jumped into action. They didn't exactly walk out into the road but they started moving, one to draw closer to them and the other three glancing across the street at the other present vehicle. There was just three that Jimin could see, two obviously marked police squad cars and a third that was unmarked but clearly belonged to an officer. Maybe there were more in wait but he doubted it. "Can you please stop the car?"

"This isn't what I was told to expect," the driver replied and Jimin wished that he knew the man's name but he didn't. "I wasn't told that this would be a setup-"

"Look, you have to stop the car right now," Jimin spoke over him as he shifted to grab the door handle. "So can you please just-"

The unmarked car swerved away from the curb hard and blocked the road completely with its length, stopping the driver from possibly flooring it to get away. The man hit the brake hard and Jimin felt his ass leaving the seat for a second or two before he dropped back down onto it, almost biting his tongue in shock. His fingers slipped off the door handle as he did and he moved to look through the front window, seeing one of the men moving over to their vehicle.

"Sir, can you step out of the car please?" the officer asked in a surprisingly calm tone, not an angry yell or a demand but seemingly a request. For a moment Jimin wondered if he was being included in this request but then he figured out that he wasn't. His driver thought the question over, as if he actually had a choice, and then he shoved the door open and stepped out. "OK, thank you for your cooperation, Sir. Now if you could just follow me over here and..."

Jimin didn't hear the next part for the officer started walking away from the vehicle, guiding the driver with a hand on his back in the direction of one of the squad cars. He watched this all through the front window, seeing the man climb into the back of the car. The door was slammed shut and it seemed that he was being held by the officers. Jimin shifted to pop the back door open seen as none of the officers seemed to be paying much attention to him. It was as if he wasn't even there and he wasn't at all sure why. He shifted to climb out and then slammed it shut, and only when the loud thudding sound echoed on the air did a few heads turn his way.

Across the road he saw someone climbing out the unmarked car and it appeared to be the female officer that Taehyung had mentioned. He couldn't seem to recall her name right now but he knew that he would be getting told it in a minute or two. The woman officer came almost running around the back of the car and he saw something rather strange. She was holding a blanket in her hands, a thick fleece blanket that was pink. The sight of it greatly confused him and he couldn't help but stare at her as she walked towards him. The officer wasn't wearing a uniform but rather smart black suit trousers and a matching blouse that was open two buttons to show a hint of a grey vest underneath it. Her hair was cut into a bob, not severe but rather tousled, and she looked to perhaps be in her thirties if he had to guess. She was plain faced, nothing particularly eye-catching about her excluding her height. Jimin lifted his hand to reach inside his coat pocket, about to pull the hard drive free when a voice cut through the air and caught him by surprise.

"Keep your hands where we can see them please, Sir," one if the male officers ordered in a strict tone and Jimin flinched and pulled his hand back.

"But the-the hard drive, it's"

"It's OK," the woman said, waving her free hand at the men. "It's OK, he's going to hand me evidence. He's unarmed." And then in a whisper as she stopped in front of him she added. "You're unarmed, aren't you?"

"Yuh-yes, no gun," Jimin replied with a series of rapid nods. "I'm scared of guns I don't...don't have one." He slowly lifted his hand to reach inside his coat again, eyes shifting to look at the male officers standing just a few feet away. They were all staring at him and he felt his fingers shaking as he slipped them inside his coat pocket, silken lining brushing against his fingertips until he felt the hard plastic. "I have the hard drive that Tae asked me to bring. Just one."

"One's all that we need, dear, don't worry," she said as he pulled it free. The hard drive was just several inches of black plastic, thick and not that wide at all, and he looked at it for a second before feeling the most compelling urge to drop it, to throw it away just so he didn't have to touch it.

"Take it, take it please I can't..." Jimin pushed the hard drive at her, right at her chest so that she needed to accept it from him. The woman managed to not drop it and then she reached around to place a hand on his back and gently steer him over to her car. He allowed her to do so and when she stopped in front of the backseat he took the hint and climbed inside to sit down. That was when she moved to place the blanket over his shoulders.

"What...what's this for?" he asked in confusion as the warm material settled on him. He was already reeling from the last few minutes and everything just seemed to be getting more strange and confusing with every passing second. He didn't like it and he knew if it wasn't for the Valium he would now be having a freakout of momentous proportions.

"It's just a precaution, OK, dear?" she said in a soft voice, hands smoothing along his shoulders and brushing against the blanket. "I find that blankets help keep people calm during stressful and upsetting situations."

"Calm? I...I am calm," Jimin replied, brow furrowing in confusion as he reached up to take hold of it and pull it close over his chest. It was a lie and they both knew that it was because he was shaking and he likely looked like he might just pass out.

"I know you might find this too much but I also have a plush toy, they work just as good." He studied her face for a moment before dropping it to stare at his knees instead, finding that looking at the officer helped add to his apprehension. No, he was pretty certain that he would pass on the plush toy because he wasn't a fucking child or...or a trauma unit case. Yet he couldn't seem to ignore the fact that his fingers were shaking and there was this almost overwhelming sensation of anxiety startling to settle deep down in the pit of his stomach even with the drugs keeping him mostly docile. The woman lifted her hand to study the hard drive for a moment, no doubt also finding it rather ridiculous that such a thing held such immense levels of power.

"There are...are four more in the apartment suite," Jimin said just to break the oppressive silence. "Tell your other...other officer or whatever that there are four and they're in the office on the first-floor."

"...What's your name huh, dear?" she asked as she shifted to sit down on the seat beside him. Jimin detected a rather dusky perfume rather than a sweet one, a more mature scent wafting from her blouse that was more suited for her age.

"Juh...Jimin, Park Jimin," he replied as he hugged his arms more tightly against his chest.

"My name is Sungah, Yoo Sungah and I'm an Assistant Inspector that works for Yongsan-gu police department," she explained. "Now, I'm sure that you've already been briefed about all of this but I'm going to tell you again, just to be certain that you understand what is going to happen. OK?"

"OK," he said in a quiet voice.

"I'm going to escort you back to the station in a few minutes, that will take a while of course, maybe an hour depending on traffic. You're not under arrest right now, Jimin. Do you mind if I call you Jimin?"

"No, no it's alright," Jimin said, all the while biting down a retort about how she could call him a stupid bitch like Taehyung had if she so wanted to.

"You're not under arrest, you're being held as a witness, and witnesses are allowed to be detained legally for twenty-four hours. In that time we are going to need to talk to you about a great many things, and some of those might upset you but know that we are going to help you, Jimin."

"I know, I know you're going to help."

"That time allows us to create a report and also start processing you as both a witness to criminal activity. That will mean that you are placed under a protection act to ensure your safety, and also as a person of interest to the case pertaining to the charges against Jeon Jungkook, yes? Do you understand this all, Jimin?"

"Yes, I understand, Assistant Inspector Yoo," he replied as he closed his eyes and snagged hold of the blanket tighter. "I understand that I'm not being arrested and my willingness to...to provide assistance as part of the investigation means that I won't be charged."

"We can go over the finer details at the station but yes, you're correct on both accounts, Jimin." Sungah paused for a moment and he waited to see if she would carry on speaking or not. Right now Jimin was finding it hard to process heavy information and he hoped that she would figure this out by looking at him. After a few seconds of silence it seemed that she did for she quietly added. "Are there any questions that you want to ask? Anything that you're worried about or you want answers to?"

"Can...can I have that plush toy now?" Jimin asked in a quiet voice and Sungah shifted to climb out of the open backseat. He heard her footsteps moving around the back of the car and then the sound of her rummaging around in the boot. She reappeared several seconds later with a medium-sized plush toy, a tiger with murky amber fur and glassy yellow eyes, a fluffy mane of white fur around its head. Jimin accepted the toy with a soft muttered thanks and she reached down to squeeze his shoulder hard before closing the door. She didn't slam the door shut but did so rather gently to not disturb him.

Jimin watched her walk away through the window, pulling a phone free from her trousers to unlock with her thumb, and then he turned his attention back to the toy. The fur felt soft against his fingers and the scent of powdery detergent came off it in waves. He let go of its body with one hand to reach up and touch its face, thumb brushing against the hard plastic pink button nose and the cold glass eyes before moving along to the soft ears. The plush toy kind of reminded him of Wangbi and so he hugged it against his chest, shifting to lie down in the backseat of the squad car. It wasn't that hard to get comfortable when he dragged his legs up and pulled the blanket over him, right up under his chin.

Through the open gap in the front window he could hear the police officers talking and yet none of their words or voices seemed to stand out to him at all. It was background noise, typical static that he never registered. Jimin burrowed his chin down against the top of the plush toy and more detergent scent wafted out and filled his lungs with a strangely nostalgic scent. When he breathed out again he wasn't surprised to find that his eyes were welling with tears and he blinked and felt them spilling free to roll down into his hairline and puddle onto the polyester seat. There was no hitching for breath or sobbing now but rather just a silent and steady stream of tears that he just let pour out.

"Kookie," Jimin whispered as he hugged the plush toy hard, threatening to almost squeeze it hard enough to tear the seams. "Kookie I'm so sorry, I'm so fuh-fucking sorry."

Namjoon had passed through Gangnam-gu often through the years working for the force. Oftentimes it was just brief and because he didn't live in the district or have any links to it he didn't have a reason to pass through outside of work. It was strange sitting in the front of his car, parked against the curb of a street in Gangnam-gu, a kind of strangeness that he couldn't help but feel. This wasn't a stakeout exactly more like a coincidental surveillance that was occurring whilst he waited. He had no need to undertake a stakeout because he already had everything that he needed to know and watching the building wasn't going to change a thing.

On the dashboard in front of him there were several objects: his phone, a radio transmitter, a thick pair of forensic-issue gloves, and underneath there was the most important of them all. The search warrant. It was just sitting there almost demanding that he stare at it, as if it would fly away if he didn't give it his constant attention. He had already studied it enough to know exactly what it looked like, to read the entire sheet out without needing to glance at it once. Yet despite this fact his eyes kept seeming to go back to it rather than study the sight out of the window.

Of course the one block that he had always suspected to be owned by a CEO, politician or whatever other affluent job a person needed to buy out a Samsung apartment block, belonged to The Boy. It was so obvious and yet he had never really thought it over before starting the operation and it was rather amusing. For a man that made a living out of noticing the finer details he had missed a rather obvious one for quite some time. The apartment block was demanding, unmissable and rather obnoxious. That meant that it just had to be his.

Namjoon sighed and he glanced out of the front window to see two vehicles parked in front of him, and when he lifted his gaze up to the rear-view mirror he saw another two behind him. Every single support vehicle had two officers in and though he had not really liked it they were all wearing bulletproof vests and carrying service pieces for the sake of security. This made Namjoon feel incredibly unsettled and he shifted in his chair, reaching up to touch his own vest and feeling the thick cotton against his fingers. They were searching a building for fuck's sake and yet here they were, wearing bulletproof vests as if they were conducting a raid of their own. Sadly he understood the precaution however, for he would prefer avoiding any possible bullets flying in the direction of any of the officers.

