I'm back! Whewwwwwwww

“Eomma, I’m home!” Hoseok called, following his sister into the house, his girlfriend a step behind him.

“You got your math result back today, didn’t you?” she called back, bustling out of the kitchen and wiping her hands on her apron. “How much did you get?”

Hoseok sighed. There his mum went again… the only thing she worried about was results.

He wordlessly zipped open his backpack and handed her the paper as she looked at Youngmi curiously, before eyeing the paper in distaste.

“If you keep this up, I might have to send you for tuition,” she groaned, flicking through the paper in disappointment.

“Well you don’t have to look for a tutor then,” Hoseok beamed. “She’s right here! Meet Lee Youngmi.”

“Actually, it’s Yoo now,” she nudged him in the back, before bowing hurriedly to his mother.

“Oh yeah, sorry,” he chuckled sheepishly, before turning back to his mother, who eyed the girl like a hawk. “She’s my girlfriend too. She’s top in her cohort for…”

“Science, English, Math and Korean,” Youngmi completed his sentence bashfully as his mother’s eyes widened in approval.

She turned to Hoseok.

“Explain again how you managed to get such a wonderful girlfriend?” she said drily, pointing to the big red D circled on his paper.

Hoseok laughed in embarrassment as his sister covered her amused chuckle with a particularly loud cough.

“It’s a long story,” Youngmi said sheepishly.

“It’s nice to meet you Yoo Youngmi,” his mother smiled kindly at her. “You can have dinner here, if you’d like. Hoseok says my cooking is good!”

Hoseok turned to Youngmi and nodded in agreement as she grinned bashfully.

“Sure thing, Mrs Jung,” she replied.

“Oh don’t be silly dear,” his mother guffawed loudly. “Call me Mother. You’ll be married into the family someday anyway!”

“Eomma….” Hoseok groaned in embarrassment, the both of them flushing as his sister let out a bark of laughter.

“Yes, you will be my cute sister-in-law,” Jiwoo-noona cut in, grinning at their bashfulness. “Do you want to see Hoseok’s baby photos?”

“We’re just going to go now, bye!” Hoseok interrupted in a high-pitched voice as Youngmi’s eyes gleamed in interest. “Come on Youngmi, I’ll show you to my room.”

She followed after him, as his sister and mother chuckled to each other gleefully, excitedly planning the next time they could torture Hoseok again using his new girlfriend.

---

Somehow, the nervous tension in my shoulders had relaxed by the time I entered his room. His mother was surprisingly easy to talk to, and apparently she approved of me?

Well, it had been because of my grades, and I hadn’t exactly let her know about my past and current position in Block B…

Honestly, was there a need for me to be in the gang anymore?

I’d only joined because I had wanted a place that I belonged in, and somewhere where I could feel like I was in control of the situation and not the other way around.

But now I had Jungkook and Mirae and Superhero-sunbaenim. I had a family who cared about me. I had BTS.

But still, Block B had accepted me at my worst. When I had nowhere to go, Zico-oppa took me in and nurtured me. He provided me with a stable job and income, and people who cared about me like B-Bomb-oppa. This was the first group of people who had accepted me for who I am. They didn’t care that I was from a broken family. All they cared about was that I could make money for them.

Was that a group of people I really wanted to keep around me?

“Whatchu thinking about?” Superhero-sunbaenim poked me right between my furrowed eyebrows.

I swatted him away in exasperation and fixed my awry bangs.

“Come on, come on,” he sang, squishing my cheeks with his fingers gently. “Tell your oppa~”

I shot him a humorless look as he grinned cheekily, cocking his head in angelic innocence.

“I told you I’d never call you that,” I sniffed, as he wiggled his eyebrows salaciously, making a weird face.

I felt the corners of my mouth quirk up.

“You finally smiled!” he cheered, as I rolled my eyes. “So what’s on your mind? I think my mum likes you, so there’s no worry about that.”

“She won’t like me after she finds out about me,” I muttered, flicking my eyes away from him in shame.

“What do you mean?” he asked carefully, as I let out a big sigh.

“What would she say if she found out I used to bully people?” I choked up, thinking about my horrible past. “And I’m still in Block B. What if she finds out?”

