“— I TOLD YOU TO KNOCK HER OUT, NOT KILL HER!”

Joohyun jerked upright as she awoke to the yelling of a fierce argument. Gently shaking her head, she cleared up her vision and took in her surroundings. She was sitting in a large, spacious room. Around her were heaps of wooden crates with warning signs on them, so she figured she was in a storage room or warehouse of some sort. Bright fluorescent lights lined the ceiling. The two angry men were about halfway across the room, so she couldn’t quite hear what they were yelling about; she was able to hear the occasional swear word clearly, though. Her arms and legs were handcuffed to a metal chair leaning against the back wall —

Wait, what?

Yelping, she tried to leap out of the chair and promptly fell over, the metal legs of the chair clanging loudly against the wall. The arguing stopped, so she figured they were probably heading in her direction.

That was a bit of a problem, considering she had gotten kidnapped (probably by these guys) from her meeting with Taehyung. “Meeting her kidnapper” was certainly not something on her list of priorities.

And then there was Taehyung. Ever since the Taeyeon incident, thinking about him created a swirling mixture of emotions inside of her. A part of her hated him for all his actions, as she had been doing for the past few years, but another part of her wanted to hug him because of what he was going through. She had known Taeyeon too, and losing a loving sister was not easy to deal with.

Joohyun was trying to pull herself into a crawling position when two shadows approached her. She tried to inch away on her knees before a force grabbed the chair and yanked her back. Her head accidentally rammed into the guy’s knuckles, and he dropped her back onto her stomach with her chair right on top of her.

“Sorry!” a voice behind her yelped. The second guy knelt next to her and fiddled around with her handcuffs, unlocking them. He removed the chair and helped her up. A finger brushed some dirt off of her cheek, and she turned to get a better look at him.

Joohyun had seen a lot of attractive guys throughout her lifetime. There was Donghae, her next door neighbor back in Indiana, who she had a crush on for two years until she left for the Academy. There was Song Joong-Ki, a famous actor she absolutely adored. There was even Minho, who, despite being a friend of Taehyung, was considered to be decently handsome in her mind.

None of them took her breath away like the guy before her. He was young, probably around her age, but a few inches taller. His dark hair was neatly combed, and he wore a flannel shirt and tight jeans. He had a beautifully bright smile, and his eyes twinkled with both amusement and friendliness.

“Jungkook,” he said, sticking out his right hand and grinning. “I’m sorry that Namjoon is a clumsy piece of sh*t.”

“Joohyun,” she squeaked, sticking out her left hand. It took her a solid five seconds before realizing that she was using the wrong hand and quickly fixed that, struggling to hide her red cheeks.

“I know.” He flashed her another grin, and she felt herself blush again.

Perhaps crushing on your kidnapper was not exactly the brightest idea. But then again, the series of events leading up to this moment didn’t exactly suggest that she was bright.

Steadying herself, she glanced at Namjoon, a tall guy in a professional business suit, who was pacing back and forth right behind Jungkook, talking into a cellphone.

She turned to face Jungkook again. “Can you tell me what I am doing here? And why I was kidnapped? I had a meeting with someone, and I don’t exactly want him to come after me because I never showed up.”

He motioned towards Namjoon. “Boss should be coming sometime soon. Namjoon is calling him right now.”

Sure enough, she heard a “get your a** down here!” from the guy. Jungkook chuckled at that and poked him. Namjoon looked up at her, smiled, and ended the call.

“Isn’t Namjoon your boss, though?” Joohyun asked curiously. She did vaguely recall hearing something about ordering Jungkook to not kill her, which was mildly reassuring. 

At least curiosity wouldn’t kill the cat just yet.

She secretly hoped it also meant that Namjoon and Jungkook weren’t the guys who killed Taeyeon, or else they would have killed her instead of kidnapping her.

“Yeah, Namjoon’s in charge of me and a few other guys,” Jungkook explained. “He controls the details and stuff and tells us what specifically to do, but it’s the big boss that organizes everything that happens here.”

