They were standing in the middle of a ion ring.

“Number 172, going once, going twice... SOLD to the man in the green jacket!” the announcer was saying. He pushed the girl towards the man. She stumbled and fell. Once she hit the stage, hands reached out and grabbed her, trying to drag her down towards them even though they were not the one who had bought her.

                “Hoseok,” she reached out to him.

                “Hoseok?” Hong Jung Yee repeated in confusion.

                Hoseok took her hand again and clenched it. She looked into his eyes and she could see her confusion, fear and anger reflected in his own eyes. “Honey, how many times have I told you not to swear? It’s not ladylike to say, ‘Oh ’. Are you hurt?” he quickly said to cover her words.

                She shook her head and looked up at Hong Jung Yee. He had his back turned to them again directing a guard to break up the fight that had started over the fallen girl. The girl was removed and ushered back on stage. She was then locked into the cage with the growing number of girls inside. Daeun guessed that was where they kept the girls who had been sold. She didn’t want to know what happened to the girls who weren’t.

                “So you see, Mr. Chen. This is where we auction off our girls. Highest bidder gets a night with the girl to do whatever they like. I’m incredibly sorry that the two of you had to witness that scene. I can assure you that we treat them with the utmost care and we make sure that they would never get hurt,” Hong Jung Yee explained while extravagantly gesturing with each word, “They are fed three meals a day and are only required to be here every other day. When they aren’t here, they live luxuriously in one of our accomodations. That being said, besides this type of auction we hold, there are buildings around the city in which after being promoted, they can work there. It’s slightly less… demanding on the body you could say.”

He finished his speech with a clap of his hands and said, “Clients are not allowed to do anything that harms our products. If so much as a hair is out of place when it’s returned, they are fined depending on the extent of the damage.”

                Daeun had to take a step back. Her head was whirring and could not decipher his lies amongst the truth, if there was any. Hoseok grabbed her and held her in place. When she looked back up at him, his eyes read, “Just hang in there.”

                With Daeun at his side, Hoseok took one more look at the place. He felt sick to the stomach. His mind was spinning and while Daeun depended on him for support, he was also drawing it from her. Taking another look around, he knew that this could never be something that The Boss would want. It was too ruthless and barbaric. In the moment, he wanted to stab Hong Jung Yee in the eyes just for the fact of how he was treating these young girls. He clenched his jaw to convince himself to do otherwise. “I’m interested, Jong Yee,” he had to do everything in his strength to not spit the name out, “Should we return to your office and sign papers?”

                Hong Jung Yee laughed. “Oh Mr. Chen! You’re excited, aren’t you? You haven’t even picked out which one of the girls you want.”

                Hoseok smiled grimly. “The best one. I don’t care what price but I want the best.”

                The older man clapped his hands and nodded. He whispered to one of the guards which caused the guard to promptly walk away. Daeun caught a single number: “14”. She wondered if any of the girls were referred to by their actual name. They labelled the girls here with numbers like they were products to be sold off the shelf. She did not want to be here any longer. In the distance, number 173 was being auctioned off and the yelling of men started again.

                “Delightful!” Hong Jung Yee shot them a bright smile, “Now, I’m not one to judge on anyone’s extracurricular activities but I can guarantee you that the two of you will have lots of fun. Let us return to my office and set up a point to meet again for the exchange, shall we?”

                As they were walking back towards the Emerald Room, Hoseok asked, “What do you mean exchange? Are we not going to be doing that now?”

                Upon entering the room, Daeun noticed that Jimin had left. The wires that had been sprawled all over the floor were now wound back into the giant machine that was humming happily.

                “There is lot of paperwork to be done, Mr. Chen! We have to make sure that this transaction goes perfectly. We’ll sign the majority today and perhaps in a couple days’ time I’ll contact you again with where we shall meet, yes? Tell me, where are you staying again?” Hong Jung Yee said. He rummaged through his cabinet and brought out a neatly stapled stack of paper. It was evident that this was not his first transaction.