“Do you feel ashamed?” he asked. “If feeling that way is making you feel upset, then why don’t you just quit?”

 “They’re the first group of people who really cared about me,” I hastily rubbed my tears away, hoping the guy didn’t see them. “I can’t just leave them when they’re the ones who took me in when I had nothing.”

 “Hmm…” he paused for thought.

I bit the inside of my cheek, trying to fight the tears. I was not going to cry again. Only weaklings cried.

“Do you need a hug?” he asked quietly, staring at me with those deep brown eyes of his.

I stubbornly shook my head, trying to will the tears away.

He ignored me and leaned over and wrapped his arms around me anyway. I breathed in his comforting scent, eyes closing as the shame melted away.

His hug reminded me that I wasn’t alone anymore. I had him, and he had me. And that was all that mattered, right?

We sat there, wrapped in each other for a while as my thoughts cleared.

“You know,” his voice rumbled against my shoulder. “Butterflies grow from caterpillars.”

I let out a disbelieving snort of laughter.

“What does that have to do with anything?” I asked him quizzically.

“No no, just listen,” he continued. “Butterflies grow from caterpillars, right? The caterpillar eats leaves to live. It can’t live without the leaves, because it’ll starve to death. But one day, that caterpillar is going to turn into a butterfly. And butterflies can’t eat leaves anymore!”

“My boyfriend has gone clinically insane,” I joked, but he plodded on.

“Butterflies drink nectar, not chew leaves. So if the butterfly keeps trying to chew leaves, it’s going to starve. But if it changes its diet to nectar, it will grow big and strong and have many caterpillar babies,” he said triumphantly, before holding me by my shoulders and staring deep into my eyes.

“You are the butterfly,” he nodded his head firmly. “The leaves are Block B, and the nectar is me and Hwang Mirae-ssi and Jungkook and Bangtan!”

“Whatever drugs you’re taking, can I have some too?” I asked blankly as he rolled his eyes in exasperation.

“Look, being a caterpillar is just a metaphor for you being stuck in that ty place with your dad. That was when you needed Block B to live, cos they gave you a purpose and helped you survive,” he explained slowly. “But now, you’re a butterfly. You’re no longer in that ty place. You have your mum and brothers. You have me and the rest of your friends. You can’t survive on leaves anymore, or you’ll die.”

I felt my jaw drop open as his words finally made sense.

“So you’re saying I should leave Block B behind?” I asked quietly.

“I’m not saying you should,” he corrected. “I’ll stand by you no matter what choice you make. But you know, sometimes the people we needed before can become the people who bring us down in the future. And I don’t want you to have that stigma placed on you forever. You deserve a new life, Youngmi.”

I thought for a while.

He really did make a lot of sense. But was it betrayal if I left them?

“I think you’re right,” I finally agreed, the weight finally lifting off my back. “I’ll tell them tonight.”

“Good girl,” he ruffled my head cheekily. “Now you’ve just taken up like 20 minutes of tuition time, and we really should start, shouldn’t we?”

I shot him an embarrassed grin and nodded.

How did I manage to get a guy like this again?

---

“Get home safe, my dear!” Hoseok’s mother cooed, as she waved goodbye to Youngmi. “Come back soon! Tell me your favourite foods so I can cook them for you!”

Youngmi beamed brightly and nodded, as Hoseok took her hand and made his way out of the house, Mickey’s leash in the other.

Just as the lift door opened, Youngmi received a call.

She flipped open her phone, frowning.

“Who is it?” Hoseok peered at her phone curiously.

“Taeil-oppa from Block B,” she frowned. “This is weird, he doesn’t usually call me, especially not this late at night.”

“Just answer it, I’m sure it’s nothing,” Hoseok assured her as she pressed the answer button.

As the voice behind the phone talked rapidly into Youngmi’s ear, her face hardened more and more, before she let out a gasp of horror, almost dropping her phone.

Her hands started trembling as she stared into blank space, eyes unfocused. Her breathing shallowed, and Hoseok stared at her in concern, as her grip on his hand slackened.

“What’s wrong?” he asked worriedly, as she hung up the phone.

