And in that moment, Jungkook realized that he was a slave. They were interchangeable, things that his father with a business law background would call fungible— easily replaced and easily disposed of. The fact that the company strung him on by training him but never offering any solid future for him should not have bothered him, he thought. Even if he never made it in a boy group, money would not be an issue because his parents were wealthy. His dad was a business magnate and his mother owned a successful chain of ice cream specialty shops. Although his family was not extravagantly wealthy, they could support him for the rest of his life even if he did not bring in any income. But the thought of not being able to direct his future bothered him. He was at the mercy of the company, and it treated him in a way that ignored his worth as an individual. 

It was past eleven o’clock. He shut the blinds to stop the darkness from spilling into the room. He was supposed to practice dancing for an hour after midnight, but looking at the video made it clear that he should leave. He put on his dirty white trainers and sprinted down the winding staircase of the BigHit building. He tore himself away from the company that had enclosed him, and he felt his heart unwinding as he sprinted down the dimly lit street. 

He would not be coming back. He will run off and go somewhere. He did not know where, and he did not know what his next course of action would be. He felt his ribs beating on his heart. A trainee, especially a senior like him, missing a meeting was considered a serious offense, and he had dutifully never skipped one before. He didn’t care anymore though. He would be gone. Anywhere but there. 

A little lightheaded and his body electric with a nervous euphoria, he wandered off the main street into a small alleyway of shops, most of which were closed. He plopped down in a plastic chair in front of a convenience store, and the darkness around him that he had evaded began to seep in. Running off like this was a mistake, he realized. Thoughtless. He looked into the sky and closed his eyes to let the flickering halogen of the streetlamp spark his eyelids. No, he had forgotten that he had come from money. If he wanted to quit trainee life, he could. If he had wanted to drop everything and go to college, his ecstatic parents would want nothing more. But he was nearing twenty-two, and he had the gnawing feeling that he had wasted the last couple of years doing a whole lot of nothing. 

He opened his eyes and saw a figure in the distance of a woman down the dark alley, shoulders slightly hunched, and looking away from him. It stood completely still. It was unsettling to Jungkook, the haunting silhouette of the silent and unknown. He began to look around him to realize how scary the outside was when it was almost midnight. Feeling vulnerable and paralyzed with fear, he stared hard at the figure, too scared to get up from his chair. It was a tree stump, he realized-- a very peculiarly shaped tree that looked like a woman cloaked in a large winter coat blankly staring at the back of a brick building in the middle of the street only barely lit by lampposts. 

Jungkook gasped and whipped around when he felt hand on shoulder. 

“Wh-what?” He said. 

It was an employee from the convenience store. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you. The store closes in ten minutes in case you wanted to buy something,” he said. 

“Oh, of course,” Jungkook said. He didn't want anything, but he shuffled in the store to get away from the dark alleyway. His hands trembled as he fumbled with coins to pay for a beer. He took a deep breath. He felt ridiculous. A fully grown adult shouldn’t be afraid of the dark. A guy should be able to sit outside by himself without getting into a fit. Furthermore, a guy shouldn’t be inclined to do something that he hates. He always had an interest in running a business— maybe he should quit BigHit Entertainment to go to school. He realized that would be throwing away the time and effort he had invested in the place already, the tribulations that he experienced just auditioning, all the time dancing only to quit before he became a pro. How could he start a life he found so different all of a sudden? All the new friends he would have to make, the—

Jungkook stopped mid-thought as he walked out of the store and looked out to see that the tree stump woman had disappeared. He looked from various angles to make sure, but its disappearance was not a trick of the light. Something that had clearly been there a few minutes ago had vanished. She was not a tree stump. 

Jungkook bolted from the chair and started out of the alleyway. Off in the distance, shrouded in sticky Seoul smog, was the woman at the end of the alley. As the street lamps flickered, the figure came in and out of Jungkook’s view. Again, the person stood there quietly, but her unassuming manner only made her seem more dangerous. The bizarreness of it all— why was she wearing such a thick jacket in such hot weather? She stood completely still, facing away from Jungkook and looking off into the street. He could now make out the see-through puff of the ajumma perm as he approached her. 

As his footsteps drew closer to the woman, she heard them and slowly turned around. Jungkook stopped, afraid to move any further. She shuffled toward him, dragging her shoes on the pavement. Jungkook slowly stepped back, staring at the darkness under the hood of her winter coat. As she walked under the light of the lamp post, it illuminated her pocked skin, and blue veins and arteries protruding on her complexion like diseased roadkill rotting in the heat. Jungkook froze in place, wide eyed. 