“He actually had specific requirements for taking you,” Namjoon interjected. “He told us that we had to transport a Joohyun Lee from the library into this warehouse at 11 p.m. We were told to knock you out so that you wouldn’t see this exact location but still make sure you were okay. He said to call him when you woke up so that he could talk to you in private.”

Joohyun gulped. She wouldn’t mind meeting him with the other two guys around, but alone? That was risky. Perhaps the boss was involved with Taeyeon’s murder — maybe he wanted to speak with her before killing her secretly so that Jungkook and Namjoon wouldn’t know what happened. Maybe he, Jungkook, and Namjoon were the three guys and wanted to create a friendly atmosphere so that she wouldn’t be afraid to meet him, only for him to kill her right afterwards.

Jungkook chuckled. “Stop worrying. Boss did say that you had a knack for being hyper-analytical and overthinking everything.”

“He knows me?”

Jungkook simply winked and walked over to the entrance with Namjoon. “Boss is almost here, so we’re gonna go soon. See you later!” The two of them waved and walked out the door just as another figure walked in.

It wasn’t hard to tell that the figure walking towards her was the boss. He walked with a confidence and radiated a power that was hard to match, and his leather jacket and combat boots only enhanced that image. She could feel him oozing charisma despite his distance and mask and felt compelled to step forwards.

Soon enough, she was standing right before him. He was about Jungkook’s height, and his body was similarly built. His eyes were strikingly familiar, even though she couldn’t think of any male acquaintances who even touched eyeliner, much less wore it.

“Are you the boss?” she asked tentatively.

He nodded. Slowly, he removed his mask. “Joohyun.”

“Taehyung?!”

Looking back upon her actions, Joohyun decided that punching Taehyung in the face may not have been the smartest thing to do. Sure, she was surprised that it was him, but to be fair, she should have expected it due to a number of things.

Firstly, when he had returned back to the Academy, his new fashion choices spurred rumors around the school. People hypothesized that he had joined a gang, especially when a few classmates had caught him outside of class with a leather jacket and a gun holster traveling with a group of boys his age. She shouldn’t have been surprised there was some truth to their words.

Secondly, he had been the one to arrange a meeting, and there was no reason for him to tell her the details of what he was going to do. He technically did follow through with his plan.

Thirdly, a typical kidnapper usually wouldn’t treat a victim with kindness and patience, which was exactly what Jungkook and Namjoon did.

Lastly, the former had alluded to the fact that the boss was someone she knew. Which, to be honest, was pretty much a dead giveaway.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Taehyung asked, interrupting her thinking.

“How did you know I was thinking?”

“You always are.”

Joohyun scowled as he snorted. He walked over to the back corner of the room and pushed a few buttons. A metal door slid open, creating a low rumble. Beckoning for her to follow him, Taehyung stepped through the doorway into the darkness.

She stumbled in after him, and the door behind her slammed shut, sealing both of them in. Though she knew that Taehyung would probably be willing to open it up for her if she asked, the idea of being locked in a narrow hallway wasn’t exactly reassuring. She shivered and felt her breaths become shorter and lighter.

She followed him through a series of twists and turns with his phone being the only light source. He traced his fingers along the stone wall, occasionally stopping to examine a thing or two. 

Even for an introvert like herself, the silence was unbearably awkward.

“We’re almost there,” he announced abruptly. Taking a sharp turn to the left, he walked a few more paces and suddenly stopped. Joohyun rammed into him and nearly tripped. A hand steadied her and pulled her upright.

“Take a seat,” Taehyung murmured. “We’ll be in here for awhile.”

She furrowed her eyebrows. “I thought you said we were ‘almost there?’”

“I was planning on telling you everything in this tunnel.” He sat down with his back to the wall and motioned for her to do the same. Eyeing him hesitantly, she slid down the other side and faced him. Taehyung set his phone flashlight on the ground and took a deep breath.

