Jimin’s house is a large, foreboding mansion- one of the biggest houses in Windsong. It looks like an old Gothic cathedral plopped down in the middle of New York. Old money if I’d ever seen it.

The house is booming with music. Drunken partygoers bustle in and out of the door; I can see Evan doing a kegstand near the front of the house. Pulling the hood of my sweatshirt further over my face, I sneak past the crowd and walk inside.

“Where are they?” I murmur, scanning the jam-packed room. My hand drifts over to my pocket to retrieve my phone, when all of a sudden, I hear, “Joo!”

Sofia sprints over to me, a panicked look on her face. Based on her disheveled appearance, she was having a great time.

Well, until Lucy went missing.

“What happened?” I whisper.

“Lucy showed up to the party as usual, and Jin and I were keepin’ tabs on her, you know... um, at a certain point, I kinda lost track of her-,” She lets out a guilty hiccup. I pat her on the back.

“It’s okay,” I say. “Are you good?”

“Yeah, I sobered up pretty fast after Jin sprinted over to me a few hours into the party. He couldn’t trace her presence anymore. He put some kinda tracker on her, I think, but now he can’t feel her, and we think a monster mighta gotten her-,”

“Where are Jin and Tom?”

“They headed to the woods behind Jimin’s house to see if any monsters took Lucy,” she says, her voice slightly slurred. “I’m going to take the first and second floors. Can you look on the third and fourth floors? We can take the rooftop together.”

“Third and- how big is this place?”

“It’s ing Jimin’s house. He owns the biggest place in Windsong, I swear-,” Suddenly, Sofia’s eyes dart to something behind me. “Hide!” she hisses, shoving my head down.

“What the ?!” I gasp, turning around- and freeze. Taehyung, Jungkook, and Namjoon are heading over in our direction. Judging by their lighthearted smiles and wandering eyes, however, they haven’t seen me.

“Make sure they don’t see you, either,” Sofia murmurs. “Now go!”

I have to scurry through the crowd as quickly as I can. I didn’t realize how much I’d stand out by wearing a hoodie- everyone’s wearing trashy party clothes and having a drunk old time. A twinge of jealousy pricks at my chest. Must be nice to party all night and not have to worry about your best friend getting her soul out by a demon.

I make my way to the back of the house. After a few minutes of running from door to door, I discover a servant’s staircase- exactly what I was looking for. My heart pounds in my chest as I sprint up 6 flights of stairs and arrive on the third floor. It’s nearly empty- the rooms seem to be occupied by couples and smokers. There isn’t anything of any significance except for a really nice home theater and a really nice balcony. Heading back to the servants’ staircase, I jog up to the fourth floor.

It’s dead silent. Immediately, every hair on the back of my neck goes up. While the third floor at least had some activity, there is no one here. Unease churns at my stomach as I tiptoe from door to door, attempting to discern if there is any noise coming from inside a room.

Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea for me and Sofia to split up.

Suddenly, I hear a door go creaaaak! at the end of the hall.

I take a deep breath.

And then tiptoe towards the door.

There are windows looking into the room. Slowly, I crouch onto the floor and slowly peek up to look through a window.

What I see makes my jaw drop in astonishment.

An enormous library, somehow spanning several stories and the entire floor of the house, greets my stare. If I thought Taehyung’s library was big, this one is like the Library of Alexandria. I have no idea how such a big space would fit inside the dimensions of Jimin’s house- magic?

That’s not what has my attention, though.

Lucy is scanning through rows and rows of leather-bound tomes, her eyes narrowed in concentration. She is clad in a low-cut lace bralette and a tight leather miniskirt that show off her toned body- whoa, Lucy has a six pack? When did she get such a nice body? She’s always been skinny, but she has muscles now. As she reaches up to grab a book from a shelf, I notice her defined biceps and triceps.

I’m about to walk in and ask what she’s doing-

And then my stomach drops to the floor.

Jimin is leaning against the wall right across from Lucy, a cold smirk on his lips. I have to force my mouth shut to stifle my gasp- I don’t know how long he’s been there.

Frantically pulling my phone out of my pocket, I text Jin, Dev, Sofia, and Tom.

4TH FLOOR END OF HALLWAY JIMIN HAS LUCY CORNERED

“Well, well,” Jimin says in a voice that makes my blood run cold. “Care to tell me what you’re looking for?”

I see Lucy go absolutely still. Her eyes widen in the slightest, before she regains her composure and turns back around to face him.

“Condoms,” she arrogantly responds.

Jimin is still smiling, but his eyes have darkened with anger, annoyance, and... some other burning emotion I can’t pinpoint. As he slowly strides towards Lucy, I can feel heat waves radiating off him even outside the library.

