𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐀𝐒𝐒𝐀𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐍 | 𝐛𝐭𝐬

NINETEEN (Part I)

Your P.O.V

I briefly consider stopping at a library or a cybercafe to check for an email from Jin, but it doesn't feel right. Besides which, I don't want to. I don't want to think about Jin and the way he looked at me, the way I saw him decide to trust me. I don't want to think about how normal and safe it made me feel when he was driving. I don't want to think about things like normal and safe, things I can't have.

I don't want to do anything tonight, nothing at all, but spin and pulse and pound. Rosé can't betray me while I'm dancing. Kai can't use me while I'm dancing. And most of all, I can't hear my own thoughts while I'm dancing. I haven't been dancing in four months, not since we left Greece, and I ache for it.

I run a few blocks south, then cut into the city. I'm not sure sure where I'm going. I never plan ahead. Learned my lesson a long time ago. Thank you, beautiful Kai.

There, ahead of me, a line snaking around the sidewalk. The unmistakable thumping hum of bass that will push right through me. Perfect. I look up and choke on a laugh. The place is called Vision.

Of course it is.

It's too early for such a long line. Must be a celebrity DJ or something. I slip into my stilettos and walk straight up to the front. There, third person from up front; a guy with carefully sculpted hair, even more carefully sculpted arms and pecs, a shirt picked especially to showcase them. Here with no friends, no girls. Jackpot.

"Hi," I say, reaching over the velvet rope to trace my hand along the edge of his shoulder. Oh, my hands, my hands make me shudder, but he doesn't shudder. Then again, he isn't aware of all the gruesome things my hands have done. "I hate lines." I smile at him, and I know that I am beautiful and beauty is a tool. It has only ever been a tool for me and it will get me what I want, and what I want right now is the front of this line.

"Hey." His eyes travel the lengths of my legs.

"Good thing I'm meeting you guys here so I don't have to wait in line, right?"

He smiles. His teeth are so white they would glow under a black light. "Good thing."

I duck under the rope and he puts his arm around my shoulder. The only guys that I have ever allowed to get close to me are Jimin, Taehyung, Hoseok, and Kai. And if anyone else ever tried to lay as much as a finger on me without my consent, I would seriously harm them. I could break this guy's arm if I wanted to, I know how to twist it just so to pop it right out of the socket, but so far he seems nice enough and breaking his arm would get in the way of dancing.

He even pays my cover charge, the darling boy. Good thing, because I don't have cash on me after I gave it all to Jin, and I don't want a card pinging my location either. We walk in and I can't hear his voice, which is another good thing. He shouldn't have a voice. A body is fine, he is allowed to have a body. I need other bodies around me so I can get lost.

This club is like any other club anywhere in the world. There's a waterfall and a fire pit and several floors, but none of that matters as long as there is a dance floor and music. I push through to where it's the thickest, where it is the loudest, where you can feel the music in your teeth, where it overpowers your own heartbeat, where it takes over everything. I don't want my own heartbeat tonight. I want it to pulse and pump outside of me.

Everything is spinning out of control. First Jin (I wonder where he is—no, I don't, don't think about Jin, it's not safe to think about him). Then Rosé. I can't keep the threads I'm supposed to follow together, I can't pull them and yank them to what I want them to be, I can't follow what I'm supposed to do.

I have no idea.

I used to be so good at knowing exactly how to do what was best for Rosé and me, but I have no idea who me is anymore, and Rosé, why would she want me to kill him? If I don't know who we are, how can I know our track?

"DRINK?"

I turn, surprised to see my line boy behind me. He stopped existing for me as soon as I got what I wanted. "I don't—" I don't drink. Rosé made me promise not to, and I haven't, not a drop, not a single drop since the first time. Not even during the year we were apart. Rosé also promised to take care of me. Then she sent me out to kill someone.

"ABSOLUTELY!" I shout over the music. He smiles and he thinks it's predatory, and if I were a girl, I would-should-could be worried. But this girl is different. I am the predator in any situation. I am not worried.

I close my my eyes and sway, let the music wash out everything else, let it give me the dull I look for everywhere, let it pound the very thoughts from my brain. My only job right now, the only thing I have to do, is move.

So I move.

I move slow. I move fast. I move faster. My side – where I got shot – hurts, but I don't care, I can't care. I am rhythm and bass and drums and beats and I don't even care what the song is, I just move.

Something breaks through, breaks me out, and I'm livid. I turn to find the boy from the line. He's shouting something, but I don't care what he has to say. He leans closer and shouts again.

"YOU'RE CRAZY SEXY OUT HERE."

I raise an eyebrow. "One part of that description is correct."

"WHAT?"

He's holding two glasses; one of them slightly edged towards me. He could not be more obvious. I grab that one. The way he watches it, I know he put something extra in it. All the better. I tip my head back and bring the glass up and—

"STOP." Someone grabs my arm and the drink splashes me. It smells sharp and sour and sweet all at the same time, and now there's that much left of it to drink. I scowl up to see an unmistakably familiar figure.

"Jungkook?"

What the hell is he doing here?

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