He knew for a fact that the men inside that block had guns so it made perfect sense to bring guns too. Hopefully the men wouldn't be stupid enough to open fire on police officers with legit search warrants but there was really no way of telling what they would do. Men reacted differently when faced with danger, it made them very unpredictable. Adding guns into the mix made them even more unpredictable.

Namjoon lifted his arm so that he could look at his watch, seeing that it was 9:53am. The meeting in Seodaemun-gu didn't even start until 10:30am and yet here they were. It was enough to put him on edge and he had been on edge for three entire days now. Any longer and he might just start feeling cracks appearing in the surface as the pressure started to get too much to handle. If it felt bad for him then he couldn't even begin to imagine how bad that it felt for Taehyung. Their teammate was in a much more dangerous and risky position in comparison to them and there was no way of radioing in to check on him like Sungah and Hoseok.

The other man was on his way to a meeting right now with Jungkook, more than aware that he was dragging the younger man into a trap. Namjoon wondered what that felt like for him, especially considering the fact that Taehyung was still very much convinced that he had feelings for The Boy that extended beyond that of professional infiltration. Right now Taehyung was probably sweating to death in the backseat of Jungkook's Mitsubishi Dignity, heart racing in his chest and hands squeezed between his thighs to hide the fact that they were shaking so bad.

Today was not only the culmination of his undercover work but also his very first raid. Namjoon imagined that Taehyung was terrified and the fear was well expected.

His phone started ringing on the dashboard so he grabbed it to check the screen and see that it was Sungah calling. So he slid his thumb along hard and then pressed the device to his ear.

"Hello?"

" I've got the hard drive and Jimin in my possession, " Sungah explained without so much as a greeting. She was always curt when discussing case specifics and he was glad to find out that she was just as curt whilst working operations too. " Your warrant is now legitimate on the grounds of sufficient evidence supplied by an insider source. So get to it. "

"Can't move just yet," Namjoon explained as he turned to look back out of the window again, eyeing the apartment block at the end of the street. "Hoseok hasn't initiated the raid yet, still got half an hour until the meeting starts, maybe up to an hour before his team strikes. If I storm the building with the warrant his men might get a message out to The Boy before we can stop them. So now...now we wait."

" Thirty minutes to an hour? Christ, we've still got that long to wait? " Sungah sighed heavily. " I just want this all done now, just to stop any potential fuck ups. "

"Just got to wait it out, you know the saying right? "Rome wasn't built in a day", and it most certainly couldn't conquer in a day either." He paused for a moment, watching a car rolling down the street beside their parked vehicles. The driver was a young woman and she glanced over at them but showed zero interest as she carried on and turned the corner at the end of the street. "Maybe an hour seems like forever but when the team strikes it will be over much too quick to even register. Savour the calm because it won't be here for long."

" I've been savouring the calm for the seven years I've been working for the department as an Assistant Inspector, Kim, and the four before that working busting up rings, " Sungah retorted. " So forgive me for getting a little impatient. " Namjoon smiled at the retort. " I just hate holding my breath like this and waiting for it, for that one thing to go wrong and fuck it all up for us. I know, I know, I'll jinx us by saying all of that negative shit but it's true. "

"No, no it's good to be prepared for the worst," he argued as he sat forward in his seat. "That means you're on your toes and you won't be caught off guard. Talk to me about him, about Jimin. What's going on with him right now?"

" I took the hard drive off him the second he got out of the car because he seemed distressed holding it. Then I escorted him to my car and he's currently sitting in the back. His driver has been taken into custody and will probably be held for a few hours before being released without charge. We can't afford to let him report back so it's better safe than sorry. "

Namjoon made a noise in agreement, reaching up to collect the search warrant sheet off the dashboard and glance over it. The case number had been stamped on the top just below the official department header and underneath this there was the usual legal rigmarole that he might have to read if an asshole at the scene demanded it.

There were four boxes in which three of them had ticks: evidence of a crime; contraband, fruits of crime, or other items illegally possessed; property designed for use, intended for use, or used in committing a crime. The final box, labelled: a person to be arrested or a person who is unlawfully restrained was unticked. Now that Jimin was no longer stuck inside the suite the unlawful restrainment held no water, and Hoseok was halfway across the capital with the arrest warrant to arrest Jungkook so there was no need to have that box ticked. Underneath this there was the violation codes of several crimes and every single one related to the content that would be on the hard drives: from monetary crimes to connections to murder cases and more. In the bottom corner there was his scrawled signature and that of Superintendent General Kwon, black ink thick and heavy on the thin sheet.

Namjoon studied this intently for a moment, eyes following the flowing loops and sharp scratches of his signature. Right here in his hand was a sheet of paper that actually contained more power than Jungkook's entire empire. It was rather strange knowing that he possessed such power and yet it was as light as a feather.

"You're right, he can be held a couple of hours and released without charges," he said as he put the search warrant down again. "What about Jimin, is he holding up well? Cooperative?" He heard a rustling sound that was undoubtedly her moving and in his mind he pictured Sungah shifting to look over at the other man.

"It's hard to tell right now, he's emotionally and mentally vulnerable so I can't make an accurate judgement into his level of willing cooperation. He's in the back of my car right now, I gave him a blanket and a plush toy like I used to give to the working girls and boys after busts, it really helps provide a sense of safety and comfort."

Which was exactly why Taehyung had demanded she collect Jimin of course, because he had known that she could handle him. Daesu or Youngjae, they would have both forced him into the back and slammed the doors shut without an attempt at comfort but not Sungah. No, she understood well enough that Jimin might just be an associate of The Boy but he was also a victim, one that needed to be handled carefully lest he snap in some way. The other members of the team, and most of the other departments, probably would have found the idea of giving an accomplice a plush toy ridiculous but not Namjoon. He also understood that sometimes...sometimes even bad people needed comfort too.

He hoped that Hoseok had a plush toy prepared for Jungkook in the back of his squad car. A big one, a massive teddy that he could hug hard enough to squeeze the stuffing out of. Maybe even strangle it.

" He seems like he's drugged too, probably doped himself up to try and cope with it all. It's a very stressful experience he's been put through, I'm not surprised that he needed a little something to numb him. "

"Which is where the station psychologist will provide assistance. You still going to stay with him?"

" I think it would be for the best to stay even when Lee's in the room with him, just to be sure. He seems to be a walking case for several disorders right now, complex PTSD for one. I don't need to be a shrink to see that, it's diagnosable from a single glance, Kim. He's going to require extensive counselling so don't get too reliant on his testimonies early in the case. "

"...OK, OK, if I need to contact you again I'll use the band," he replied. "So for now just get Jimin into the station and stay with him until the operation has been secured. Get him a hot drink, put him in a room with a window not a cell or interrogation room. Keep up that level of comfort just to keep him complacent."

" Sure thing, " Sungah agreed and he heard crunching sounds that sounded like her shoes as she started walking along the sidewalk. " Good luck, Kim, I'll report on the band when I'm back at the station so keep an open flow of information on your end. Also, the drives are in the office room, first-floor. "

Namjoon ended the call but he didn't place his phone back on the dashboard just yet. Just in case it started ringing again. He turned his head to look out of the window at the apartment block again, feeling a wave of anger wash over him as he did. There, at the very top of that tall block, was where Jimin had been calling home for almost half a year now. He had to admit that it was a nice looking prison block, very attractive and modern, but it was still a prison block.

Taehyung had told both him and Hoseok that day they had met face to face that Jimin had stopped being a sex slave when Jungkook had...bought him? Acquired him? The details were rather sketchy but Namjoon knew one thing: there was really no such thing as not being a sex slave anymore. That wasn't something that just simply stopped one day and allowed a victim to go back to normal. No, not at all. Jimin still was a sex slave in his mind. That was something that would stay with him forever and he didn't think that Taehyung had really thought about that. It was so very easy to fall into the idea that Jungkook had rescued him from the horrors of his father's gang but in reality he hadn't rescued him from a single thing. He had just given him a cushy prison cell and left him to dope himself up on anxiety medication so that the haze left him thinking that he was safe and happy.

They had rescued him, the police department, not Jungkook.

Maybe he was never going to be fixed but Jimin was going to get treatment now and that was better than nothing. He might not ever go back to what was considered normalcy but he was just another aspect of the case that helped justify the cause of bringing The Boy in and bringing down Haedogje Pa.

Another quick glance at his watch showed him that it was 10:05am and the sight of the slowly moving finger made him groan and drop his arm again. He actually understood Sungah's annoyance now because time really did seem to have stopped flowing just to drag it all out on them. He moved to sit back in the seat and his eyes once again landed on the search warrant sheet.

Namjoon sighed and decided to take the plunge, hitting Hoseok's number and then holding the device against his ear. The dial tone sounded several times and he was almost convinced that he wasn't going to pick up when he did; a static crackle sounding before he heard his voice.

" Yeah? "

For nearly ten minutes now Hoseok had been standing on the same spot staring down at the lot below them. With his elbows balanced on the hood of the van and a pair of binoculars held right in front of him he could see all movement down there. The problem was that he didn't need to because there was nothing happening down there and there had been nothing for near ten minutes now.

The hill was only slight, completely cut off from the main roads by way of several side streets and there was no sight or sound of traffic at all on the air. It was so very cutoff, the perfect place to lay in wait and observe without the possible danger of being seen by any Haedogje Pa men. Unless they were all carrying binoculars or sniper scopes Hoseok was damn certain that his team were out of sight and therefore not risking the operation. He had one officer, a young woman called Lee Jaekyung, up on the roof of the warehouse, laying low so that she could scope out more of the area and alert them to any possible movement from the warehouse or the surrounding streets. But so far she has been completely silent and had yet to say a single word about anything.

They were such a distance from the warehouse that he hadn't even been able to hear the sound of the door thumping when Taehyung had slammed it shut almost ten minutes ago. No, he hadn't heard a single thing but he has seen mouths moving through the lenses of his binoculars, unable to lip-read what either of them had been saying. It could have been important but he doubted that it was, seen as both Taehyung and Jungkook had spent a couple of minutes sharing a cigarette before entering the empty warehouse together. But despite nothing happening he hadn't wanted to look away just in case anything had happened.

The spring weather was rather cool today, the sun out but with a breeze blowing that would have been rather pleasant. However standing out in the open kitted out in riot squad gear Hoseok wasn't enjoying the weather at all. The bulletproof vest felt heavy and stuffy over the police issue uniform and he had left his helmet aside on the hood of the van because he couldn't physically stand wearing it for another second. He could barely breathe through the plastic visor and he didn't enjoy the sensation of sweat rolling down the side of his face and back of his neck every couple of seconds. Right now Namjoon and Sungah were likely enjoying the cool sensation of their cars air-con and the shade they offered but not him, he was stuck out in the sun all wrapped up in heavy layers of black clothing, sweating and damn near suffocating. Hell, Daesu and Youngjae were back at the station covering the desks in case of emergencies and they were probably nice and cool too, sitting back on their asses.

