Chapter 10

"We sometimes encounter people,
even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly,
all at once, before a word has been spoken."
- Fyodor Dostoevsky

Jungkook woke up to a hammering in his head. His eyes blinked open, hurting against the rising sun seeping through his window. He tried sitting up, but everything went spinning. It took him some time to realize that the hammering sound wasn't in his head, but somebody was actually hammering somewhere.

With a throaty grumble, Jungkook rolled out of his comfortable bed, trying to find his balance. His head was hurting, and, thinking about it, he actually didn't remember how he had gotten home the night before.

The hammering stopped and his head relaxed a little. With weak legs he went into the bathroom, brushing his hand over his face as he looked at his reflection in the shower cabin. His eyes were swollen and, strangely, he seemed to have dirt rubbed all over the shirt he was still wearing.

“What happened?” he mumbled to himself, trying to brush the dirt off his shoulder. He raised his hand to his hair and raked through it, figuring that the dirt was all over his head as well. He sighed loudly, turned the faucet on and splashed some water in his face.

All of the sudden, the sound of hammering rang in his ears again and he snapped his head up, sending him directly into a swirling, black vortex of a hangover. His fingers grabbed tight to the sink, his knuckles sticking out white.

The hammering stopped after a few hits and Jungkook clenched his teeth. What person would do that on a Sunday morning at 6:45 in the morning? He straightened up and cracked his neck, his head starting to swirl again. Jimin and Taehyung owed him an explanation for last night.

He returned to his room, his hands at the hem of his sticky and smelling shirt, ready to take it off, as the booming sound cut through the otherwise silent dorm again. It seemed like it came from across the hall.

Annoyed to the fullest, Jungkook ripped open his door and stepped into the hallway, trying to make out the room where the noises came from. His head looked up and down the hall, and he figured that it came from the room right across from his.

It stopped again and Jungkook took the chance to angrily bang against the wooden door, causing a throbbing pain to bolt through his head.

“!” he heard a female voice cursing on the other side. Silence.

Only a second passed until the door swung open, surprising Jungkook so much, that he lost his balance and almost stumbled forward.

“Are you out of your ing mind?” a female figure yelled at him, holding something so close to his face that he had to squint his eyes in order for his vision to focus on it.

Jungkook was dumbfounded. He didn't know what to say, nor did his dizzy head allow him any quick movement, so he just stood there, peering at a girl's thumb.

“Uhm” he rasped, taking a slow step back and, still being pissed that she had ripped him from his slumber, pushed her hand away from him.

“I could ask you the same thing” he snapped, narrowing his eyes at her. “Your morning DIY wasn't an exactly nice wake-up call.”

She scoffed at him, throwing her arm up in the air.

Only now, Jungkook noticed that he had never seen that girl before. She wasn't tall, but skinny and her face was really pale. Not just fair, but somehow sick. Just like me, he thought. Something about her was off to Jungkook, though. Something he couldn't tell at the exact moment.

“Excuse me?” she said. “Are you done gawking at me like I was an animal at the zoo?”

Jungkook blinked a few times before realizing that he had, indeed, been staring.

“Sorry” he mumbled.

She snorted at him, then looked down at something.

“So, can I have my hand back, or what?” she asked harshly, jerking her chin downwards.

Jungkook's eyes followed hers and he realized that, after pushing her hand down, he hadn't let go off her. He quickly pulled his hand back, nervously rubbing his wrist.

He could hear the girl scoff again, and she was just about to close the door as she stopped in her tracks and looked him straight in the eyes. Her gaze gave Jungkook the chills, for whatever reason.

“If I were you” she started, her tone full of mock. “I would maybe take a shower and change my shirt. You're a little dirty.”

With that, she slammed the door right in Jungkook's face, leaving him even more dumbstruck than before.

He slowly his heels, still processing what had just happened. And, mostly, what she seemed so off to him. He couldn't tell.

After taking a brisk shower and getting dressed, Jungkook sat on the edge of his mattress, rubbing his black hair dry with a towel. While showering, he had noticed that his body was covered in bruises he couldn't remember getting.

Next to him, his phone started beeping and he blindly searched for it, until the tips of his fingers finally touched the cool aluminum of his iPhone.

The caller ID told him that Tae was calling, so he answered and held the phone to his ear.

“Would you please tell me why I woke up covered in dirt and bruises?” he greeted his friend, who started giggling on the other side.

“Ah, our Jungkookie was so drunk” he laughed.

It seemed like he was talking to somebody else, because a different cackle was audible through the speakers.

“Are you with Jimin?” Jungkook asked.

“Yupp!” Jimin yelled from somewhere behind Taehyung, Jungkook figured.

“Hey, Jungkookie” Taehyung drove the attention back on him.

“Don't call me that!” Jungkook snarled.

“Come over to my room and let's hang out!”

Jungkook sighed and rubbed his still throbbing temples. As much as he loved those two boys, they could be so very tiring.

“Give me ten minutes” he answered and hung up on them.

