"Waking up every day and loving someone who may or may not love us back, 
whose safety we can't ensure,
who may stay in our lives or may leave without a moment's notice,
who may be loyal to the day they die or betray us tomorrow -
that's vulnerability."

- Brene Brown

Dalnim

“First of all” Dalnim grinned, the corner of . “You should give that back to me, sweety. That's not a toy for a girl like you.”

Dalnim watched Nari's hands adjusting around the gun's grip, her slender hands glistering with cold sweat.

She was beyond afraid, and it amused Dalnim.

It amused her so much that an insane giggle escaped . She stepped forward, approaching Nari so close that the barrel dug into her chest. The steady eyes of a sniper locked with the shaking ones of an ordinary college student, who was afraid for her life.

“Pull the trigger, Nari” she sneered. “Do it!”

On the other end of the Browning, Nari avoided Dalnim's intense glare, nervously wetting her chap lips. The pupils inside her unnatural blue eyes were shaking violently, her body paralyzed.

Dalnim's grin stretched even wider – it stretched so wide that she felt the skin on her dry lips burst, but she ignored the burning pain, too caught up in her little power game.

Raising one hand up, she imitated having a gun in her hand, pushing her index and middle finger hard against her roommate's temple. She then leaned in, so close at Nari's ear that she felt her hot breath on her neck.

“Tell me, Lee Nari” she whispered, her calm and unpredictable voice causing the girl to whimper. “Are you afraid to die?”

With quick reflexes, Dalnim twisted the gun out of Nari's weak grip, pulling her into a headlock and placing the cold metal in between her eyes.

Oh, how much she wanted to fire the gun, but she was well aware that it would cause unnecessary commotion and escaping from a crowded place like this would be annoying.

Instead, she gripped tight to her hair and covered to muffle her cries of protest. And pain, probably, Dalnim pondered, shaking her hand to remove the other's strands of hair from it.

Nari began tugging on Dalnim's grasp around her with shaking hands, crying violently, and even trying to bite the hand covering .

“Oh my God” Dalnim groaned in frustration, gnashing her teeth. “Would you kindly shut the up? I need to think!”

Completely ignoring Dalnim's plead, Nari wound in her headlock even more, and in the end, her patience snapped and she smashed Nari's pretty pretty face into the mirror. The clashing sound of glass splitting rang in an enjoyable silence, and Dalnim sighed in relief.

“Oh, god dammit!” she then cussed, throwing her arms in the air as she looked down onto the limb body sprawled across the floor and bedded in glass fragments at her feet. “You totally ruined the carpet, you moron!”

Wiping her brow, Dalnim turned away from the unconscious Nari, taking a good look at her Browning. That dumb didn't even release the safety catch.

An amused snort escaped her lips as she tossed the gun onto her bed. Through her body rushed the adrenaline she had kind of missed these passed few days - not that drowning didn't release a good amount of it, but this was different. Dalnim enjoyed having the upper hand, and, repeating Nari's frightened little whimper in her head, she almost burst into laughter.

Dalnim rolled her shoulders back a bunch of times, loosening her tense muscles and cracking her neck. Her pure calmness in situations like this made her one of the most feared predators of the city. The little mind games she played with her prey before she went in for her final, deadly leap.

A movement on the edge of her vision caught her attention, and Nari's untrained reflexes and the loud thumping of her feet on the ground gave Dalnim enough time to doge her. In one swift motion, Dalnim slid past the other girl, grabbing her wrists painfully tight and stopping her mid-motion, her fingers wrapping tightly around a piece of broken glass.

“Are you kidding me?” Dalnim scoffed. “You'll have to do better than that if you want to kill me.”

“Die, you psycho ” Nari spat, and Dalnim felt her powerless attempt to fight against her strong grasp.

“Wow. You really scratched my ego there” she dead-panned, slowly pushing Nari's own hand up to her neck. “Lee Nari, say, are you trying to kill me?”

The girl clenched her jaws painfully hard as she fought against the trained assassin, her face wet from desperate tears.

“You see” Dalnim continued, lowering the sharp glass on Nari's throat farther and farther, pushing against the deliciously vulnerable skin just above her carotid artery. Nari locked her eyes with Dalnim's cold and predictable ones in terror, swallowing hard at the sly grin sitting casually on Dalnim's lips, causing the glass to slice into the first few layers of her skin. Tiny droplets of blood trailed down her neck, accumulating in the hollow of her collarbone. “I've warned you from the beginning to not mess with me.”