It’s strange- when Taehyung’s mad, he emits an ice-cold aura. Jimin, however, seems to be the exact opposite. His fury is accompanied by blazing flames, scorched air.

Lucy seems unaffected by this. I notice the beginnings of perspiration forming on her temple, but her bored expression remains unchanged- even when Jimin backs her into the wall and lowers his face to hers.

“Condoms?” he says in a deathly soft voice. “In a library?”

“I don’t know,” she says, totally bored. “Maybe you’re just really .”

Jimin smirks, pushing her harder up against the wall. “You’d know better than anyone. Now put that pretty little mouth to work, angel. Why are you in here?”

They look at each other for several long, heated moments. Their intense gazes never leave each other’s faces.

Something’s niggling at my mind as I watch the two. This scene is strangely... intimate. Jimin’s ual innuendos, his use of the word angel, the way Lucy is so unafraid of him...

Then Lucy whispers, “Give me back my memories.”

I nearly double-take in shock. My eyes nervously dart to Jimin, who has gone as still as a rock. The temperature in the room is growing hotter and hotter- a drop of sweat trickles down Lucy’s neck and into her bralette. She is totally focused on Jimin, though- I can tell that, despite her bravado, she is just as terrified as I am.

“How do you know?” Jimin finally utters.

“It doesn’t matter,” she replies, looking away, but Jimin yanks her chin back around towards him.

“How the do you know?”

She gives him a wry smile in response. “You always get so riled up around me. Did the sweet Jimin Park really just curse- ah!”

My eyes widen as Jimin places his palm on her neck. Lucy stares up at him, slightly trembling, as Jimin glares down at her.

“Don’t make me force it out of you,” he says warningly.

“This isn’t the way I like you choking me,” Lucy smirks.

"You know damn well I'm not about to choke you. You know about magic. I'm sure you know about truth spells, too."

"Potato, po-tah-to."

“You’re really going to joke around right now?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Put yourself in my shoes. Years worth of memories have been stolen from you. You can’t remember who you are; you’ve just lived with this emptiness inside your mind for your entire life.”

Jimin is silent as Lucy continues talking, her voice growing quieter and quieter with every word- yet a million times more powerful.

“And then you find out that the guy you love was actually the one who stole your memories. So excuse me for making jokes, Jimin.”

If looks could kill, Jimin would be dead on the floor right now. He stares down at her, his jaw clenched. Slowly, his hand drops from her neck.

“Do you think,” he says softly, “that I’ve had it easier than you?”

“What?”

“You will never understand what I had to sacrifice,” Jimin murmurs. “I lost everything.”

“Really. You lost everything? What the are you talking about?”

And then I see an emotion in Jimin’s eyes that I never would have expected to see from him.

Pain.

“Lucy,” he says in a low voice, “I’m going to pretend none of this happened. Don’t you dare speak a word of any of this to anyone. Go back to the party and stop asking about things you shouldn’t know about.”

“Yeah?” Lucy says, her voice catching in . “Just pretend life’s normal? Go back to ing you and wanting to kill myself like everything’s okay?”

I clap my hands over my mouth in shock. Holy . My mind is scrambling- I don’t even know how to process any of this.

“Yes,” Jimin says. “That’s what’s safest. That’s what’s best.”

“ you,” Lucy breathes, shoving Jimin aside. She waits until her back is to Jimin to allow her face to contort in anguish. Jimin, on the other hand, is frozen in place. His gaze is fixed to the bookshelf directly ahead of him.

The door slams, and out comes Lucy, rubbing at her eyes. When she sees me, she goes still.

“Joo,” she says warily.

I open my mouth to respond, but can’t even muster up a word. Slowly, realization dawns upon her features- followed by anger and shock.

“How much did you hear?” she demands.

“I...,” I swallow. “All of it.”

“Of course.” She attempts to push past me and walk away, but I grab onto her hand.

“Lucy, please,” I beg. “Talk to me about what’s going on. I’m so ing worried about you.”

“I’m fine. Let me go.”

“No, you’re not. Lucy, I haven’t seen you in weeks- what’ve you been doing? How are you feeling- well, obviously not good, because you-,”

Lucy’s eyes slide over to something behind me. I whirl around and stiffen- Jimin is staring down at me with a blank look on his face. An intense wave of heat hits me my body; I stumble backwards, gazing up at him in fear.

“Get away from her,” I say, shielding Lucy behind me.

“Joo-,” she says, but I simply push her further back.

