BLOOD MONEY || bts mafia au

twenty one.

Namjoon was still awake when Yoongi finally made his way back to the den. The older boy had only gone to meet with that insignificant gang that thought they could simply waltz into their territory and take what they wanted - he should have been back hours ago. And still Namjoon had yet to see any sign of him until now.

The black-haired male barely spared Namjoon a glance as he trudged down the corridor.

"That's it?" Namjoon demanded, stalking after the other boy, irritation tinting the concern that once coursed through his body. No one set his emotions ablaze more than Yoongi. "I wait for hours for you to come back and you don't even say hi?"

His frustration bubbled up with every passing second Yoongi didn't even bother to look in his direction. "Hey!" he yelled, grabbing the elder's arm to yank him back, forcing him to turn. "I'm talking to you!"

Yoongi's midnight eyes flashed, the barrel of a loaded gun staring him down. But in an instant, the flicker vanished, replaced by the lazy smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. "A lot of people seem to want to talk to me today," he drawled, swaying slightly in Namjoon's grip. "It must be my lucky day."

Namjoon jerked his hand back suddenly, disbelief and shock bleeding through the annoyance with the realization that washed over him. "You're drunk," he breathed, panic clawing its way up his throat with every new question that ran through his head. "Why are you drunk? You never drink."

The elder boy tipped forward unsteadily, leaning his head against the taller's shoulder, his dark hair falling in his eyes as he murmured into Namjoon's shoulder, "I needed to stop. But I can't." He closed his eyes like the simple thought of it pained him. "Why can't I stop?" he whispered.

"Stop? Stop what?" Namjoon asked, ducking down in an attempt to meet his boss's eyes, his anxiety increasing with every unanswered question that arose. "Yoongi, what's going on? I thought you just went to meet with that gang but then you never came back." A horrifying realization hit him suddenly. "You're not injured, are you?"

Yoongi just shook his head miserably.

He didn't want Namjoon's sympathy.

His pity.

His comfort.

What he wanted was to raid the stash of alcohol Bambam thought he could so cleverly hide between the clothes stuffed into his dresser. He wanted to drain every last drop from every bottle, chasing every last traitorous thought from his mind. He wanted the world to blur around him until he couldn't even stand upright. He wanted to drown this agony, suffocating the remnants of whatever good resided in his soul.

He was so tired of being weak.

There was only one way to even the score that had been so against him his entire life, one way to come out victorious against all the forces that threatened to drag him down further into this endless void.

He had to become the monster everyone thought to him to be.

Namjoon bit his lip as he desperately tried to sort out the tangle in his mind. He could think of a million questions, but not a single answer. Ever since they'd first met, Yoongi's motives had been a mystery to him, an enigma wrapped up in a keyless lock. What had happened in his past that created the person he saw before him? The heartless boss who rolled murder sentences off his tongue without remorse. The vengeful boy with a fire in his eyes who was determined to hurt the world before it could hurt him.

No one was born a villain.

Not even Yoongi.

Pushing his thoughts to the back of his mind, Namjoon slipped an arm around the other boy's shoulders, trying to direct him down the hallway. In the five years he'd known Yoongi, he had only seen the elder drunk once. It wasn't exactly an experience he was ready to try again.