Dalnim sighed and waved her hand grandiloquently, draining another frightened whimper from Nari.

“But you wouldn't listen. I'm on a mission here, and, well, you sort of caught me red-handed. My boss wouldn't really like to see a witness breathing, so I will have to kill you.”

One slick flick of her wrist, and the glass fragment sliced through Nari's throat like butter. Dalnim watched the girl's eyes widen in shock, her pupils as big as saucers. The next second, she let her fall like a heap of laundry. Instantly, Nari's shaking hands clasped to , covering the deep cut. Blood seeped through her fingers, only the gurgling sounds of death closing in on her escaping from her lips.

Dalnim stared at her without any emotion, shaking her head at her. Then she crouched down, putting her hands over Nari's blood-stained once, mimicking false remorse.

“If you hadn't been the nosy you are” she sighed, drawing her fingers back and draping her hands over her knees as she watched Nari drawing her final breaths. “you'd still be alive.”

Nari's eyes rolled to the back of her head and the next moment, her body limped, the life escaping from her lips in a final exhale. It reminded Dalnim a little of the day when she had shot the obese politician, only that there was nobody to mourn over Nari's death. What a shame.

Dalnim jumped back to her feet, rubbing her hand clean on Nari's white shirt, leaving an ugly red smear.

She frowned, looking at the mess she made. Just when she was about to roll the body up in the carpet, a knock cut through the silence of her room, and Dalnim's head snapped up, staring at the door.

Jungkook.

! She had totally forgotten about him.

“Gimme a sec!” she called, hurrying to the bathroom.

Dalnim quickly washed her hands and arms of any sign of blood, peeling herself out of the stained shirt and dumped it in the trash. Back in her room, she stepped over the body as if it a heap of laundry she just avoided to wash, grabbing a fresh shirt from her closet and pulled it over her head. On her way to the door, she grabbed her coat and purse, opened the door only slightly and slid into the hallway.

When she looked up, Jungkook towered over her, a lopsided smile decorating his rich lips. He had changed his traveling attire for his usual black jeans and a white shirt, wearing a plaid shirt over it. Over his arm, a black winter coat was draped and a black beanie sat on top of his head. As he shifted his weight from one leg to the other, the air carried the soft scent of his cologne over to her and she had to admit that he was damn good-looking.

“Hey” he breathed, and Dalnim cursed her heart for skipping a beat. How was it that she could kill somebody without hesitation, but something as simple as a boy made her knees weak?

“Hi” she replied lamely. “Wanna go?”

Jungkook's hesitant smile turned into a wide grin, and after he helped Dalnim into her coat, he let his hands linger on her arms just a second too long for it to be natural.

“Can't wait, huh?”

“Mhm” she hummed, and as they set in motion for the building's exit, Dalnim dug her phone from her pant pocket, her fingers flying quickly across the keyboard, sending a text to the man who always took care of her slip-ups.

Jungkook

After Jungkook had taken a quick and refreshing shower, he started pacing up and down the small space in his single room, pondering about what to wear or where to take Dasom out for lunch.

He had actually never been one to put much effort in his relationships – he used to think practically. Hungry? Why not go somewhere the food will easily stuff you for the least amount of money.

But this time, with Dasom – it wasn't enough. He wanted it to be perfect. He wanted her to enjoy herself.

In his desperation, Jungkook had even called the only person he knew that went on a lot of dates. Who knew his ways around. Taehyung.

When Jungkook had asked him for a nice place to eat, silence had spread for a moment, and even though they had just been talking over the phone, the atmosphere dulled. Jungkook now highlighted his mental note to ask Taehyung what was going on. He would ask him – just not now.

His hyung had suggested a traditional Korean restaurant with modern interior, telling him that was where he took the girls he really liked. Jungkook had thanked him and tossed the phone onto his bed.

Exactly one hour after Jungkook had entered his room, he left it again, crossing the narrow hallway and took a deep breath before subtly knocking his knuckles against the wooden door of Dasom's shared room.

Soft rumbling and muffled steps emerged from the room, followed by Dasom's voice. “Gimme a sec!”

Jungkook let out a small giggle, and the wide smile on his lips almost hurt his cheeks. As he caught himself grinning like a fool on his own, he bit his lips, burying his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans.

The door opened a second later, and he straightened his back as Dasom slipped through it, standing in front of him with her face flushed and her eyes fixed on his face.

