Suga

“Did you see her face?” Hoseok hums, swirling his glass of wine. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Byun Hana shaken. Did you know what Kris did to her in the past?”

“No,” My voice is a lot firmer than I feel. I didn’t care that Byun Hana was shaken or whatever. I cared that I had willingly brought in the person who hurt her in such a personal way.

I am an awful person.

Apparently, I’m the only one who thinks that way, because the other three don’t seem to have reservations. Or so I think. Jin grips his cup a little tighter and his smile is a little more forced, so maybe he felt guilty too.

There was one thing going after Byun Hana for her business. It was another to bring up a painful past and use it against her. If I said this out loud, I would undoubtedly be asked what happened to the infamous Min Yoongi who wasn’t afraid to tear people apart. A win is a win and breaking Byun Hana’s public appearance would be considered a win.

So why did I feel so sick to my stomach?

Byun Hana is swirling on the dance floor, and I can occasionally see her through the glimpses of crisp suits and dresses, hand-in-hand with either Park Jimin or Jeon Jungkook. People kept coming up to us, engaging us in conversation, but my mind wasn’t into it.

I get up from the chair, the other three arching their eyebrows up in a silent question, but my feet take me to the dance floor, asking a random girl to dance and moving into the twirling masses to see Byun Hana better.

Her smile is light, but I had seen her enough to know that it was forced. But she still looked impossibly strong, chin lifted up so she was looking down on the others around her, and only being genuine with either of the two males who she was close to.

The girl who I was dancing with kept trying to talk, and I just ended up nodding and saying “hm” multiple times, my focus being somewhere else. She and Jungkook are gently swaying with the music, and he dips her back before setting her back on her feet.

A typical engaged couple would be smiling, but the two of them look slightly uncomfortable. There’s visible space between the two, and even though their movements are easy and graceful, it was clear that something was wrong.

I maneuver close enough to hear a little of their conversation, but it goes in vain as the song ends and their eyes snap up to my face. Byun Hana looks completely impassive, but there’s pure fury painted all over Jeon Jungkook’s face. He dips down, murmuring something to her ear and she nods, stepping away and off the dance floor.

“We need to talk,” Jungkook snarls at me, and I would laugh at the fact that this man who is a few years younger than me is threatening me. But then I see his eyes, and I realize that Jeon Jungkook was not the child that I had thought him to be. His eyes are dark and angry and I can feel my defense mechanism snapping into place.

“Why?” But I follow him off the floor anyway, and I can see flickering eyes from the crowd as the elite try to pretend that they weren’t paying attention to two men of opposing sides having a conversation.

Or at least, it looked like a conversation. It didn’t seem to feel like one when Jeon Jungkook opens his mouth, “You shouldn’t have invited Kris.”

“And why not? I have to say, it was fun trying to break Byun Hana’s exterior.” Saying those words made me feel sick again, but that’s what the normal, heartless Min Yoongi would say.

“Is it? Is it fun attacking her personal life? Is it fun attacking her very life?”

I frown at the last question, “What-”

“Kris tried to kill her,” Jungkook sneers, and for the first time, I can say that fear starts to run through my blood. Whoever Jeon Jungkook was, it seems like he was either holding back, or was only truly revealed when protecting his fiancé. “Attack her business, and she will come at you twofold. But don’t attack her life.”

And with that, he turns on his heel, leaving me on the edge of the ballroom, furrowing my brows and trying to figure out what just happened.

And if I felt sick before, I felt absolutely disgusted with myself now. If Kris was despicable, I was ten times worse for inviting him. Even if I didn’t know, I knew that Hana wouldn’t be happy to see him and he knew a little more about Hana than we did, and it would be easier to find her weak points.

But that was unfair. I wanted to fight Hana and her business. And I couldn’t and wouldn’t do it this way. I’m not sure when I started caring about ethics, but it just wasn’t right. Kris had been wandering around the ballroom, perfectly content with not being around Byun Hana and looking happy with ruffling her feathers.

He walks up to me, and my jaw tightens a little and I look away. Kris still looks roughish, but now it’s just obvious that he doesn’t belong here.