Hoseok had been standing in the exact same spot for two hours now because the squad had arrived well in advance to watch the building and he kind of wanted to die just so he had an excuse to lie down.

"God, I hate that fucking car," Hoseok muttered as he lowered his binoculars and folded his arms on the hood of the riot van. "Look at it, it's hideous."

"I think it's kinda nice," Choi remarked from beside him, shifting on the spot as he did.

Choi was a rather rugged man, one that Hoseok knew a lot of other squad captains struggled to get along with. He was the kind of sharp-tongued, filth-spewing officer that could quickly get under a person's nerves and yet not his. Maybe it was because his attitude reminded him somewhat of his uncle, he wasn't sure, all that he did know was that he liked the other man even when he was rough around the edges. He was a good officer, had been working raids for twenty-eight years and yet refused any advancement on the basis that he didn't think leading a squad was right for him. Whatever the case the man was excellent in an unofficial vice captain role and Hoseok would refer to no other officers on the squad save him for advice.

"Oh yeah?" Hoseok glanced over at him, seeing that he had shoved his visor up. Choi had a rugged face that matched his temperament, deeply set wrinkles at the corners of his eyes that looked like valleys in his dry and sun darkened skin. His greying crew cut was hidden from view under his helmet.

"Yeah, if you've got two rent-boys in the back, " Choi explained, "and a bumper sticker saying "honk if you're a homo"."

"Less of the bullshit, Choi," Hoseok warned. "Besides, that car screams something else anyway."

"Oh yeah? What?"

"Major daddy issues," he retorted without missing a beat and the other man grinned at him around the unlit cigarette stick. "That car is the epitome of wanting to piss off daddy, and that is the truth."

"If you were The Baby and you could have any car you wanted, what would you pick, huh?"

"What? Are we playing games to pass the time now?" Hoseok remarked as he reached up to wipe at his brow, brushing a slight beading of sweat free before it could roll down and into his eyes. "I didn't peg you as the type. What would you pick?"

"Lincoln Continental, 1958," Choi replied before sighing in mock satisfaction. Hoseok told him that he didn't know what that particular variation, getting a sideways glare off the other man. "That's a real car, not like they make 'em today. Why does nobody ever want a Lincoln, huh?"

"Probably 'cos that president, uh, Kennedy was assassinated in one, you idiot. Not many people wanna drive the same brand car a guy painted with his brains, Choi, kinda looks bad for the company. If I had to pick...you gotta go for...what, a Bugatti, surely? If you're talking any car in the world it's gotta be that one," he said as he looked back at the other man.

"A Bugatti?" Choi asked in a rather befuddled way, furrowing his brow as he did. "You want a Bugatti, Jung?" He nodded at the question and the other man let out a laugh. "You and The Baby might have a lot more in common than you think."

"...Shut up," he muttered as he turned back to look at the lot down the hill, fingers tightening on the binoculars. He let this hang in the air for a moment before feeling impatience once again taking over. "You see anything up there, Lee?!" Hoseok called, cupping a hand around his mouth as he craned his head back to look at the top of the warehouse.

"Can't see movement through the windows at all!" Jaekyung called down, not moving from her spot and keeping her eyes trained on the warehouse across the lot. She had been up there since they had gotten to the scene at 9:00am to scope the area out and she hadn't moved once. Another good officer, several more years under her belt would see her labelled as great. "No one has entered or exited through either exits! It seems they're both waiting inside, Sir!"

"Sir, that's cute," Choi remarked as he turned to look at him, cigarette slipping into the corner of his mouth. "She might just suck your dick, Jung."

"You have a fundamental misunderstanding of both women and cops," Hoseok retorted as he studied the focus on the binoculars. "If I were you I'd avoid announcing such observations. You might just end up getting kicked in the dick."

"Well...probably be the most action I'll have gotten in years," the other man muttered and Hoseok could only look up from the object and stare at him for a moment before turning back to them. "What're you doing to the binoculars, huh? Trying to break 'em?"

"No, I got a busted pair," he retorted before placing them down on the hood of the car beside his phone and holding his hand out. "Pass yours, I need to use 'em." Choi reached up to touch the binoculars hanging around his neck for a moment, almost stroking the thick rubberised coating as if he didn't want to give them up and Hoseok twitched his fingers at him. "Look, I won't break 'em alright?"

"You said that about the last pair," the older man argued but he slipped them off and shoved them into his hand. "They were good binoculars, I had a lot of great memories using 'em before you went and busted 'em on me."

"To try and find your dick?" Hoseok asked as he studied the focus on the new pair, finding that it moved smoothly under his thumb.

"No, I have no trouble finding that. Seems you might have trouble finding your own seen as you forgot to strap it on this morning."

"Mmm, I like to leave it at home during raids," he agreed in a deadpan tone. "Don't wanna bust that either, those things are fucking expensive." He had just managed to get the perfect focus on the warehouse shutter when there was a sudden and loud vibrating sound and he figured out that it was his phone. "Shit hang on, I gotta take this," Hoseok muttered, shoving the binoculars back into Choi's hands so that he could snatch his phone off the hood of the van. He checked to see that it was Namjoon and he answered the call, pressing the phone against his ear.

"Yeah?"

" Sungah has just secured the hard drive and Park Jimin a couple of minutes ago, " Namjoon explained down the line, clipped and to the point. " That's step two down, what about step one? Any sign of The Boy yet or are you still hanging? "

"10-4," Hoseok replied as he turned away from Choi and moved to sit back against the hood of the van. "Step one most certainly went as planned, I've been staring at The Boy's shitty Dignity for the best part of ten solid minutes now. Dunno why, it's not gonna do anything, it's a fucking parked car."

" The Boy and Taehyung are already present? "

"Uhuh, have been for ten minutes like I said. Someone's eager, fucking Eager McBeaver," he muttered under his breath, hearing Choi snort at the rather petty witticism. "Dunno why but I don't really like it, puts me on edge that he's here so early and not a sight of the other party around. What kinda back-to-front meeting is this? The Boy waits for no man but Jeon and he's dead...so who the fuck's he waiting on?"

" Maybe he's getting prepared? " Namjoon suggested. " Taehyung could have been wrong about it being a meeting, he could be plotting to off another competitor and that's why they arrived ahead of schedule? "

"...Yeah," Hoseok thought this over for a moment, dragging the word out, "no, no I still don't like it, Namjoon. I said it that day in the office I don't like a single bit about this, and I know that's probably just me being paranoid but I can't shake the feeling. Ever since Tae stabbed me that morning I've found myself in possession of a strange new thing I like to call a 'danger radar' and right now it's blipping away like fucking crazy."

" I never thought you would ever get a working radar, brother, " Namjoon remarked.

"Me neither, I hate it. Is this what life feels like for normal people?" Hoseok turned his head and he looked at the warehouse just for the sake of it. "Like I said, it's probably nothing. I just wish I could shake the feeling 'cos it's driving me nuts

" Gotta wait on your end, wait until you're moving in on the target and then we can move too, " Namjoon explained. " Perfectly coordinated double strike. "

"OK, makes perfect sense. Good move on your end, if you acted too rashly then The Boy could get wind of the operation and flee before we can strike. That's not good for Tae." Hoseok ran his eyes over the warehouse, seeing nothing at all just like earlier. "Remember when I said that Tae's been having way too much luck for one man?" Namjoon made a noise in agreement down the line. "I still think it applies to this, I still think that this operation has gone way too smooth so far. Which is crazy 'cos I've never had anything close to a rough raid before. Been hurt, yeah, but the raid has still gone good. But this one..."

" It's bigger than the other raids, Hoseok, that's probably why you're feeling so on edge, " he replied.

"...Yeah, you're probably right," Hoseok agreed after a moment of thought. "If something does go wrong - and I'm not jinxing I'm just saying, if something does go wrong, I'll try and make sure that Tae doesn't take another bullet."

" You can't put yourself or your officers in danger doing something like that, " Namjoon argued. " When the raid hits, all you can do is try and act as fast as you can to secure The Boy. Taehyung knows this, he understands this. "

"OK, well I'm gonna go back to watching the warehouse," Hoseok said as he shifted to get off the hood of the van. "If anything happens, hit up the band and let me know. I'll do the same for you too." He ended the call and shoved his phone down deep in his trouser pocket. "Ladies and gents, we're good to go when the time comes, evidence has been secured and the search warrant is pending on our strike." He scanned the dozen men and women assembled in front of him, dressed head to toe in black riot gear with bulletproof vests strapped in place and helmets with thick plastic visors built into the front. "So...let's make it a good one, yeah?"

"Fuck you, Jung," Choi declared and the few amused snorts he had received turned into full-blown laughter. "When have we ever had a 'bad' one?"

"There's a first for everything," he retorted as he grabbed the binoculars off the other man and settled back into watching the lot. "Don't take luck for granted."

Hoseok didn't exactly keep track of how long he was watching the warehouse for, he just knew that it had to be between thirty and thirty-five minutes before Jaekyung made a sound and then declared that she could see movement coming from the east. After a few seconds she added that it was five vehicles of varying makes and that they looked to be moving right to the lot. Five vehicles? Why the fuck were there five vehicles when they had been prepared for maybe three? For a moment there was no sign of anything from his position but then he caught sight of sudden movement shooting past.

"...Shit, wait," Hoseok felt his brow twitching and he actually leaned forward to rest his arms on the hood of the van to steady his arms. For a few seconds he struggled to locate the moving cas but then he did, seeing a black Jaguar F Type spaced between two other larger vehicles and another two trailing behind. There was something about it that seemed very familiar to him and he had just settled his focus on it when the sunlight reflected back at him angrily and he had to pull his head away from the binoculars with a hiss of pain. That had been the unmistakable glare of chrome hitting him right in the eyes and he moved forward again to check.

The chrome object in particular that had blinded him had been a car hood ornament shaped like a pistol.

"That's Bae's car, that's fucking Bae's car," he spat as he dropped the binoculars back onto the hood. "Fuck fuck fuck. " He shifted to press the button on his radio. "Namjoon, we've got trouble. Meeting is with Bae. I repeat meeting is with Bae Goohee. Over."

For a few seconds there was nothing but silence from the radio as neither Namjoon nor Sungah decided to reply to him. Hoseok waited with almost baited breath, counting in his head as he waved at Jaekyung to carry on watching the car from her position. He reached twenty before one of them decided to send a transmission.