“Joohyun,” he started, staring her in the eye, “I need you to be honest with me. What exactly happened that night?”

She gave him a long, hard look. “You heard everything, didn’t you? You were at the police station.”

“I only heard you yell at Kris for being a y officer.”

“I wasn’t wrong.”

“That you weren’t,” he agreed, chuckling. “You know, after you left, I yelled at him for the same thing.”

“Cool.”

There was another painfully long silence before Taehyung groaned.

“Look, I know we aren’t exactly on the best of terms right now, but I need you to do this.”

“Why?" Joohyun demanded. "Why do you expect me to help you?”

He paused and his lips, unsure of where to begin. “Would — would it be better to think of this as doing it for Taeyeon and not for me?”

Joohyun stared at him long and hard. Here she was, sitting face to face with the guy she hated most, and he was expecting her to help him, as if she owed him something. Sure, she absolutely adored Taeyeon when she was younger, but the fact that it was Taehyung removed any sort of motivation to help. Especially after the most recent stunt.

“Are you staring at how beautiful I am?” His voice snapped her back into reality.

“No. I’m admiring your black eye.”

He snickered. “You got guts, I’ll give you that. Now, are you telling me or not?”

Sighing, she recounted everything she had been trying to forget these past few days — how she had been walking home alone that night, how the lights suddenly went out, how she hid herself, how Taeyeon recognized her and gave her the purse. Reliving the moment was painful. She could still feel the fear and panic in the dark and how immobilized she was. She could still feel the heartbreak of seeing her childhood idol lay bleeding on the sidewalk, her tragic fate a result of cruelty and heartlessness. She could still feel sensation of guilt clawing at her insides, whispering that she should have called the hospital, whispering that she shouldn’t have left a crying Taehyung on the floor of the police station.

“Here,” Taehyung murmured, handing her a tissue. Nodding in appreciation, she dabbed at her eyes and took a few deep breaths, feeling embarrassed for breaking down in front of hiim.

“Oh, before I forget," she whispered, "I think the three guys might — they might kill me. I dropped my physics textbook, and they took it and saw my initials inside. One of them said that they can’t leave any witnesses or something like that”

If the lighting was better, it probably would have been obvious that Taehyung’s face paled, but his look of horror and “oh f**k” told the story.

“Joohyun, this is really, really bad," he muttered, his eyes darting everywhere. "They’re gonna find you and come after you.”

She laughed weakly and nervously. “Well they thought I was a guy . . . would that — would that throw them off?”

He grimaced. “Not likely. If they managed to take down my sister, they’re probably capable enough to run a simple fingerprint scan.

“Aren’t the police the only ones who can do that though?”

“Technically yes, but you can do anything if you have contacts in the police.” 

Joohyun shuddered, and it felt like the walls around them were closing in on her, trying to squeeze her into oblivion. “Then — then I’m going to die, right? Oh god oh god oh god. I don’t want to die yet. I’m only sixteen — surely they won’t come after me once they see my age and —”

“Oh, they don’t care about age or anything. Individuals don’t mean anything to them.” Taehyung took a quick look at her, and after seeing her panicked expression, he sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. 

“Look, don’t panic.”

“How can I not?!" she shrieked. "They’re going to kill me! Taehyung, I can’t do anything. Once they find out I live by myself, I’m dead.”

“Joo, stop."

“Joohyun,” she corrected.

Rolling his eyes, he nodded. “Okay, okay. Joohyun. Anyway, relax. Let me tell you a story, and don’t interrupt. I’m going to start from the very beginning.

“Taeyeon was always ambitious. Do you remember when she disappeared about a year after you arrived? She dropped out of the Academy and ran away from home. We all thought it was a phase as a rebellious teenager, but she came back when I was about thirteen and asked me to join her ‘gang’. Our parents freaked out and basically disowned her, but she continued to ask me for the next couple of weeks. Oh my god — she did everything. She left things in the mailbox, at the doorstep — you know she even taped a letter to my second story window? I didn’t answer her, and I didn’t see her for a few months until she saved me from getting run over by a car. We decided to meet at a local cafe, and she told me what she had started.