“Leave,” Jimin utters. A painful swelling sensation rises up inside my chest, pushing out at my skin; I feel like a million needles are prickling at me, causing an increasingly unpleasant pain. My chest heaves shakily- I feel as if I have been dropped in the middle of the Sahara Desert with no water and no way out.

But I don’t care- I can’t let him near Lucy.

“Jimin, don’t you dare,” Lucy says, but Jimin merely steps towards us.

“I know it was you,” he growls, his eyes piercing into mine. My entire body feels frozen; I am paralyzed with pure terror. “You’ve ruined everything since you came to this town. Mark my words, Jooyeon Jung. I will annihilate you.”

Suddenly, Lucy pushes me out of the way and storms up to Jimin. My eyes widen as she slaps him right across the face with a sharp thwack! His head jerks to the side from the impact of her blow.

“You can do whatever the hell you want to me,” she growls as Jimin stares straight ahead, utterly stunned. “But don’t you ever try to hurt my friends.”

And then she grabs my hand and drags me down the staircase. We get down 4 flights and then run smack into Sofia and Jin, who are sprinting up.

“Lucy! Joo!” Jin exclaims, pulling us into a tight hug. “Thank god you’re okay. Lucy, where the hell were you?”

“What took you guys so long?” I ask. “Things were about to get dicey.”

“The boys had no signal in the forest,” Sofia mutters. Her eyes swivel to Lucy. “So you’re okay, then.”

“Yeah.” Lucy doesn’t bat an eye as she stares back at Sofia. “Thanks for looking out for me.”

“It would be nice if we didn’t have to.”

Lucy purses her lips and looks away.

Jin and Tom meet as soon as we get downstairs. “Hey,” Jin says softly, looking at my tired expression with concern. “Are you okay?”

“I’m just... exhausted,” I murmur. His arm protectively wraps around my waist, drawing me closer to him. A wave of fatigue runs through my body, and I stagger backwards.

“Whoa,” Jin says. He steadies me with his arm. “Guys, I’m taking her home. Dev, Tom, Sofia- can you take care of Lucy?”

“I don’t need taking care of-,” Lucy begins to say, but Sofia cuts her off, a vicious look on her face.

“Shut the up,” she snarls. All of our eyes widen; Lucy looks especially stunned. A pang of admiration hits my heart- say what you will about Sofia, but she doesn’t give a about saying what needs to be said.

“Sofia’s right,” Dev pipes up. “You’re coming with us, Lucy.”

“I don’t want to talk,” she protests. Dev shakes his head.

“You don’t have to talk right now. But I’ll be damned if you think we’re letting you go after you just disappeared.”

Lucy closes her eyes. “Fine.”

Suddenly, I feel the air around me go frigid. My stomach churns as I hear a familiar voice utter, “I’ll be taking it from here, Jin.”

My friends blanch. Everyone turns to see Taehyung standing next to me, a red Solo cup in one hand and a frosty smile on his lips.

His eyes are burning with anger. I see his gaze darken when he looks at the way Jin is holding me.

It feels like all of the energy has suddenly drained out of my body. No. I don’t want to deal with this- I don’t want to deal with him.

“I want to go,” I whisper to Jin.

Jin uneasily looks at me, and then looks at Taehyung.

“Sorry,” he finally tells Taehyung. “We’re leaving.”

“Jin.” Taehyung’s smile disappears. “I’m taking her home.”

I shrink back into Jin’s embrace, twisting my body away from Taehyung. Jin instinctively wraps his arm tighter around me and pulls me closer.

The sight causes Taehyung’s eyes to darken even more. The temperature drops exponentially lower.

“I’ll see you later, Taehyung,” Jin softly says. His eyes are anything but tender, though- him and Taehyung are locked in a staring death match. No one is brave enough to break the silence between them.

And then finally Sofia clears .

“Tae, we’re just gonna take her home,” she says. “Don’t worry about it. Seriously. I’ll text you later.”

Taehyung finally tears his eyes away from Jin and looks at Sofia. She doesn’t shrink back from the intensity of his gaze- no, she is calm, collected.

A surge of gratitude fills my body. Thank god.

Without another word, Jin turns me around and we leave.

A/N: i will finish this story. whether it be this month or in the next few months. i will. i'm so sorry for making you wait guys.

also regarding lucy- there's a lot of backstory and reason to why she's doing what she's doing. however, please consider things from her perspective. she's just gone through a lot of trauma and shock and realized that her entire life is a lie. she doesn't know who her parents are, she doesn't remember like 15 years of her life, she doesn't even know who she is. she's incredibly depressed. her actions seem irrational and confusing, but she's just trying to cope with/deal with things. this isn't the whole reason ofc (more backstory will be covered later), but... yeah. idk lmao dont on lucy