“Hi” he said, feeling breathless at how effortlessly pretty she looked. He noticed that she had changed her shirt for a light blue jeans button-down.

“Hi” she returned, giving him a dorky grin. “Wanna go?”

Jungkook felt his lips turn into a wide grin, but he didn't even try to bite it down. Instead, she gently took Dasom's coat from her, helping her in it. The soft breeze from the movement fanned the scent of her perfume over to him, and he froze mid motion as his hands were trailing down her slender arms. He just really wanted to hug her, right there, right now, but kept himself from doing so. He was still afraid he would scare her away with sudden gestures like that.

“Can't wait, huh?” he smirked, the sudden outburst of confidence once again surprising him.

Dasom only hummed in response and they fell into step with each other.

The walk to the restaurant was spent with trivial small talk, neither of them mentioning the week-end trip just once. Jungkook guessed that it was uncomfortable for her to let three guys she barely knew see her weak side, and he truly understood it.

Jungkook protected his mind like it was a national treasure, not letting anyone even look at it through bars or frosted glass. It was locked away behind coats of stone and ice formed around his heart, not yet ready to be seen by the world.

He felt his guard crumbling, though, each and every time he looked into Dasom's eyes.

It was almost like he wanted her to know. Wanted her to know that she wasn't the only damaged person. That he knew what she was feeling.

As they sat opposite of each other in a cozy booth for two, slurping their stews and munching on their bibimbap and rice rolls, he noticed how Dasom grew more absent every passing second.

It wasn't exactly like she was distancing herself, but more like she was spacing out, her body present but her mind far off, somewhere Jungkook had never been. He watched her for a while, his head cocked to the side and his eyes narrowed into observing slits.

Something about her body language had changed as well. She didn't sit as confidently like he was used to. Her shoulders were hunched over the table in poor posture, her face looked paler as usual – almost sickly. What surprised him most, though, was the shaking hand holding her chopsticks, hanging up in the middle of the air as if forgotten, as her eyes fixed something outside the window Jungkook couldn't see.

“Dasom?” he asked in a quiet voice, afraid to scare her out of her thoughts.

She jumped at his sound, anyway, and a small yelp even escaped her plump lips.

“Oh, sorry” she gulped, lowering her hand and placing the chopstick onto the bowl of bibimbap she had barely even touched. “What were you saying?”

Jungkook let out a small sigh, mimicking her and placing his chopsticks down. “Do you want to go home? Take a nap? After the weekend I would totally understand-”

As he noticed how Dasom winced at the mention of the week-end, he quickly stopped himself from talking, frowning apologetically.

“No!” she called. “It's fine, I just....I don't want to be alone, Jungkookie.”

Jungkook was just about to lecture her that he hated being called like that, but the dead smile on her lips shut him up.

“Okay” he nodded. “We can hang out in your room if you-”

“Not my room!” she barged in, her voice shrill and a notch to high. She seemed to have noticed herself, because she cleared and let out a nervous giggle. “I mean, Nari's there and she's probably ing a guy or snorting some coke. Let's just watch a movie in your room.”

Jungkook tried to lock his eyes with hers, but she was avoiding his gaze. He had the slight idea that she was trying to hide something from him – he just didn't have a clue what.

He nodded in response, waving over the waiter to pay and get Dasom back to the dorm as soon as possible. Her weird behavior really worried him. Dasom really worried him in general since Friday night, and he blamed himself for it.

About half an hour later, Jungkook let Dasom into his room. He flipped the light switch on, revealing a rather messy and dull room. The blinds were covering haf of his window, only letting little light inside. The air was cold, but still smelled of his shampoo and shower gel, he noticed in relief.

“You're not that organized of a person, are you?” she asked, picking a fresh pair of boxers from the back rest of his desk chair. She grinned, but Jungkook saw through the set up good mood.

Embarrassment rushed through his body, shading his neck a soft pink. He snatched the underpants from her and tossed it into he corner furthest away. He hadn't expected visitors, and, even less, he thought Dasom would grace him with a visit.

“Make yourself a home” he mumbled, already expecting her to just slouch on his bed like she did last time, but as he turned around to face her, she was still standing in the middle of the room, her eyes shifting from side to side awkwardly.

Jungkook scrunched his nose and grabbed two bottles of beer from his fridge, walking past Dasom and nodding his head in the direction of his bed.

She followed him hesi