                “Just across the club,” Hoseok answered him. He led Daeun to a chair and got her to sit down. Her head was still pounding from what she was seeing.

                “Ah very convenient and such a lovely place. I’ll have one of my guys contact that hotel and get you when your product is ready to be picked up,” Jung Hong Yee said, “Now, please sign in these three boxes.”

                “Daeun, stop. That’s your fifth cup,” Seokjin looked at her.

                “I know,” she replied and drank.

                She and Hoseok had returned back to the hotel where the rest of the members had been listening onto their conversation. They had gotten the gist of the current situation but Seokjin still wanted to hear Hoseok relay what he exactly saw. Every time Hoseok spoke, the images flashed through her head. The way the men looked at the girl. The girl who had fallen and had been grabbed.

                “Stop,” she whispered as Hoseok explained once again the details of the paperwork. “Please, stop.” The expressions of all the girls that were trapped inside the cage.

                “It’ll be close to 2 mil,” Hoseok said, pointing to the paper. The rest of the boys listened without expressions to the fine print of the contract. “Anything is allowed to be done to the girl except for physical harm. Her body will be examined after the night. Each scratch will cost extra starting from a minimum of $1000.”

                The way they were branded by number. The way Hong Jung Yee did not care. “Stop,” she said a little louder and put two hands up to cover her ears. Jimin caught the movement and reached out a hand to Hoseok.

                “We’re issued #14. I don’t know who that is but they said they would contact us when the exchange is to be made. Hopefully it will be back at his office where we have all the surveillance gear set up. Oh and here, if there are any bumps in the plan, they said that we could extend the time with the product – ”

                “I said STOP!” Daeun screamed and got up.

                Everybody in the room stared at her.

                “Do you not hear yourselves? Talking about these girls and calling them ing products! They’re human beings and there were so many of them trapped in there. They look like they’re fourteen years old at most and they’re being forced to sell their body. Hong Jung Yee is a bastard who’s not treating them like he told us. He probably has them stuck in cages similar like the one on that auction stage. He’s treating them like animals!” she yelled, “He deserves to die.”

                Seokjin watched her with a worried expression. “We can’t do that,” he said quietly.

                “And why the not?” she said, “Bring this as evidence to your so called Boss. Hong Jung Yee is likely to be doing this behind his back anyways. This is evidence enough for permission to kill this guy. Say that he’s soiling the organization’s name or something. I don’t know. Hong Jung Yee just doesn’t deserve to live.”

                “Hyung, Daeun’s right. I don’t like this at all. I don’t want to be involved in any of this. Can we just go back to The Boss with this and see what He wants to do?” Taehyung asked.

                “We can’t do that,” Seokjin repeated with a stern voice.

                “Why not?!” Daeun kicked the chair in frustration. It flew across the room and slammed loudly against the wall. “Why the are we not allowed to take out somebody who is selling women like they’re livestock, Kim Seokjin?!”

                “Calm the down!” Hoseok suddenly burst out, “You think you know what’s right? You think by killing this son of a it will solve everything? You think that we’re allowed to skip into the club and take out the most influential boss in New York without turning heads? Use your goddamn head! If we kill him, somebody else is going to take his place. Furthermore, we’re going to be turning the whole of New York against us.”

                Daeun glared at him. She knew that he had felt the same as she did when they were both inside Ecstasie. She had seen him grimace each time they passed by one of the cages that had a girl sitting inside. He had put on an overly fake smile when he was talking with Hong Jung Yee for the rest of the night. “Then what can we do?” the question came out nearly as a whimper.

                “We have to go through with this. We’ll meet up with Hong Jung Yee and go on like we’re making a deal,” Seokjin looked at her. She tried to remain calm to listen to him but her blood was boiling again. “Let’s hope that they do the exchange inside the Emerald Room. He at most has three to five guards with him at all times and we have a total of seven people. We will surround the room and force Hong Jung Yee to talk. We’ll record everything and send it back to The Boss. If Hong Jung Yee comes back to fight us, I’m sure the Boss will have our backs. We’re only seven at the moment but even Hong Jung Yee will not want to pick a fight with us knowing that the organization is with us.”