" Talk to me, what's the problem? "

"It's fucking Code 8 here right now, Namjoon," Hoseok replied brusquely. "I have a dozen men and women assembled and I need backup right now. Tae told me maybe ten at most and Bae brought maybe twenty fucking men with him-"

"Twenty-five, Sir!" Jaekyung corrected. Hoseok lifted the binoculars to look at the lot, having to awkwardly run his thumb over the focus to zoom out and get a better view.

"Twenty-five armed men, Namjoon. Code 8, over." Hoseok let go of the button and grabbed the binoculars between both hands. With there being five vehicles there was a potential that there could be twenty-five men if each one was packed full. They pulled into the lot and that was when his transmitter sounded again.

"... I can contact Seodaemun-gu's department and put in an emergency request for backup at your exact location, " Namjoon explained and from the transmission he could hear static sounds, no doubt the other man moving to grab his phone again. " We've got enough time, don't worry, brother, we've got plenty of time. Over. "

"This could be a bloodbath, Namjoon, I dunno if they'll wanna send their officers here. Bae's men look to be carrying fucking automatics and there's even AK 47s down there. Over."

" We don't have a lot of choice, Hoseok, you said so yourself. You're woefully outnumbered and you'll be outgunned too so you need back up, let me try it. Give me a couple of minutes. "

Hoseok waited with bated breath, binoculars tight in one hand and fingers hovering over the transmitter strapped to his shoulder. He hadn't lifted his binoculars to look down at the lot but he could see the vehicles, all parked in the lot around The Boy's Dignity. Just the sight of the multiple vehicles was enough to make his skin feel cold, that spring warmth completely negated.

"God-fucking-dammit, Tae," Hoseok muttered under his breath as he held the binoculars up again. Down in the lot the first signs of movement happened, several doors popping open so that the men could step out. It took a few seconds before they were all out of the vehicles and he was finally given a proper head count.

There were twenty-three men down there including Bae. He made sure to note the unmistakable sight of guns clipped to belts and a few AK 47 rifles swinging from slings and he heard some of his fellow officers muttering under their breaths at this, no doubt using their own binoculars or gun sights to scan the lot.

"We got assault rifles," he declared as he pressed the transmitter button. "How's the backup looking? Over."

"...Fifteen minutes, " Namjoon replied after some thought. " I can get the Seodaemun-gu squad out to you as backup in fifteen minutes. There's another dozen officers, you're almost even numbers then, right? "

"Yeah, got twenty-three men, another dozen would put us in a power position," Hoseok agreed. "Fifteen minutes seems too long though. Tae's stuck in there for too long, I was hoping to storm it in maybe ten."

" Taehyung's been in so many meetings, what makes this one any more different? " Hoseok wanted to tell him that it was pretty obvious what the difference was. Bae Goohee was in this fucking meeting and that meant something. It meant that this was something much bigger than Taehyung had been expecting. On the phone that day he had told him that the meeting was something minor, just another typical thing, but it clearly wasn't. Not with Bae present. "Fifteen minutes, then you can storm the place and start the operation. Fifteen minutes until I can cross the street and slap a search warrant down on the entrance desk of The Boy's apartment block, right? "

"Right, right we can hold on," Hoseok said, thumb pressing down on the transmitter button. "Let's just hope that Tae can."

Taehyung was not an impatient person. Having worked for the department spending a great many hours scanning emails and jotting the occasional note down that was so illegible that only he could read it, patience was a valuable trait to possess. He had never felt that itch to leave the department and hit the streets, getting to patrol or do street work because he had always been a desk worker. Therefore patience was something that had come almost naturally to him and he had once rather liked it. But having spent so long under Haedogje Pa Taehyung could feel his patience rapidly wearing thin and the urge to pace up and down whilst he waited was one that he could barely suppress.

In fact as the seconds turned to minutes he found himself actually starting to pace up and down the chair behind Jungkook. The younger man was as cool as could be, settled back in the armchair with one leg folded over the other and his fingers on the rests, but he did note that every now and again he tapped his fingers against the plush leather as if he was starting to feel a hint of impatience too.

Maybe it was the fact that he had gotten used to fast paced discourse and murder that he was starting to find it hard to wait for several minutes. Maybe it was just his fear making him frantic. Whatever the case he didn't like waiting and when he glanced at his watch he saw that Bae was running late too. He was nearly five minutes behind schedule.

"Is he usually late?" he asked just to break the silence that had fallen over the warehouse.

"Sometimes," Jungkook replied without a single hint of concern in his tone. "Bae is a busy man and considering the workload I have piled on him lately I wouldn't at all be surprised if he ran late."

"OK, just checking," Taehyung muttered under his breath as he dropped his wrist and shoved his hands into his pockets again, resuming his pacing.

That day that he had arranged the raid he had told Hoseok that this meeting wasn't important, that it was basically a no-show and that there would be nothing to worry over. Yet he had not counted on Jungkook neglecting to tell him that Bae Goohee was the other half of the gathering. Perhaps Jungkook had thought it unimportant to mention him because he didn't think that Taehyung needed to be concerned about the other man? He didn't know, but he did know that Bae was not unimportant. The man wasn't going to make it this easy for them and Hoseok and his squad were not prepared for an assault against a man like him. This raid could go so wrong so fast and Taehyung had no way of really knowing the outcome right now. Not until Bae showed and gave him a good estimate of what they were up against.

Even though it was sheer torture Taehyung forced himself to not count the seconds in his head whilst he waited, instead just closing his eyes and trying to think everything over in his mind. He knew that the squad would have rifles of their own to subdue the men and that they would have protective gear. So long as they had the flash grenades and ballistic shields he thought that they might just stand a chance at neutralising the threat but he just really didn't know for certain. It was more optimistic hope than confident knowledge at this point. It must have been several more minutes before he heard the sound of the shutter opening across the warehouse and Taehyung's eyes opened instantly, a jolt of energy and nerves shooting through his body. A man stepped in first to hold the shutter up and he watched dumbly as Bae and his men entered the warehouse.

There must have been twenty or more fucking men walking in behind him and Taehyung felt his heart sinking down into his stomach in horror at the sight of them all; armed to the teeth with AK 47s and way more than Hoseok's squad could possibly control. Several of them even moved in the direction of the stairs to go up on the balcony and provide full coverage of the area.

Oh fuck.

"Good morning, Master Jeon, terribly sorry about the delay," Goohee said and he felt his stomach tightening and almost shrivelling under his ribs.

"I understand, Bae, no need to apologise," Jungkook replied, lifting a hand as if to brush away his words.

The sight of Goohee moving to sit down in the other armchair made Taehyung suck his lower lip in to bite down on it, not wanting it to possibly quiver in any way. He didn't want to show fear currently but it was hard not to, all things considered. The man was a fucking psychopath and Taehyung might be very much used to psychopaths by now but being used to them didn't mean that he felt comfortable in their presence.

"Who is this, I don't believe that we have met before?" Goohee said as he lifted his own hand and gestured at him. Taehyung could barely look at his face without feeling himself shaking but he forced himself to try and hold his gaze for a few seconds when he looked at him.

"Kim," Jungkook explained as he cocked his head back at him. "Kim Taehyung, he killed Jinwoo."

"He did?" Goohee's eyebrow lifted at this, a sharp twitch. It almost made his mask of a face look animated for a moment.

"Yes, he was the man that covered me in The Gold Monkey casino," he continued, his words almost sounding like praises to Taehyung's ears. Which they probably were, after all he could hear the smile in his voice, the auditory hint of his happiness.

"Then Kim is a much better man than the men your daddy wanted you to take as a partner," Goohee said and Taehyung felt a strange sensation course through him. It wasn't exactly a starstruck sensation, but being called a great man by the hardest motherfucker in the whole of Haedogje Pa seemed like a grand achievement to him. "Not many men could have pulled off such a maneuver, not only to get you out alive but to also get you out uninjured. I didn't think that I would find a man that doesn't belong to me capable of such a feat."

"Taehyung is very special," Jungkook agreed with a soft nod.

Taehyung was almost pissing himself with fear right now and neither of them had a fucking clue.

"...There is much to discuss, Master Jeon, tell me," Goohee broke the silence to settle down in his seat comfortably, or about as comfortably as he could get. The man looked like he was always ready to spring out, to strike back before anyone could even notice. "What exactly should we discuss first?"

"The first order of business? Yongsan-gu," Jungkook said as he shifted forward in his seat. Taehyung studied the back of his head and then glanced up at Goohee. "I think you know who and what I'm talking about when I say this, Bae."

"Mayor Jung."

"An associate of mine gathered information on him, blackmail information, but I don't know..." Jungkook paused and cocked his head slightly to the side. "I think I want him dead instead. Taehyung?"

"Yeah, I want the fucker dead too," Taehyung agreed in a low voice, hands clasped behind his back to stop his twitching fingers from being noticed. How long had it been since he had sent those fucking files to Namjoon and the team? It seemed like forever and yet he knew that he would never get those fucking images out of his head thanks to Jung, the fat fuck. "Riddle him with bullets."

"A lot of Yongsan-gu needs to be cleansed," Jungkook continued. "Not just Mayor Jung, we must put the police department into question too."

"Not once has Chief Superintendent General Kwon bowed to bribery from your daddy," Goohee explained. "There's nothing to blackmail him with, the man has kept his plate clean all of those years. Much too clean."

"Yes, which is why I want him dead," Jungkook declared as he placed his hands on his knee. "If you can't blackmail him out of his position, smoke him out."

Taehyung had to gnaw down on his lip at this point, finding that Jungkook's words cut way too close to the bone. The knowledge that Kwon wasn't a sellout was comforting but right now all thoughts about what was happening outside of this warehouse seemed dangerous. He needed to concentrate on what was happening right now and not think about Kwon, or the department, or Jimin, or his team. He didn't need to think about the fact that Hoseok was going to be storming the warehouse in maybe ten or so minutes and he didn't have a fucking clue what his team was running into.

Annihilation seemed to be the best summary that came to his mind.

That, or fucking armageddon.

"I can have Mayor Jung killed," Goohee replied after a minute of silence. "The man is a walking poison victim in the making, I could easily have him offed in such a manner. I know it's not to your standards of mess, but I could make it agonising for him."

"Good, make it complete agony," Jungkook replied, that smile once again audible in his voice. Taehyung was almost disheartened by the fact that he knew the man wasn't going to be murdered for he had actually quite wanted that to happen.

"I saw to the funding of the police departments," Goohee continued. "I think that we might just have won Jung-gu back over into our interests with the added interest that we slapped on top. Kim Jintae? Who cares about a dead old man when there's money coming their way?"

Taehyung listened to the pair of them discussing various aspects of Yongsan-gu, from the Mayor and the police department, to random businessmen that he had never heard of before. He might just have made a living for the last four months learning as many Haedogje Pa men as possible but these were different kinds of men and women, ones with a lot of power and influence. There were mentions of politicians mixed in too, mostly local ones, and it took Taehyung a great level of strength to not start shifting from foot to foot impatiently whilst he listened. The seconds seemed to stretch for minutes, the minutes for hours, and he felt a pressure starting to build up in his gut that made him feel almost nauseous. Why was this taking so long? After discussing Yongsan-gu the focus shifted back to the notorious Jung-gu, which was apparently all set to become Jeon territory through bribery, and it was after several minutes of this discussion that it finally happened.