After Dalnim had closed the door into that boy's face, she kept staring at the blank door, still standing where she had been before.

He had reeked of alcohol and his clothes had been stained with dirt and, what looked like, beer. But it wasn't his clothes that made her thoughts linger around him. It were his dark, empty eyes that reminded her of the first time she met Hoseok many years ago.

Shaking her head, she snapped back into her room and threw her head in the neck, groaning loudly. Boredom had overcome her again, so she slumped down on her bed, digging a folder out from under her bed.

She pulled one foot under her and flipped the folder open. She took the papers out of it, placing the pages on her bed one by pne. Her eyes scanned the information on it again, and, as her phone started ringing, she absent-mindedly answered the call.

“Hm?”

“What are you doing?”

The deep voice of Namjoon echoed in her ears. Even though she was a little surprised by his call since he had just hung up on her the night before, her eyes stayed glued to the papers in front of her.

“Working” she mumbled, skimming through details on the target's earlier life. “What you told me to.”

“Good” he said, a smirk lingering in his tone.

Namjoon always liked when the Pack did what he told them

“Any progress?” he asked, causing Dalnim to roll her eyes.

“I'm here for merely a day, Namjoon. No, I did not make any progress yet” she stated matter-of-factly, picked up a page and lay on her back as she read through it. “I'm studying the stuff Yoongi put together for me.”

“Good” he replied, sounding satisfied. “If you need help with anything, we're just a call away.”

“Understood” she answered emotionlessly, ended the call and threw her phone on the sheets in front of her, the picture on her display staring back at her. It was a picture of her, Hoseok and Jin at the party after she had shot the politician.

Thinking about it, it only had been a couple of days ago, but so much had happened that it felt like it was half a year ago, where everyone seemed happier. Now, the mood was gloomy, and she had to admit that she missed them. Even Yoongi, who she barely spoke to.

Staring up at the ceiling, Dalnim held her phone in her hand. She really felt like calling Hoseok, asking him to come over to cheer her up, but she didn't want to come off as weak.

No, Dalnim wasn't weak. She once had been, but she let that long behind.

All of a sudden, the door to her room burst open, and Dalnim, whose reflexes responded immediately, jumped to her feet.

Through the door strode a girl around her age. She was tall and had a nice body, wearing shorts even though it was getting colder by the day. Her body seemed trained and her skin had a nice glow to it. Overall, she looked like what Dalnim had targeted for as her college persona, but this girl pulled it off way better.

Maybe it was because she was that kind of a girl, and wasn't just pretending it.

The girl stopped in the middle of the room, watching Dalnim as she hastily shove the scattered pages back into the folder, flopping her blanket over it.

“Who are you?” Dalnim demanded, her voice in a full-on work mode.

She bit her lip, reminding herself that she needed to be friendly. Here, she wasn't a deadly assassin. Here, she was a lovely girl and a great student. She cleared and cocked her head to the side, trying to appear rather cute than scary.

“I mean, are you my new roommate?” she asked, blinking and forcing a smile upon her features.

The girl eyed her suspiciously, but decided that she was no threat. She nodded, her hair bobbing up and down as she did so.

“Yeah, I'm Nari” she replied and set her enormous bag on her bed.

Dalnim nodded, taking a few steps backwards until her knee molds hit her bed, slowly sinking down to sit on it. Actual discomfort filled her stomach as she fixed her eyes on Nari. It had been eight years since she last shared the room with a girl. Since then, she had only been surrounded by male figures in her life.

Did she feel threatened? Dalnim didn't know. She only knew that Nari looked dashingly beautiful in her short shorts and with the white and gray longsleeve stuck into her waistband. Her brown, healthy hair was caught into a high ponytail with her ends hanging down in loose waves to the middle of her back.

From the corner of her eyes she could see her own, damaged hair and sighed inaudibly.

“So, who are you?” Nari asked as she plopped down on her bed, propping herself up on her elbows behind her back.

“I, uh....” Dalnim began stuttering. It took her quite a bit of force to concentrate on what the name on her fake ID was.

“My name is Dasom” she mumbled uncomfortably. “Yoon...Dasom.”

“Well then” Nari replied, stretching her fragile arms up above her head like a kitten. “It's really nice to meet you, Dasom. How old are you? What do you study here? Tell me about you.”

In that moment, Dalnim decided that she didn't like that girl. She was way too nosy and the way she looked all tender and fragile – she could see right through it.

“I was born in 1993” she replied, her voice already slowly going back to her normal, reserved tone.

“Ah, so I'm your unni!” she exclaimed, sitting up and pulling her bare knees to her chest. “I was born in 1991. I study music, by the way. I want to go and be an idol after I graduate...”

And that was when Dalnim's brain shut off. She kept staring at Nari, watching her lips move, but in her head she imagined her falling on her back with a hole in her head an a thin trail of blood running down her temple.

“You know what?” Dalnim rudely interrupted Nari's speech and got to her feet. “Tell me about it some other time. I really need to go now.”

Dalnim then grabbed her