Seohyun smiled exhaustively when she walked in the door of her home at 8 o'clock and was greeted with a bouncy ball of black fur named Jinju. The Pomeranian was hardly two years old and she had the personality of a wind-up toy - a quick nap and she could run in the same circle for hours. She was the perfect energy boost for Seohyun when she came home exhausted.

Seohyun rewarded Jinju by sitting on the floor and playing with her for about five minutes. She'd lost count of the seconds when she sat down and it seemed Jinju never wanted to stop. "I'll walk you soon, Jinju, just let me get your leash."

Her eonnies had always warned her how unsafe it was to go out at night. It was nice to think that she used to have someone who would walk with her when the night got too dark and people became deceitful, with snake eyes and their intentions almost always dark and mad. She used to take comfort in the fact that her boyfriend would be by her side, his arm around her shoulders to ease the nerve-wracking tension that came out at night.

Sure, YongHwa would walk with her at night and smooth over her worries, but in the daylight he was treacherous and his words of encouragement were always stained with too much aggression and a bit of truth about how awful she was to break her down. Seohyun broke up with him when she found out he was drawn to those darkened eyes with blue irises and red lipstick smirks with sin written across the tongue slithering into his mouth.

But Seohyun was not that, and as her shoes found the cold concrete of the cracked sidewalk, she told herself that a man walking with one of the best boxers in Korea made no difference. She was prepared to fight, and anyone who tried to mess with her would know.

Two days later, Yuri was swished out the door almost as instantly as Seohyun walked in. Seohyun was relieved to see a bright smile on the older girl's face as she laughed with the charismatic Kim Seokjin. Yuri deserved a boyfriend, or at least someone who would give her more attention than the occasional grunt of acknowledgement or the short answers to easy questions Seohyun gave her.

JungKook was a familiar face by now, and maybe today just wasn't his day, or maybe Seohyun was extra pissed today - possibly because he hadn't told her Step 2 of how to beat someone in a boxing match - but Seohyun glanced at him and the spark ignited.

He seemed a bit aggravated as well, when he rolled his eyes at his dead phone call and turned to see Seohyun with a playful scoff. "Seohyunnie, why are we here so early? Can we at least start at 10?"

"You call me that again, I'll break your nose so bad that I hope to god you'll still be able to smell failure after the doctors fix you," she scorned. "Get in the ring."

JungKook's dark brown eyes went wide with concern and it only made the burning desire to ruin the little toy soldier named Jeon JungKook blow so much hotter. That's all he was - a ing toy soldier, because he was insignificant and would never even come close to taking down the threat with his tiny defense and the naïve thought that he won the first fight and might walk away unscathed. Honey, this isn't kindergarten. You don't win fights by stopping at the first success.

JungKook slipped on his gloves and there was unsure look in his eyes, the kind that blossomed into fear and dread and straight up terror when he couldn't recognize the vicious fire in her eyes. "Go." The low words fell dead amongst the boy's horror-stricken mind before the sliver of hope that this would go down smoothly and no one would get hurt too bad went vacant between them.

And the intensity ing spiked.

Seohyun went at him like a starving attack dog on meat. She was ruthless, as her eyes were occupied with nothing but the places JungKook left open: his sides, his stomach, his infuriatingly-pretty face, and her fists were trained keenly on finding exactly those points. She punched harder than she knew how and JungKook was puffing for absent oxygen in a matter of seconds. He kept his arms up to protect himself from her swinging punches, but she knew he wouldn't last long. Not when there were already tender bruises lining his forearms and she could hear the soft whimpers of his wavering stability under his weak shield.

The pain in his eyes was so apparent when he thr