Taehyung's phone vibrated in his suit jacket pocket and he felt his heart stopping in his chest, his skin turning hot and then cold within mere seconds.

The two other men were busy talking and so he reached up to collect it without even thinking, not really listening to their words for they seemed to be talking about bribes and monetary issues for the time being.

"Hands," Bae said curtly, not even looking at him as he did. It was only then did he realise that it very much looked like he was reaching for his gun and he froze in surprise. "Hands where we can see them, Kim."

"My phone," Taehyung replied rather dumbly, fingers still against his lapel. "My phone just vibrated, I need to check it. I think got a message."

Jungkook shifted at this to look back at him, no doubt wondering what the hell his phone was vibrating for. Considering the fact that only a few men had his number he was likely trying to figure out who it was messaging him. Taehyung looked down at him and just hoped that he looked as clueless as the younger man did. In his head he was starting to reach ten seconds and that meant that they needed to hurry the fuck up. But if Jungkook told him to leave the phone alone, that it wasn't important, then he didn't know what to do.

"Let him check," Jungkook said after a moment of thought and so Taehyung reached inside his pocket and he pulled it free to glance at the screen. Sure enough he saw it right there like he had expected.

Hoseokie:

T-Minus 1 get ur ass out now!

"It's Jimin, he's asking me to call him. It must be an emergency or-" Jungkook got out of the seat without the slightest hint of hesitation and so Taehyung rapidly unlocked his phone to hide the message. His thumb was shaking so bad that it was a miracle that he didn't type his passcode in wrong. "Sorry, Master Jeon, I didn't expect this."

"Excuse us for a moment, Bae," Jungkook said as he moved to cross the room, gesturing for him to follow after him with a curl of his fingers. Taehyung did so, continuing to touch his phone screen just for effect. By the time that he was stepping through the door after the younger man he had reached thirty in his head.

Like he had expected in his mind the next section of the building was massive, a sprawling storage area packed with crates. Some were long and rather low, barely reaching his knee; some were as tall as he was, and the rest were massive: huge cubes of thick wood nailed and sealed shut or towering blocks that were almost like trees to his eyes. To the left there was a forklift machine and he couldn't see enough of the area to see if there was an exit of some kind. But that didn't matter because this was where he was going to be holding fort until the squad stormed their way inside.

"Jimin knows to not call during meetings," Jungkook said without even looking back at him, still walking a few steps into the storage area. Taehyung shoved the phone into his pocket and he pulled his Cz75 free of the holster as fast as he could, slipping the thumb safety back with his thumb and then pressing his index and middle fingers against the trigger guard. "There must be a reason, I'm certain that-"

Just as Jungkook turned on his heel he brought the gun up, free hand resting on the magazine well to keep it steady.

For a moment it seemed that Jungkook didn't register this fact for he actually carried on talking, words trailing off until he seemed to lose the ability to speak. Taehyung held his gaze unblinkingly, refusing to show a hint of hesitation or discomfort in his eyes. The younger man's hands were still down by his side uselessly, fingers not even twitching as he stared at him. His gaze dropped to the gun and then lifted to his face, and after several seconds of silence he lowered his attention back down to the gun.

The Cz75 that he had bought him, had given him as a reward, was now pointed right at his chest.

Jungkook eyed the muzzle of his pistol and something rather unexpected happened. A smirk actually appeared on his lips and he shifted his gaze to look at him again. Taehyung didn't know why he was smirking at him but it seemed that he found the situation rather amusing. Was that shock making him react that way? He recalled laughing after helping mutilate and murder Nam, so was this just a sign of his shock taking over too?

"Now isn't the time for playing around, Taehyung, I can't keep Bae waiting," Jungkook said as he went to reach up and touch the gun, to push it away.

"Drop your hand," Taehyung snapped at him and the sharpness of his tone actually made Jungkook flinch and drop his hand away from the gun. A momentary look of confusion appeared on his features before his brow hardened.

In his head he had mentally reached forty-five seconds and the clock was still ticking away.

"What are you doing, Taehyung?" Jungkook asked in a quiet voice. It sounded somewhat small, which was unexpected all things considered. He didn't do small, only loud and grand and yet with a gun pointed at him Taehyung had stripped away that very boldness and had revealed another side to him. A side that showed fear, confusion and maybe distress too.

"I'm doing my job, Jungkook," he replied as he saw the younger man's eyes slide over to look at the door. "Don't make a fucking sound, not a single sound. I ain't gonna shoot you but you'll regret it." Jungkook's eyes snapped right back to his face. "They'll be here soon, very soon, so just keep quiet."

"They? They? " The younger man took a sharp intake of breath, expression showing that he was starting to entertain the idea of this not being a joke any more but something very very serious. Taehyung dropped his gaze momentarily to look at his lips instead of holding his eyes because he saw something on his face that he didn't like. He saw devastation. "Are they bribing you? Are...are they one of mine?"

"I'm not taking bribes, none of your men have anything to do with this."

"Then who are you working for?"

"Yongsan-gu police department," Taehyung replied in a flat voice.

Jungkook's expression didn't really shift at this but his lips certainly faltered at the corners. Just slightly but enough to be as obvious as a scowl to his eyes.

"Yongsan-gu..." Jungkook didn't finish this, once again trailing off like he had a moment ago. "Do you think this is funny, Taehyung?" he asked in a quiet voice, eyes finally moving up again to look at the gun. His gaze clearly settled on the fact his fingers were on the trigger guard rather than the trigger. "Whatever little joke you're playing right now, stop. It's not funny, there's business to attend and-"

"I'm not playing a joke, now, hands up, Jungkook, put 'em where I can see 'em," Taehyung ordered in a firm voice and for a few seconds it seemed that Jungkook wasn't going to do what he told him to. But then he slowly lifted his arms and that meant that Taehyung could reach over with his left hand and run it along his chest, slipping it under his jacket so he could find his gun holster. Jungkook just stared at him, hands held on either side of his head in submission, and he pulled the weapon free. Taehyung checked that the safety was on and then he shoved it down the back of his trouser waistband without a care.

There was a deafening burst from the front of the warehouse, a loud crack that was unmistakably that of flash grenades being launched into the building.

The sixty seconds were up.

The squad were going to strike right now and that meant that they needed to get as far away from the warehouse entrance as possible to avoid flying bullets.

"Behind the crate, c'mon," Taehyung grabbed his upper arm just above the elbow so that he could pull him across the storage area.

Jungkook didn't dig his heels into the flooring, didn't try and fight back, rather he just let him pull him away from the door. Maybe he had figured out that it safer that way, or maybe he was still in shock? Whatever the case he let him pull him across the warehouse in the direction of a large series of crates, crates that would provide decent shelter. They had to weave around a few smaller wooden boxes as they did. Just a few seconds later he heard a series of noises from the other side of the storage area, the unmistakable sound of footsteps, and his heart leapt up into his throat. Taehyung had just dragged him behind one of the crates when he heard the loud zip of a bullet speeding through the air and hitting the crate just by his head.

"Shit!" he hissed as he shoved Jungkook hard, making sure that he was fully protected from any flying bullets. "Get down!" He thought that maybe Jungkook would not do so yet the younger man hunkered down out of sight, seemingly valuing his head enough to follow orders. Several bullets hit the other side of the crate, luckily getting trapped inside the thick boards or being blocked by the contents inside and Taehyung mentally counted every single thump until he was certain that the magazine would be dry. Then he dived around the side of the crate, arms up and ready to shoot.

There was a man standing not too far from the storage door and he was in the act of fumbling a magazine into his handgun. So Taehyung pulled the trigger once hard, seeing him stumble backwards a second later when the bullet slammed home right in the upper left side of his chest. The man tripped over his own feet, fingers loosening around the gun so that it dropped a hit the floor. The magazine went skittering off under a crate out of sight and Taehyung saw that he didn't move to get back upright again. Maybe that was a killing shot, maybe not but so long as he was down nothing else mattered. He ended up falling and blocking the door open with his body, giving Taehyung a permanent view into the other section of the room. He saw the absolute chaos of moving bodies through the gap, all in black so that it was impossible to tell who was a gangster and who was a squad officer.

Taehyung lowered his arm for a second, waiting to see if anything else would happen and then he moved to get back behind the crate. Jungkook seemed to be uncertain as to whether he could stand up or stay hunkered down so he reached over with his hand and placed it on the top of his head, telling him to not move. Taehyung felt his fingers brushing against his hair, actually knocking some of it forward over his brow so that the short clump of locks curled up like a comma on his brow. The contact caused Jungkook to seize up, gaze lifting to stare at him.

"Stay down or you might get hurt," Taehyung warned him in a low voice. "I don't want you getting hurt, Jungkook."

The parallels between this situation and the attack in The Gold Monkey casino were not lost on Taehyung.

Technically he was protecting him right now, but he wasn't doing so so that they could get out together and run away from their attackers. No, Jungkook's men were the danger this time rather than Kim Jinwoo or another rival that wanted him dead. His men were the aggressors and the people storming the building were actually what Taehyung wanted. But to Jungkook there no difference, his squad were threats that needed to be taken down.

Taehyung needed to be taken down.

" In here, he took him through here and- "

Taehyung dived around the crate again, gun up so that he could shoot. Because of the position across the warehouse the two would-be attackers that stormed through the open door couldn't see him upon first glance but he saw them and he pulled the trigger indiscriminately.

He managed to get the first man with his shot but it wasn't a killer one, rather a crippling one. The bullet hit him in the face, the side of the cheek so that it ripped through his skin and left a deep trench in its wake. The man dropped his weapon and then collapsed to his knees, crawling back into the other section of the warehouse howling like a dog. But Taehyung was unable to land a hit on the other man for he dived back much too quick.

"... in there, they're still in there! "

Taehyung furrowed his brow at this, unable to hear it all because the man's words were muffled under the loud shouting of the armed squad in the front section of the building; telling them to drop their weapons and get down or they would shoot. They would have the added bonus of bulletproof vests and helmets, and not to mention thick ballistic shields to cover them whilst inside the building. But the constant rapid bursts of gunfire seemed to hint that the men weren't getting the message in the slightest. But from what he had heard the man was telling someone that they were in the building. Telling the squad or telling Bae?

He spared a quick glance around the crate to see nothing more than the dead man and a quick flash of gunfire coming in through the gap in the door. Christ, the other men weren't giving up. It looked to be a fight to the fucking death in there. Taehyung moved back behind the crate and he eyed the gouge in the crate where the bullet had almost grazed him.