“Joohyun, you saw first hand that the police don’t do sh*t. The war is forcing all of them to focus their efforts on the front line, so they don’t care about the crime that goes on around here anymore. We live in the wealthiest part of the East, which controls our side in this war. It’s why so many illegal things occur. Taeyeon was fed up with the inaction and decided to do something. 

“She founded the Sixty-Fourth Order. We’re basically a crime-fighting syndicate that operates like a mixture of an underground police and a gang. We basically take care of all the crime that goes on, especially inter-gang warfare. Drugs and murders are big too.”

“Wait wait wait — she was in charge?” Joohyun interrupted (to Taehyung’s annoyance). “She started this as a sixteen year old and has been leading it ever since?”

He nodded. “God, when I found out what she had gotten into, I nearly peed myself out of fear, but that girl had a heart of iron.”

“What’s happening now that she’s . . . you know, gone?”

He squeezed his eyes shut and made a pained expression. “I was always her second-in-command.”

“That’s why they called you ‘Boss?'”

“Yeah. Joohyun, I — I didn’t think it would come to this. I initially only wanted to speak with you because you had the details of Taeyeon’s death and could help me with all this, but you’re going to have to join us.”

“No," she declared resolutely. "It’s a good cause and all, but I don’t want to get involved in any of this.”

“Look," he insisted. "You’re in danger. You said so yourself — the masked guys are going to find you and kill you. Stay with us in the compound and you’ll be safe, at least for now.”

Joohyun looked away and pursed her lips. “Taehyung, you said you initially wanted me to help you with all this. How?”

“Do you know why she named this the Sixty-Fourth Order? It’s the number of spaces on a chessboard. I don’t know sh*t about chess, but you do.”

Of course Taeyeon named her organization after chess. Of course she did. After Joohyun taught it to her, the older girl had gotten hooked to the game, and the two of them played it every day. Joohyun might even go far enough to say that Taeyeon was almost as good as her. Of course this organization had to do with chess. Of course she was the one Taehyung went to for help.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Joohyun shook her head. “Taehyung, I — I can’t. I’ve worked so hard to get where I am now, and I’m trying to forge a better life for myself. I have to go to university and find a good job and be safe. I can’t do this.”

“She turned this into a game that I'm sh*t at," he mumbled. "I don't know strategy. Joo —”

“I’m sorry.” With that, the tears she tried to contain trickled down her cheeks. It was agonizingly painful; she felt that she had to help Taehyung, but it was against everything she knew. It was risky and dangerous. It would detract from her studies. Worst of all, she would have to face him every single day.

“Over there, you’ll find a door that will lead you to the compound.” Taehyung pointed to the end of the corridor. “Go through it. When you’ve finalized your decision, find Jungkook and tell him if you’d like to stay or leave. He’ll lead you to wherever you wish to go.”

With that, he stood up and brushed the dirt off his pants. Taking something out of his pocket, he grabbed Joohyun’s hand and pushed it into her palm.

“I found this and recharged it. Your mother called, in case you’re wondering. She’s fine. I told her you were busy but safe, so I’d call her again. Pleasure talking with you, Joohyun.” He clasped her hand in a firm handshake and gave her a tiny smile before strolling out of the tunnel.

She looked down. It was her phone from when she threw it at the library. Opening it, she saw a note with Taehyung’s distinct handwriting.

Live valiantly.

She pocketed the note and walked to the door. Taking in a deep breath, she squeezed her eyes shut and punched in a familiar number

I made a few gramatical changes -- nothing too big. Chapter 4 may take a little while to upload since March is a busy month, but we'll see what happens.

As usual, be sure to leave comments and let me know how things are going. My friend's birthday is in May, so I hope to have a decent number of fairly-decently written chapters finished by then.