He didn’t dare turn his head away from the strange woman, but he heard someone approaching from behind him. The convenience store worker stepped briskly around Jungkook and the lady. As the worker crossed her, she watched the moving target intently. Jungkook could see her pupils, black and void like a deep thumbprint pressed in white clay, following his stride. In a sudden attack, she lunged at the man, brutally slamming him into the brick wall of the alley. Her hood flew off, revealing blackened tissue on the back of her neck. 

Jungkook took the chance to sprint off as fast as he could, dialing 119 as he headed for shelter in the BigHit building that he had despised so much. 

As Jungkook sprinted down the street and away from the attack, he saw a figure of a girl in the distance. She was walking toward Jungkook in the direction of the attacker. Jungkook stopped in front of her. Bent over and putting his weight on his thighs to catch his breath, he looked up and said, “Hey— turn around right now!”​

The girl backed away and continued walking, alarmed by the panting stranger. Jungkook stepped in front of her and blocked her way with his arm. The girl was about to speak out when a loud baying echoed from around the corner of the nearest building. He grabbed her hand and hid himself and the girl behind a truck by the side of the street. 

“Crouch lower!” he whispered as he wrapped his arm around the girl and pushed her down and out of sight. The sound of footsteps drew closer to them. They both looked under the vehicle and saw tan wedge shoes splattered in blood moving down the street and out of sight. 

“We need to get off the street,” Jungkook said. He took the girl by the arm and led her down the main road, treading quietly and sweeping the area with his eyes until he buzzed in to unlock the front door of the BigHit Entertainment Complex. As soon as they were inside and the door swung shut, he closed his eyes and breathed out in relief. 

The girl dusted off the dirt on her legs and looked at Jungkook. He had wide eyes, a large nose, and a tallish stature— the manifestation of what Korea thought was beautiful, the girl thought to herself. He most definitely was either a celebrity or trainee at Big Entertainment, or whatever the name of the company whose building she found herself in. She fixed her wind-tousled hair as she said to Jungkook, “I guess I should be thanking you for saving me. What happened out there?”

Jungkook looked at the girl up and down. She had a slight accent. He could tell by the way she effortlessly rolled her L sounds and rounded out harsher Korean consonants like a westerner. She had the standard Korean haircut that let a few wispy strands of hair cascade over her forehead, but her shoes— boat shoes— and the fit of her shirt let Jungkook know that she had most certainly come from abroad. 

“I was standing outside when a diseased-looking woman mauled some poor guy,” Jungkook said. “I don’t even think they knew each other. The woman was acting really weird too.” 

“Mauled?” The girl said, saying the slowly in Korean as though she had never heard it before. “What does that mean?”

“It means ‘attacked’ or ‘harmed,’” Jungkook said. 

“What did the woman attack him with? A weapon?” The girl asked. 

“No… she just started— I guess— just eating his body.” Jungkook said as he looked down at the floor. “I could tell because there was so much blood.” 

“Is it safe to go outside?” She said. She walked toward the clear glass door and peered out. She screamed and jumped back, falling into Jungkook. A strange woman was in standing just a stone's throw distance from their position, staring right at the girl. 

“What? What is it?” He said as he wrapped his arms around the girl and turned his back toward the window, protecting her from harm. Inside Jungkook’s embrace, the girl, squeezing Jungkook’s arms to comfort herself, pointed outside the clear door. He slowly turned around to see the frightening woman, whose figure was dark in the shadow except her glowing empty eyes, now standing only inches from the door. When the figure loudly slammed her fists on the glass, Jungkook pulled the girl up the stairs and into the building to safety. 

 He lead her down a series of hallways and doors and locked the both of them in his dorm room deep inside the building. “It should be safe here,” he said. He quickly phoned the police again to let them know that the assailant had pursued him. His legs crimped and his back against the wall, Jungkook closed his eyes and rested. When his thumping heartbeat returned to normal, he said to the girl hesitantly, “My name is Jeon Jungkook. What’s yours?”

“Seol Ah-hyun. But if I’m in America, I’m Rachael Seol.” 

“Ah-hyun.” Jungkook repeated. He had never heard it before. “That’s a pretty name.”

“Thanks,” Ah-hyun said flatly as she crossed her arms and looked away. Jungkook could tell she was becoming uncomfortable. 

“Look, I’ve called the police but I don’t think you should be outside until they catch her. At least until the morning.” Jungkook said. “You can take my bed if you want. I can sleep on the floor.”

“I don’t want to make you sleep on the floor,” Ah-hyun said, “I can sleep on the floor.” She started to sway to the side, and as soon as her head made contact with the ground, she realized how tired she was. At once, she fell asleep.