She looked at him, tears gathering in her eyes and her bottom lip trembling.

“It’s Zico-oppa,” the tear slid down her cheek. “He’s dead.”

---

Woo Jiho, or Zico, was a very shrewd man. He knew what he wanted in life. Money, power and women. The pinnacle of success was a combination of all three.

Running a successful gang like Block B took guts and brains, with a little dash of charisma. And charisma was what Zico had in spades.

But it was this charisma that had led to his downfall. He’d cheated his way through businesses, and he was oily as a slick, which had led to him dealing with some pretty shady people. He’d done his usual business, except these people weren’t quite as forgiving, and now he lay motionless on the ground, bullets peppered through his chest, his bodyguards nowhere to be seen. Clearly they were in on it too.

Woo Taewoon knelt down beside his brother’s body, clutching the stained red fabric of his shirt in fury.

Whoever did this would pay. With his life.

---

I stared at my phone in trepidation as I contemplated whether to call or not.

The shock of Zico-oppa’s death still rung clear in my mind.

The man had been one of a kind, his street smarts rivaled by none other. But now he was dead.

And I knew exactly who was going to replace him as the head of Block B.

Woo Taewoon, was notorious as the most violent and dangerous of all gangsters. He had so much blood on his hands that you couldn’t even see his skin. He was unforgiving and relentless. And he was going to make sure that the person who killed his brother would pay.

He would never let me quit the gang.

Woo Taewoon was not like Zico-oppa. While Zico-oppa prided himself on making relations, Woo Taewoon worked with brute force. He was the hard to Zico-oppa’s soft. They were polar opposites.

Zico-oppa would have allowed me to leave in an instant.

But Woo Taewoon….

I slapped my forehead in frustration. I just wanted to live a normal life now.

I had a family that I cared about, and friends who loved me. I couldn’t risk putting them in danger either!

Finally, I decided to call.

“Lee Taeil speaking,” the second-in-charge of Block B answered his phone. He was the guy who had informed me of Zico-oppa’s death, and if anyone could convince Woo Taewoon to let me go, it was him.

“It’s Youngmi,” I said hastily. “Look, oppa…”

“Yes, what is it?” the man replied briskly. “Make it quick. Taewoon needs me to prepare the weapons unit to fight.”

“You know who did it already?” I asked fearfully.

“Yeah,” he sighed, and I knew he’d be rubbing his temples with his pointer fingers now, an old habit of his. “It’s this new gang that just sprung up, Got7. Their leader’s from America and they think they’re the , but we gotta show them that you can’t just assassinate our boss without any feedback. Why are you calling?”

“I…” I paused in trepidation. “I just wanted to… you know, take a break. From the gang.”

I heard all background noise stop, and then a loud guffaw sprung out through the speaker.

“My dear, you don’t take breaks from gangs,” Taeil-oppa laughed mirthfully. “Does little Youngmi want to go on vacation?”

“No I don’t,” I bit back the sharp retort. “I don’t feel like doing gang stuff anymore.”

“You’re not ing legit are you?” all humour from his voice was gone. “You’re not ing with me?”

“Yeah, I’m not,” I replied. “Look, you gotta help me. I’ve got people I care about now, and I can’t drag them into this hell with me okay? I can’t let them get hurt.”

“We’ve got all this going on with Got7 and you’re telling me you want to quit the gang?” he asked disbelievingly. “The war’s in two weeks, hun. We can’t let you leave.”

“Please at least talk to Woo Taewoon for me…” I begged. “Come on, the both of us go way back. You’ve known me since I joined, remember?”

“Why should I help you leave?” he snorted. “Aren’t you the least bit mad that ZIco got murdered by this upstart gang? Don’t you want to fight?”

“Zico-oppa mattered a lot to me,” I argued. “But I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m not the same anymore, oppa. I have to do this. For the sake of my sanity.”

There was a pause, and then a deep sigh.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he groaned.

“Thank you so much, oppa,” I grinned in relief, before ending the call.

I took in a deep breath.

I hoped to all hell that I didn’t have to deal with Woo Taewoon as much as possible.

Too bad I was wrong.

And now we enter the final arc... Dun dun dunnnnnnnn