" Master Jeon?! "

Taehyung recognised Goohee's voice and he felt his fingers tightening around the well of his Cz75 involuntarily. Shit, of course the other man hadn't been taken down by the squad; tackled and cuffed after the grenades had stunned him or even shot in the arm or leg to injure him enough to stop him from shooting. If would have been too much of a blessing for such a thing to happen and Taehyung closed his eyes for a moment to take a deep breath and let it out slowly. He glanced over at Jungkook to see if he was going to do anything and yet the younger man stayed hunkered down beside him and didn't speak. He was looking right up at him, eyes wide and mouth slightly open.

Taehyung leaned around the crate, gun held up high in front of him. It took him a second to locate the other man and he didn't have time to try and perfect his aim. He pulled the trigger hard and planted two bullets in the wall just mere inches away from Goohee's arm and then the other man reacted. Taehyung managed to get behind the crate just as he depressed the trigger, a spray of bullets flying past. A dozen buried themselves into the wall and a couple went into the wooden crate. The sound of them hitting it made Taehyung flinch, shoulders going up to nearly brush against his ears.

"Fuck!" he cursed as he lifted his gun again, holding it just up beside his head. "Call your fucking guard dog off, Jungkook!"

"I thought that was you," the younger man retorted from his low position. Taehyung stared at him and from the warehouse came the muffled sound of shouting and more gunshots. He could barely hear anything underneath his own racing heart, pulse pounding in his head, but then he detected the sound of footsteps heading right for them. Shit, if he didn't manage to scare Goohee off or injure him or - should he be so fucking lucky - kill him, then he was a goner. The man knew where he was, could weave around the area and use the crates for cover until he could catch him out and riddle him with bullets. He couldn't stay where he was and yet he didn't think that it was safe to leave Jungkook here and run for cover somewhere else so he could get into a shootout with Goohee.

"God-fucking-dammnit," he cursed under his breath, stepping around the younger man so that he could twist around that side of the crate too. Jungkook looked up at him, unarmed and very much unable to do anything even if he wanted to. He fired off a single shot without even trying to hit the other man, trying to draw him out.

The deafening roar of more bullets hitting the crate and wall behind them let him know that Goohee wasn't playing around.

Taehyung stayed on the very tips of his toes, ready to take another shot as soon as he heard some form of movement from the other man. He didn't actually need to kill him for he really just needed to stall. Goohee would either run out of bullets trying to shoot him or the squad would eventually push through the chaos and manage to get in the storage area with them. All he had to do was stall and yet his fear was making it very hard to act conservatively. Taehyung wanted nothing more than to plant most of his magazine right into Goohee's fucking stomach and let him die in agony and yet in the act of trying to do so he would probably get his head blown off.

Those weren't great odds.

" You know, I never could trust a man with the clan name 'Kim', " Goohee called out, voice strangely loud even with the chaos in the other section of the building. " It seems that Kims are all backstabbers, assholes or fucking useless! "

The other man was trying to intimidate him or trying to taunt him out. It was a good attempt because it could have made him let his guard down or even get reckless, except Taehyung wasn't stupid. No, what Goohee had just done was let him know that he was standing somewhere to his left judging from the direction his voice seemed to be coming from.

"Oh yeah? Do I seem useless to you?!" Taehyung hollered back, not moving but staying deathly still. "Could a useless man fuck you this bad, huh?! Bend over a little more, let me really wreck you, you useless motherfucker!" He dived around the crate with the gun raised, aiming low rather than high. When he pulled the trigger hard twice he saw one bullet miss and instead bury itself in a crate, throwing splinters of wood into the air as it did. He had to jump back before the other man hit him but he was certain that his second bullet punched into his lower leg because he heard him letting out a string of guttural curses as his next discharge of bullets flew past. These ones were so close that Taehyung was horribly aware of how close he had come to having his nose torn straight off his goddamn face.

" Good shot, Kim! Shooting me in the shin like that, you really crippled me! " Goohee called out, venomous sarcasm dripping from his voice. Taehyung knew that his shot wasn't going to put him out of action but it was still an injury, a heavily bleeding injury.

Just another minute and the squad will have secured the warehouse front. Then it was all over, Goohee was a dead man and it was finally fucking finished.

"I'll buy you a fucking wheelchair!" Taehyung shouted back and the other man's laughter was unsettling as fuck. "Or maybe not, my next shot isn't for your kneecap it's for your fucking mouth, Bae!" He was about to move back around the crate and fire off another wild shot in the hopes of him wasting more bullets when he felt something brushing against his back.

Taehyung felt the Beretta being pulled out of the waistband of his trousers and before he could possibly attempt to turn around Jungkook's arm hooked around his neck and he was roughly dragged backwards. Taehyung stumbled and before he could recover the muzzle of the gun was being pressed against the side of his head, right up against his temple so that the cold metal was shockingly chill against his skin. He heard the sound of the safety being pulled back, a crisp click beside his ear, and he found himself robbed of the ability to breathe.

"Bae, lower the gun," Jungkook ordered and he felt his breath against his hair, ruffling it slightly. The juxtaposition between his warm breath and the cold press of the muzzle caused shivers to travel right down Taehyung's spine. "Taehyung, drop it."

"Juh-Jungkook, I-"

"Drop the gun before I drop you, Taehyung," Jungkook repeated, tone icy. So Taehyung had no choice but to slowly lower his arm and then let go of the gun. It hit the floor with a clattering sound and luckily didn't discharge and shoot either of them in the leg. "Good, I see that you still follow orders well." His words were bitter, bitter with pain rather than anger, and he couldn't help but wince. "Bae?"

"Looks like we caught ourselves a rat," Goohee said from across the warehouse, and the sound of shouting and the occasional burst of gunfire still came from the entrance area. For a man that had just been shot his voice wasn't as ragged and breathless as Taehyung would have liked. The team were so close and yet to Taehyung they might as well have been halfway across the district. "Gun is lowered, Master Jeon."

Jungkook moved to step around the side of the crate, dragging him with him roughly. Taehyung had to reach up with one hand to grab hold of his arm and try and steady himself, the other dangling by his side uselessly: the comforting weight of the gun now absent. He saw that Goohee was perhaps a dozen feet away, also hidden from the entrance door by the tall crate so no one could shoot him in the back and put him out of action. Just like he had said his rifle was held low, muzzle pointed at the flooring, but he knew that the man's reflexes were next to none and that he would lift it and plant a whole clip in him in mere seconds. He would probably miss the movement if he were to blink.

"Hand me the rifle, Bae, I want to do this properly," Jungkook said, his Beretta still pressed against the side of his head. So Goohee crossed the space to get closer to them, limping ever so slightly and holding the AK 47 out as requested. Taehyung dropped his eyes to study his injured leg, seeing that his black trousers were soaked through with blood and he was leaving a thick smear behind on the concrete. Jungkook moved the Beretta away from his head and shoved him hard so Taehyung staggered and hit the crate hard, a brief flare of pain erupting as his head bounced off the thick wooden boards. Before he could even think about making a move for the gun at their feet he was greeted by the sight of the rifle muzzle being pointed right at his chest.

"Taehyung, Taehyung, Taehyung," Jungkook almost crooned. The Beretta was now sticking out of his belt, slipped in snug under the piece of leather. "If I'm going down today, it will bring me great pleasure to know that I'm not going down alone."

"Jungkook, puh-please just-"

Jungkook whirled around so fast that Taehyung didn't even realise that he had moved until he heard the hideous ripping sound of the rifle unloading. He turned his head quick enough to see the rather unbelievable sight of Goohee being blown backwards, the bullets hitting him so that he was driven back with a great force. Just like Ahn Kangho he took quite a few bullets to the head but the resulting spray of blood and brains was so much more shocking. Taehyung saw it misting up into the air and spraying backwards to land on the flooring with loud liquid splashes. Then Goohee's knees unhinged and he was hitting the floor with a thump .

Jungkook turned back to him, rifle still in hand and muzzle pointed right at his chest. Dead centre between his ribs. Taehyung hadn't even dropped his arms so he could do nothing more than blink at him in a mixture of horror and sheer confusion.

Jungkook had just shot Bae Goohee, had just emptied about half a fucking clip into his head.

"Wuh-what the fuck ?!" Taehyung managed to ask, unable to control the volume of his voice even when he was shouting at him. "Juh-Jungkook, what the fuck did you just-"

"Stop talking," he spoke over him. "Stop talking or I'll blow your fucking head off too."

"Juh-Jungkook, listen to me. If you kill me then it's gonna look so much more worse for you when-"

"It already looks bad enough," Jungkook retorted, moving his head so that he could look down the sight on the end of the muzzle, one eye squinting slightly as he did. "It's a damned if I do, damned if I don't kind of situation, wouldn't you agree?"

"Buh...Bae, why'd you-"

"You should stop thinking about Bae and instead start thinking about yourself, Taehyung."

Taehyung tried to take a quick intake of breath but it was much too hard to do so. It felt like there was a great weight on his chest compressing his lungs and he could barely drag more than a slight amount of air into his lungs as his eyes moved over to look at Bae. The fact that the other man was dead was a fact that he was struggling to comprehend and yet Jungkook had a point. After all there was an AK 47 pointed right at his chest and a dead man really meant nothing when he could be a dead man in a few seconds time. So Taehyung dragged his gaze back up to look at Jungkook, seeing that the rifle was still aimed at his ribs. The younger man's finger wasn't on the trigger but rather the trigger guard, a sign that he maybe wasn't about to waste him just yet.

"Juh-Jungkook, you-"

The sound of footsteps pounding burst into the storage area, like the dreadful rumble of thunder, and Taehyung scrunched his face up and waited for the bullets to start flying but they didn't. Neither Jungkook nor his team opened fire and it was pretty obvious why. He was in the centre of it all, the cause of what was going to become an intense standoff.

"Drop the weapon, Jeon!" Hoseok demanded from just across the warehouse. "I won't shoot to kill but I'll put a bullet in you before you can do so much as blink, so drop the fucking weapon!"

"Sure you can do that, officer, but I'll be sure to plant a few of my own in him too. Are you willing to let your fellow officer die to take me down?"

"No, I'm not willing so that's why you need to drop the weapon!" Hoseok repeated in a firm tone.

"Jungkook, hey, Jungkook," Taehyung said, trying to keep his utmost attention and also trying to talk without stuttering. "Look at me, listen to me, yeah?"

"No, no I don't want to," the younger man retorted rather childishly, the corners of his lips drooping as he did in a clear sign that he was upset. "I don't want to listen to a single fucking word that comes out of your mouth now, you fucking-" Jungkook was clearly trying to say something, to call him a cunt or a rat or even just a bastard, and yet he kept choking up before he could do so; lips moving but nothing coming out.

"You've gotta listen to me, OK, before you make a big fucking mistake that you'll regret."

"Taehyung you-you fucking used me," Jungkook's said in a voice barely above a whisper, strained and hoarse. "All of this time you used me and I thought...I thought that you..."