                Yoongi took her hand and patted it. “Daeun, none of us like what’s happening in there either, but we need to bear with it. Just until we have more fighting power.”

                She closed her eyes and took her hand away from Yoongi. “I’m going to sleep. Good night.”

                Shortly after, the boys left one at a time to their rooms. Hoseok and Seokjin were left sitting in silence. Hoseok broke it first by lighting his cigarette. He took a long inhale and held the smoke in his mouth.

                “Hyung, I’m worried,” he looked into the elder’s eyes. He had been with Seokjin the longest and treated him with respect like they were real brothers. Seokjin and he had been through thick and thin together.

                Seokjin grabbed the whiskey bottle and poured himself a drink. “We can only wait for this to play out, Hoseok.”

                “There’s so much that we don’t know about this. I don’t want to them to be in danger.”

                “I know. But there isn’t anything we can do!” Seokjin slammed his glass onto the table at the last syllable. He buried his head into his hands. “There absolutely nothing. We don’t have enough strength to go against Hong Jung Yee, that sick bastard.”

                Hoseok leaned back against his seat. As much as he didn’t want to go against The Boss, he had sworn that he would protect those around him. It didn’t matter what he had to do, he never wanted to see those around him getting hurt. He wouldn’t allow something to happen like that again.

                After a few deep breaths, Seokjin stood up from his seat. “Go to bed, Hoseok. We need to pick up some more stuff tomorrow as it seems we’ll be staying here longer than anticipated. Get some rest.”

                Taking a drag of his cigarette, Hoseok nodded. “You go first. I just want to sit here for a bit.”

                Seokjin looked down at the other man whom he had known for nearly eight years. Hoseok had taken enough bullets and knife wounds for the both of them and yet, he insisted to stay with Seokjin after it all. “Thanks,” Seokjin said.

                Hoseok looked up, surprised. “For what?”

                “For sticking with me all this time,” Seokjin smiled, “And just… believing in me.”

                Hoseok smiled back. “God, Hyung. I’m getting shivers with the cheesiness of that.”

                It was late in the afternoon when Hoseok’s phone rang. They had just returned home from the supermarket. Immediately, Hoseok shushed the rest of the members.

                “Hello? Chen Dae Hyun speaking,” he spoke, using the alias he had created.

                The rest of the room was silent, not even daring to breathe in case of missing what the caller was saying.

                “Alright. I understand. I’ll be there tomorrow evening at 7:00,” Hoseok nodded, “Tell Jong Yee I appreciate his fast response and that I’ll be looking forward to meeting him again.”

                The other person spoke and Hoseok looked quickly at Daeun. “Yes,” he spoke again, “Mrs. Chen will be with me.” Daeun felt the uncomfortable feeling rising again in her stomach.

                “Thank you,” Hoseok ended the call. He turned to the rest of the members and spread the message, “We’ve got a location. It’s the VVIP room at the top of the hotel we’ve been staying at. He said he booked it for our convenience. 7:00pm tomorrow evening.”

                Their doorbell rang. Taehyung ran to get the door.

                Seokjin nodded slowly. “Okay. So we have a little over 24 hours to plan out how to infiltrate the building and be stationed. I guess it works out to our favour as we already have most of our equipment in the room already. I’ll scout out the top floor with Taehyung and Jungkook a little later on. Speaking of which, what is that kid doing? I told him not to speak with strangers.”

                Taehyung stuck his head around the corner as his name was mentioned. “Uh, we have a guest I think,” he spoke with an uncertainty.

                “You guys know somebody here in New York?” Daeun asked. The members shook their heads.

                “Actually,” Taehyung spoke again, closing the door, “He says he’s your friend, Daeun.”

                Daeun watched as Taehyung led their guest in. His long legs beat Taehyung’s around the corner and he stood facing all the members of BTS and Daeun.