BLOOD MONEY || bts mafia au

twenty three.

Slightly longer chapter this time because it's been awhile since I've given you guys an update :)

Cool metal kissed his skin, leeching the warmth from his body into its own with every passing second he allowed it to burn into his palm. A scowl forced its way onto his face as he tightened his grip on the ring, the edges threatening to pierce through into the precious vessels crisscrossing beneath the layer of porcelain armor.

Taehyung wished they would.

Wished they would slice right through his flesh, would rip apart the prison it had become, and take him to a place where we wouldn't have to feel this pain anymore. Where he could receive the punishment he so badly wanted to inflict upon himself.

Everywhere he went, he felt Jungkook's presence.

Lingering on the edge of his bed when he curled in on himself to keep from breaking, tracing slow patterns across his waist as he desperately searched for gaps in the agony where he could slip unnoticed into unconsciousness, hovering over his shoulder watching him tear himself apart over him. There was nothing he could do to escape it. Nothing he could do to make it stop.

He deserved it. Deserved this.

This was all his fault. If he hadn't accepted that cursed bargain, hadn't forced him to work with the source of the weight he'd been watching him stumble beneath for the last few years, none of this would have happened. He wouldn't have gone into that building, wouldn't have been trapped amongst the flames under Taehyung's direction.

He would be safe, sitting here right next to Tae and telling him all about his plans for revenge in between stroking his hair. He would be alive.

Taehyung shot to his feet suddenly, self-hatred burning through the fog that had overtaken him the second he felt Jimin press that ring into his hand, ever since he watched the final string of hope he held out snap in half.

Suddenly furious, he lashed out at the table he knew was close by, scattering its contents to the floor with one wild sweep. He already knew what lay on it - the food Jimin had a soldier bring in every few hours, the dagger Hoseok gifted him once he had officially joined their gang, and, worst of all, a framed photograph of Taehyung and Jungkook that the younger boy had specially made for him so that the lines of the photo were etched onto the surface of the glass, the closest Taehyung could come to seeing it. The closest he could come to seeing the other boy's face.

He remembered the day he gave it to him. The shy tint in his voice, the hesitance that caused him to stumble slightly over his words as he shoved the frame into his hands.

"I know you miss your old life," Jungkook had whispered as Taehyung gripped the edges of the frame tightly as if the simple action would hold him together. "But I hope you'll come to like your new one here."

Taehyung wasn't sure what to say. No one had ever done something as thoughtful for him in his life. It was like Jungkook could see into his mind, like he knew just how deep his desire for any sense of normalcy went.

He'd wanted to thank him. To throw his arms around the mafia boss who somehow seemed to be the only person left in the world who understood him anymore, but he just couldn't. The words had clogged up in his throat, his limbs had frozen up.

He didn't want to have to run his fingers over raised edges of glass just to know what the contents of the photo were.

He had just wanted to die.

So he'd turned away from Jungkook without a word, letting his gift fall from his hands as he shifted over to the other side of the bed. He hadn't moved until he heard the slow retreat of the younger's footsteps, the quiet click of the door closing behind him. Had stayed there until Jimin, the only other person allowed in his room other than Jungkook, showed up with his dinner, shuffling around as noisily as he could so that Taehyung would know where he was.