"Jungkook, just lower the weapon, yeah?" Taehyung said in a soft voice, not even wanting to look over at the team.

"No, I'm not lowering the fucking weapon."

Across the warehouse Taehyung could hear the static sound of voices on a transmitter, a sign that someone was passing messages along. He wondered if Namjoon was being informed about what was going on right now. He briefly wondered what would go through his mind at the very thought of the operation turning on them like this but couldn't really formulate a proper thought beyond: shit. So long as Jungkook kept the rifle aimed at him no arrest could be made and Jungkook knew that. He was using the situation as a way to buy time, to try and think of his next move but there was no next move. No matter what he did was trapped and Taehyung had a feeling that Jungkook also knew that. There was just something on his expression that hinted that he knew it was all over and he was so desperately trying to delay the inevitable.

Jungkook could lower the gun and get arrested or Jungkook could shoot him a dozen fucking times and still get arrested.

"Jungkook, I'm sorry," Taehyung said in a quiet voice, fingers trembling either side of his head.

Jungkook thought this apology over for a moment, hands faltering ever so slightly and Taehyung was convinced that he was going to lower the gun. He was even certain that he saw the muzzle dipping down to his lower ribs in a sign of crushed resignation. But just as he was about to let his breath out in relief Jungkook's fingers tightened around the pistol grip and the muzzle went right back up an inch so that it was pointing at his chest again. This time it was less in the centre and more to the left, likely aimed right at his heart.

That would be fitting. Jungkook could pull hard on the trigger and pump the whole clip right into his black heart and tear a hole through him so deep that there would be nothing left of his heart save for scraps of meat.

"Did you ever love me, Taehyung?" Jungkook asked him, voice not at all steady and lower lip trembling.

"Yeah, Jungkook, I did and I still do and-"

"You're lying."

"I ain't lying," Taehyung argued with a soft head shake, too scared to do so vigorously for fear that the movement would be read wrong. "I ain't lying, Jungkook, I took a fucking bullet for you." Jungkook's eyes never left his face once, burning into him as he held the rifle in his slightly shaking hands. "Would another man do that? Would your daddy have done that?"

"I told him that day, I told him," Jungkook muttered breathlessly and when he closed his eyes Taehyung saw that he was blinking away tears. "I said that everyone fucking leaves me or betrays me but I never thought you , Taehyung. I thought that-that you and Jimin would stay with me because you promised. And not like the other men and their lies you...you puh-"

"Jungkook."

"promised and I believed you, you lying prick." Jungkook's voice cracked at this but he refused to let the tears fall. "Why did you promise me?"

"I promised to not let any man, Haedogje Pa or other, hurt you. I promised to stop 'em before they ever could and that's what I'm doing right now, Jungkook. I'm saving you before your own fucking men kill you like y'know they will. I killed men for you, men that wanted you dead, but I can't kill all of 'em, there's too many. We both know there's too many. Y'know I'm not breaking my promise and y'know that I love you, Jungkook. Just like I know you love me too."

"I don't, I don't love you," Jungkook snarled at him, and the act was far from convincing.

"You had a choice to shoot me back then but you didn't, you shot Bae instead. Why? Why didn't you fucking shoot me, Jungkook?"

"Maybe I was waiting for this exact situation to happen, this standoff?" Jungkook retorted. "With Bae in the picture I could never have this so he had to go. He always told me that he would rather die than get arrested, so I saved him the trouble. Maybe I wanted this to happen so I could kill you and take a bullet? Save myself the trouble too?"

"Suicide by cop?" Taehyung asked, eyebrows raising as he did. The younger man didn't nod or reply, expression grim. "That ain't you, nah, that ain't you, Jungkook. We both know it ain't. You wouldn't let a cop take you down, that's the worst fucking way to go."

"Not if I take you down with me."

"If you kill me, huh, and my team shoot you and you end up dying before the crews get here then who the fuck's gonna care for Jimin, huh?"

"Don't," Jungkook intoned in a rather weak voice. His lower lip was back to trembling again and he didn't know how much longer he could fight off the tears now.

"All of that effort to keep him safe ruined," Taehyung continued even when he had been warned not to speak. "And they'll do it, Jungkook, your men will kill him. They'll hurt him and kill him and you won't be there to-"

"Shut up, Taehyung."

"to keep him safe," he finished. "No, suicide by cop ain't you, Jungkook. I know you think that suicide's honourable but dying like that, it's fucking cowardly and I know you ain't a coward."

His words made Jungkook stop talking and Taehyung wasn't sure if it was because he was thinking them over or if it was because he was unable to reply. The atmosphere in the warehouse was so heavy that Taehyung had blocked out all noise from the other sections, that of Bae's injured men making pained noises. In his head there was just silence and nothing more than that, and it seemed to be the case for the younger man too.

"I've got nothing left to live for now," Jungkook said in the most softest voice, breaking the silence. "If they take me in...if they pin shit on me; I'm done."

"No, no you ain't done," Taehyung argued, also speaking low so that the team might not hear him. "Appeals, Jungkook, appeals and fucking deals. You ain't necessarily looking at life, not if y'know how to cooperate and swing the court your way, yeah?" But he could see that any attempt at logic wasn't going to work right now. Jungkook had lost the ability to think and reason right around the time that he had pulled his gun on him and told him that he was a police officer. "This ain't the way to go."

"You know what's first on my list of ways to die?" Jungkook asked, voice still that whisper-level. Taehyung waited silently for him to continue. "Number one was...dying in my sleep as an old man. Old and tired of this fucking world, but I'm already fuh...fucking tired, Taehyung. I can't do this. I can't keep fighting like this."

"Just lower the rifle, Jungkook, just stop fighting," Taehyung suggested, waiting to see if he would drop it or press the trigger again. "You don't have to keep fighting now."

"I've been playing war games since I was three-fucking-years old and I've never lost a campaign. Not once."

"Just like chess."

"Just like...like chess," Jungkook agreed, the rifle trembling in his shaking hands. "Say it, Taehyung, finish the game."

"Checkmate, Jungkook."

For a few seconds he didn't move but rather kept the rifle aimed at his chest. But then something seemed to break inside of him, the last of his willpower, and Taehyung saw the slight way that his shoulders slumped. Jungkook lowered the rifle first, the muzzle moving from his chest down to his stomach, then his crotch and his thigh. The younger man's arm seemed to lose strength and then, before Taehyung could even blink, the rifle was falling out of his hand and landing on the floor by their feet. He felt his breath leaving his lungs in a heavy wheeze and Taehyung had just lowered his arms when the officers across the room burst into action. Hoseok cleared the space between them so fast that he was like lightning, weapon held up pointed right at him.

"Hands where I can see 'em, Jeon! Hands right in front of you!"

Jungkook lifted his arms slowly, both hands hanging limp and he didn't even try and make a move for the rifle, a sign that he might have changed his mind. No, he was just looking at him with a blank and rather dazed expression and Taehyung could only stare right back. Only when he was right beside him did Hoseok lower his own weapon and shrug the sling up onto his left shoulder to grab his handcuffs from his belt.

"Jeon Jungkook, you're under arrest for about a hundred fucking known offences and about a hundred fucking suspected offences, I'm not listing 'em so deal with it," Hoseok muttered as he dragged one of his hands out so he could snap the first handcuff in place around his wrist. Jungkook didn't even stop him but rather stayed still and silent, mouth slightly open and eyes rather empty as Hoseok secured the second cuff in place. "You have the right to remain silent, do you require hearing your full rights or do you know 'em off by heart?"

No reply.

Hoseok reached up to pull his helmet off, groaning as he did and shoving it under one of his arms so that he could reach up and brush his hair back off his face. Taehyung wasn't at all surprised to see that there were beads of sweat on his hairline and a single bead rolled down the side of his face as he reached over to grab hold of Jungkook's upper arm. At the contact Jungkook's eyes slid over to look at him and there was a moment of dumbstruck confusion on his face before he figured out that he was looking at the exact same officer that he had made him stab on the day of Ahn's funeral. Taehyung wondered what went through his mind and yet he really would never know.

"Squad, check on the men, if anyone's alive you try and keep 'em breathing until the ambulances get here. Lee, take this," Hoseok shrugged his sling off and he held the rifle up. Another officer moved over to collect, short but well-built and carrying one of the massive ballistic shields. She might just have covered for Hoseok the entire time with it. Taehyung was pretty certain that Lee was a woman even when her face was hidden by her helmet. "Make sure it gets back to the station armoury so I don't get accused of stealing it...again."

"Yes, Sir." Taehyung had been correct, for the reply was unmistakably said by a woman.

"Tae, you holding up alright?"

"Uh..." He dragged his eyes away from the rifle swinging from Lee's shoulder to look at his teammate and he saw that Hoseok was looking at him intently. Was that concern on his face? "Not really. No."

"...OK," Hoseok said after a moment of thought. "That was completely expected. Come on, we gotta blow." And with that he started pulling Jungkook across the warehouse without so much as a word of warning, the younger man almost stumbling in surprise. Taehyung reached out to steady him before letting go again, feeling like he shouldn't touch him with all of the officers present. It seemed wrong somewhat and he couldn't shake the feeling. As he guided them both across the room they had to pass Bae's body and Taehyung couldn't help but stare at it.

His skin ran cold just looking down at the other man and knowing how close to death he has technically gotten. Bae had taken several bullets to the head and they had shaved quite a bit away. Taehyung could see the spray pattern of blood and brains that spread across the floor from the impact in a fan pattern, and blood was still leaking out in a thick puddle around his ruined skull. Bae could have shot him like that, had Jungkook allowed him to do so rather than take his weapon and unload on him instead. Jungkook could have killed the man and then killed him without even blinking, but he hadn't. Taehyung could have taken so many bullets that he no longer had much face left but here he was: alive and injury-free.

"Namjoon, the raid was a success. Tae and The Boy are unharmed and an arrest has been made, over." There was momentary silence on the other end of the radio for perhaps ten seconds before it was broken.

" Taehyung's unhurt? Over. " Hoseok gestured for him to get closer and so Taehyung moved his head forward as he pressed down on the transmitter button.

"I didn't take a bullet I'm alright, brother," he said, neglecting to mention that he was only talking about his physical state and not his mental. He was pretty certain that Namjoon would have known anyway.

" Thank God, " came Namjoon's slightly static reply. " What about casualties? Over. "

"Bae didn't make it, seems The Boy took him down. Did he, Tae?" Hoseok asked as he twisted to look back at him, eyes moving from both of their faces in turn quickly rather than settle. Taehyung nodded rather than reply for his throat felt restricted. "He shaved the fucker's head clean off, maybe he'll give us answers maybe not. The Boy's gone awful quiet on us right now. A lot of his men took bullets, a few dropped their arms when the grenades were thrown but they put up a fight. Might have more casualties before the crews arrive but they opened fire first, we had to retaliate. We got two squad injuries on our end, just shallow bullet wounds, and a Seodaemun-gu squaddie got grazed but looks to be OK. Over."