“Hello Yoongi, did you enjoy my little-”

“We’re done, Kris.” I shut him down immediately, turning away. “I’m not working with you.”

“Oh, is the Min Yoongi getting a sense of morality?”

“No,” I growl. “But I didn’t know what you had done. So we’re done. Leave.” I don’t stay around long enough to hear his response, pushing away and escaping through the crowd of the elite of Korea.

But I have a feeling that this wasn’t the last I’d see of Kris. Now that he was brought into the situation, he wouldn’t leave. And seeing his face made me feel worse. Even though Hana and I were on different sides, even though we were rivals, even though we were snarky with each other, I had to draw a line.

Byun Hana is talking to a few people, and I could recognize Oh Sehun amongst them. Namjoon was next to her, nodding along. So he was only difficult with our side? That wasn’t a difficult pill to swallow, and that should have been obvious.

She excuses herself, flitting around and playing the social butterfly. I could see the stares of both men and women as she smiles, returning to her normal self. In contrast to their side, we were always quiet, brooding, letting others fear us and approach us.

But she was different. She used herself as a weapon in order to get on the better side of others and get deals and support. But fear always conquered that. Very rarely did our allies change sides, but it was becoming more and more likely that they would as the other side grew older and gained experience. Working with the Jeon Empire had started to look attractive.

Jungkook slips an arm around her, laughing and tipping back a glass as Hana moves closer into his touch. Something about that made my mouth sour.

Fingers tap on my shoulder, and I turn away from the elder men that I had been nodding to only to see Taehyung, a mischievous grin lighting up his features.

“What?” My voice is dry and bored, and somehow, Taehyung’s beam grows wider.

“I saw who you were looking at.”

“Does it ever hit you that Jeon Jungkook always stands around in the shadows?” I swirl the liquid in my glass, tilting my head slightly, trying to make it seem as if I was looking at Jeon Jungkook instead of Hana.

“That’s his personality. Probably does his work from the sidelines too,” Taehyung transfers into business mode, eyes darkening and sharpening, and a scarily sober look taking over his features, looking like he was a lion that was about to hunt a deer.

“So we could have been underestimating him this entire time?”

“Doubtful. He’s still under the shadow of his parents and even his entire side. Byun Hana wears the pants in that relationship.” Taehyung’s mouth twists as he narrows his eyes.

“Doesn’t she wear the pants in every relationship?”

“Why? Do you want to change that?” He smirks again, and I roll my eyes at him. Somehow, every conversation about the other side ended up at the same topic. “But did you know about Kris’s history with her?”

“I knew of its existence. Not what it consisted of.” And I definitely didn’t want to talk about it. Taehyung definitely had other plans though.

“Good to know that I’m not the only one feeling guilty.”

“What?”

“Jin and Hoseok looked slightly sick,” Taehyung murmurs, emptying his glass into his mouth. “It’s one thing to attack her business. This was too much.”

And somehow, that takes a little bit of weight off my shoulders. It helped to know that the others thought the same way as us.

“Well we obviously can’t apologize.”

“Never said we would,” Taehyung’s lips tilt into a half-smile and I just shake my head. No, we couldn’t apologize. It had already been done.

Byun Hana probably hated my guts now. She already did, but now even more so. Would she stop going to the hospital to see Ahyeon? Something in my stomach drops at that. When Ahyeon finally woke up, I didn’t want to be the one to tell the kid that was the reason that her parents were dead. And somehow, Byun Hana being there would make it all better.

A group of middle-aged men pull Taehyung and I into conversation, and we end up talking about political support for nuclear energy and biotechnology. The group was obviously looking for support for their reelection. As if they weren’t completely obvious.

They were greasy, slippery, and I can’t help but wonder if that’s what I would end up being like in the future. Twenty years down the road, would we continue the war that spanned the Korean business world?

Probably. After all, it had been carried down for at least a generation already, sometimes more depending on the family.

Would there be someone by my side? Would someone stop me from falling into the ruthless nature that I could