" Good, at least we took no hard hits but Bae going...that's not good. An arrest on his end would have came in handy. Why the fuck did The Boy take him down like that? Over. "

Jungkook remained silent even when Hoseok gave him a look that said he was curious and wanting an answer. So after a few seconds he gave up and his carried on through the next section of the warehouse. They had to step around fallen Haedogje Pa men as they did, quite a few having taken bullets from him rather than their squad. Taehyung tried to avoid looking at them as they passed.

"I'll contact Sungah as soon as I can, we're heading back to the station ASAP. Keep working on your end, Namjoon. Over." Hoseok pulled his hand away from the transmitter and they cut across the warehouse entrance to get out of the building. Taehyung saw bloody smears on the flooring, spent shell casings and the remains of the flash grenades all over the place. His teammate bent down to pull the shutter up and let them step out, letting go so that it banged back down against the concrete loudly. Almost as loud as the gunfire had been.

Hoseok's car pulled up at the lot right in front of them and the driver-seat door popped open a second later. A riot squad officer stepped out, still kitted out with his helmet on his head but the plastic visor lifted up. Taehyung didn't recognise the older man in the slightest and he tossed the keys to Hoseok. The other man let go of Jungkook so Taehyung grabbed his arm and pulled him over to the back of the car, opening the door for him. Jungkook eyed the open doorway as if he wasn't going to get inside and so Taehyung placed both hands down on his shoulders and he applied pressure to get him to duck down and climb inside. As soon as he was in the car he slammed the door shut and went around the front to climb into the passenger-seat. Hoseok was already at the wheel, helmet placed on the dashboard.

"Make it a good one huh, Jung?"

"Best one yet," Hoseok retorted as he flashed his middle finger at the other man and slipped the keys into the ignition. "Listen, Choi, I gotta get him back to the station right now so you need to brief the crews when they arrive and sort the squads out for me."

"Yeah yeah, seen that shit enough times to know how to do it," Choi retorted as he waved him off. Hoseok turned his attention back to the dashboard and he twisted his wrist so that the engine came to life with a low rumble. "Get your ass outta here, Sir ."

"Fuck you, man," he muttered under his breath in an amused tone as he turned the wheel and started pulling out of the lot, vehicle curving softly around in the direction of the road. Taehyung settled back in his seat and his eyes shifted up to look at rear-view mirror. He saw that Jungkook was sitting in the middle of the backseat, still and seemingly unable to do much more than blink. He studied him as his teammate got the car onto the road and then started driving down the road in the exact same direction that they had arrived in earlier.

"...You have no evidence against me," Jungkook said after several minutes of quiet, breaking the silence in a low voice. Taehyung looked at him again in the rear-view mirror and sure enough it seemed that the thought has only just crossed the younger man's mind. He saw the way that his eyes slowly widened and then how his shoulders went up, almost squared up. "You have no evidence against me to detain me after this arrest."

"Oh trust me, we've got plenty of evidence," Hoseok retorted without looking back at him.

"Name one piece of evidence that you have right now, other than suspicions and possible lies? Name something substantial," Jungkook argued, shifting on the seat to get closer to them.

"We've got the hard drives, Jungkook," Taehyung explained in a soft voice. "Jimin handed one over so my team could get a legitimate search warrant of the penthouse." At his words he saw Jungkook's expression shifting, brow furrowing and mouth hanging open as he listened intently. "Why else would we arrest you? We need evidence like you said, so I got some damning evidence."

"No, no not Jimin," Jungkook disagreed with a head shake. "He wouldn't, Jimin would never you're just...you're just saying that shit to-to-"

"To what?" Hoseok spoke over him and the younger man flinched.

"You're lying to me, Taehyung," he said, derailing the conversation because he clearly had no proper answer for the other man. "After everything that you did to me today, you're lying now too." He turned his head to look out of the window and that was when Hoseok let go of the wheel with one hand to reach up and press his thumb against the transmitter radio still strapped to his bulletproof vest.

"Sungah, this is Hoseok, just checking in to see if you're at the station. Over." He let go of the button and waited, the car smoothly rolling down the straight stretch of road. Jungkook was still staring out the window with a hard to read expression on his face, eyes refusing to settle on the view outside but rather constantly shifting and his lips set in a harsh thin line. After maybe thirty seconds of silence there was a static burst from the device.

" Yes, I'm at the station currently. How did the raid go? Did you secure The Boy? Is Kim safe? " Sungah's voice came through pretty clearly, words unmistakable.

"Yeah, we secured The Boy and Tae is with me right now, we're heading back to the station too whilst Namjoon finishes the search of the apartment block. How's Jimin?"

" He's coping, Lee is in the room with him right now but I don't know what the diagnosis will be. He's messed up, Jung, probably one of the most dependent cases I've seen in a long time. "

"What about the hard drive, did he bring it to you like promised?"

" Yes, he brought the hard drive. Any contact with Kim in regards to the search? "

Taehyung turned in his seat to look back at Jungkook and he saw that he was staring at the headrest of Hoseok's seat; that same rather dumbstruck expression on his face like the one he had been wearing in the warehouse. It seemed like he was having trouble understanding what he was hearing, as if he couldn't process any of the information. He might just have been in shock, Taehyung wouldn't at all be surprised if he was. Whilst he studied him silently Hoseok continued talking to Sungah on the transmitter, explaining that he had spoken to Namjoon only briefly but that the operation was ongoing. Seconds turned to minutes and after he was finished talking the car plunged into silence, a rather deathly silence that seemed too heavy. It seemed to suck the very oxygen out of the car and turn it into a vacuum and so Taehyung opened his mouth to say something and break it.

Which was exactly when Jungkook exploded.

Taehyung actually jerked back in his seat in shock as the younger man started throwing a fit, kicking at the backs of their seats as he let out a string of noises, some guttural curses but most of them just broken nonsense. In the process of doing so he slumped against the window and proceeded to start smacking the back and side of his head against it hard, over and over, so that the impact was horribly loud in the vehicle.

"Hey hey!" Hoseok called out in shock. "Stop that! Tae, stop him from doing that before he gives himself fucking concussion!"

"Jungkook, stop!"

"Fucking!" Jungkook shouted in a hoarse voice as he carried on thrashing around, doing so very well even with his cuffed hands. "Ruined everything! You ruined everything!"

"Jungkook!" Taehyung had to climb around his seat to try and get to him, grabbing hold of his arm to try and pull him away from the window.

"Nuh-no, no, not Jimin, not Jimin, no," Jungkook whined as he twisted on the seat to try and get away from him. At least he had stopped smacking his head on the window and had instead turned on his side to press himself up against the seat and turn his back to them. The way that he curled his legs up on the seat made him look so small that Taehyung found looking at him painful. "You're lying, you're lying to me. Why are yuh-you lying to me?"

"Jungkook, it's not a lie: it's the truth," Taehyung argued as he grabbed hold of his arms and forced him back up into a sitting position. Jungkook tried to wriggle free, feet kicking the armrest of the other door, but after a momentary struggle he has righted him again. "It's the fucking truth, alright? I forced him to do it, I gave him no choice. Jimin gave the hard drive over 'cos I threatened to hurt him."

"No, no just stop...stop talking," Jungkook said in a breathless voice, closing his eyes and actually reaching up with his cuffed wrists to try and cover his ears. He couldn't even get close, instead pressing the sides of his hands against his brow almost as if praying. "Just stop, Taehyung. Please."

Taehyung studied him for a moment, making sure that he wouldn't have another fit and try his hardest to smash the window in with his skull, and then he moved to sit back in his seat. Hoseok had stopped at a seat of lights and he stared at the car parked in front of them without really paying much attention, barely even noticed what colour it was. He could sense his teammate looking at him and get he didn't return his gaze. He didn't want to look at Hoseok and see an expression of disgust or concern on his face because he didn't want to think about what had just happened. Sure it looked like a temper tantrum on the surface to anyone looking but he saw it for what it really was.

Jungkook's entire life was over and that had not been a hissy fit. He was distraught, grieving for an empire that he had possessed for such a short time and already lost.

"Don't do that again, kid," Hoseok warned him as he glanced back at him. "I'm taking you to the station, not to the hospital."

Jungkook didn't reply, just kept breathing heavily as he dropped his hands onto his lap. His teammate looked at him for a moment before turning back to the wheel and a moment later they were moving again, rolling down the street. Taehyung closed his own eyes and tried his very hardest to just block it all out, to stop thinking and just take it all in like he was so good at doing but he couldn't. He couldn't block it out when he was a part of it and no matter how hard he tried there was no being numb and detached to this. He had just opened his eyes again when he heard something from behind him, a soft sound. He lifted his gaze and that was when he saw something unusual.

Jungkook was crying.

Taehyung studied him in the rear-view mirror, feeling his lips go slack at the sight of the younger man's tears. He wasn't sobbing audibly like Jimin would, wailing and pulling on his hair, rather his entire body just seemed to have slumped; shoulders low and head hanging as the most softest sobs made his body shake. His hands were trembling in his lap and he could see tears dripping down to land on them as he contorted his face to try and not make too much noise.

Taehyung had never seen Jungkook cry before.

Hoseok was much too busy driving to pay attention but when he glanced over at him he saw how he had set his jaw hard, almost as if he knew that Jungkook was crying and he was forcing himself to ignore it. Taehyung could only look between his teammate and the rear-view mirror in turn, too shocked to really move or attempt to speak. He could hear Jungkook's breath hitching as he tried to breathe and not make too much noise, but he ended up letting a moan escape by accident. The younger man tried to reach up and wipe at his eyes but it was hard to do so with his cuffed hands.

Taehyung felt his hand against his chest and he didn't even recall moving it there, only realised when his fingers sank into his shirt and snagged a handful of cotton tight. Suddenly breathing seemed too hard for him and there was a horrible ache right in his breast. He blinked hard several times and he tried to keep himself under control because now was not the time for such behaviour. Not now, not after everything. He couldn't cry after he had done this to Jungkook because that was pathetic, but listening to him sobbing like that was getting under his skin and making him squirm in his seat.

"Christ," Hoseok muttered under his breath as he twisted the wheel and the car turned the corner. Clearly such an outpouring of emotion from the 'heartless' Jungkook was making him uncomfortable and there was still a long way to go until they arrived back at Yongsan-gu station.

"I'm suh...sorry, daddy," Jungkook sobbed, shoulders shaking hard as he lifted his head, biting down on his lip to try and trap a moan. "You wuh-were-"

"Jungkook," Taehyung said as he turned to look back at him, hoping to get him to stop crying. "Please."

"You were right," he finished in a whisper as he shifted his gaze to look right at him, tears steadily rolling down his cheeks.