Seulgi wasn’t sure how long she had been meeting Irene’s gaze when the mafia boss lightly tapped her cheek twice and pulled away with a stoic expression. Snapping her fingers, she motioned for Yeri to bring something; moments later, the underboss returned from Irene’s desk with a manila folder and a slender, cylindrical object. Seulgi eyed it warily, having a strong hunch that it wasn’t a fancy pen.

            “Kang Seulgi, Kang Seulgi,” Irene hummed, placing the folder and not-pen in Seulgi’s lap, alongside Seulgi’s black baseball cap. Seulgi glanced up to see her smirking silently, just the tip of the right corner of her lips pulled up minisculely, almost unnoticeably. The boss uncrossed her legs, prompting Seulgi’s eyes to draw towards them for a split second—bare, slender, and pale just like her fingers—before standing up from the table. She was now directly in Seulgi’s space, only a hand’s width of space between them, as she stared Seulgi down with eyes that didn’t hint at anything other than absolute inability to express emotion. Seulgi dropped her gaze to stare at the woman’s nicely-ironed, almost see-through white dress shirt that was tucked into a buttoned tweed skirt. Money, money, money. Seulgi didn’t want to think of where she got all her money.

            “If I had known that you’d want to devour me, I would have offered you a position in my bedroom instead of at the nightclub.”

            Eyebrows furrowing, Seulgi snapped her head up to face Irene again, the latter looking down at her with a knowing look.

            “You’re disgusting.”

            “You like to play with boundaries, don’t you?” Irene leaned close to Seulgi, making the monolidded woman’s breath catch, and took the folder from Seulgi’s lap, pulled away teasingly. “Are you going to sign this or do you really want me to draw up a new contract for the bedroom?”

            Not wanting to give into the woman’s mind games, Seulgi narrowed her eyes before snatching the folder from her. She took out the contract inside, which looked extremely simple in the entirety of its single page.

            “This is it?”

            Irene hummed as she motioned to Yeri to step outside. Seulgi felt a bit of desperation grow inside of her with the fact that this stuff was so confidential that even the underboss had to leave—as much as she hated to admit it, she would rather stick around with the hardened younger girl than the dangerous, dangerous woman in front of her.

            “You can use that to sign it.” Irene pointed at the cylindrical object.

            Seulgi opened it to see, not unsurprisingly, that it was not a pen but rather a blade. She stared at it for a moment before raising an eyebrow at the mafia boss.

            “I didn’t know you literally meant I would sign in blood.”

            “I told you that I don’t go back on my word, didn’t I?” Irene took the knife from Seulgi. “Shall I sign first then?”

            She quickly pricked her finger. Seulgi winced at the sight of the red liquid dotting at the laceration and how it smeared across the pristine white page as Irene wrote out her signature on the contract. Looking satisfied, Irene held out the knife to Seulgi, who hesitated. Which was a big mistake on Seulgi’s part, because Irene seemed to notice, and thus proceeded to take Seulgi’s hand in her smaller one. The cut was small but deep enough to produce quite a bit of blood, so Seulgi bit her lip in pain, trying to keep her mind off of the fact that Irene’s blood from the knife had just mixed with hers.

            “You should sign before it starts clotting. Don’t want to make another cut, do we?”

            Seulgi gritted her teeth and scribbled out her signature on the paper then turned to shove it in Irene’s hands. The other woman nodded before slipping the paper back into the folder.

            “Now, that wasn’t too bad, was it?”

            Silence from Seulgi’s end.

            “Oh, your finger is still bleeding.” A tongue flickered out to swipe across Irene’s bottom lip. A bleeding finger met it soon after. Seulgi felt tighten at Irene’s blatant staring as the mafia boss her own wound. “Does it hurt?”

            “No,” Seulgi managed to get out.

            “Good, good. You’ll have to get used to blood.”

            “I expected as much.”

            Irene let out a small laugh as she reached out to observe Seulgi’s bleeding finger with the same hand she had just the blood from. Seulgi wanted to pull away, desperately, but she also didn’t want to show that she was afraid more than was necessary, so she screamed at her own body to stay still, free hand gripping her cap tightly, as Irene slowly wiped the blood away with her thumb and held it to her red-painted mouth. Jesus.

            “The first few weeks will be busy.” Irene let go of Seulgi’s hand and stood up to head back to her chair. Seulgi’s eyes followed her silently, wondering what the woman would pull next. “You’ll learn the bare necessities of how the organization works, then you’ll focus on maintaining the nightclub and following any orders given to you. Understood?”

            Seulgi nodded without retort, which Irene took as a positive sign. Calling Yeri in again, the woman motioned for the younger girl to stand Seulgi up.

            “Yeri will accompany you as you learn. You will be reporting straight to my consigliere weekly about the happenings in your station. A phone will be provided to you shortly with all the important contacts saved in it.”

            “Am I living at my house? What about my stuff?”

            “We will provide everything you need and bring your stuff as necessary.” Irene tilted her head knowingly. “And don’t worry. We’ll get your manuscripts for you.”

            Seulgi didn’t ask how she knew about them. She merely pressed her lips together and nodded.

            “Alright then. Yeri.”

            With a flick of her wrist, Irene sat back down in her chair and motioned for Yeri to Seulgi out, not letting the taller woman’s eyes linger on the woman watching her leave.

-------

            Once they were in the hallway, Seulgi pulled her cap back on, leaned close to the younger girl, and whispered. “Do you know why she sent you out when we were signing the contract?”

            Yeri shrugged. “I’ve gotten used to just accepting whatever she does. It’s usually for good reason.”

            “You make it seem like she’s your mother.”

            “Eh. She’s only seven years older than me.”

            “So she’s been in this business pretty long too.”

            “Yeah. About fifteen years or so. Possibly more, given any training she would have done before the organization came about.” Yeri glanced at the taller girl. “She’s the one who pretty much saved me off the streets.”

            Seulgi pursed her lips. “Huh.”

            “You wouldn’t know.”

They walked in silence; Seulgi wasn’t sure if they were going down the same twists and turns they had gone through to get to Irene’s office, but she was too exhausted to care at this point. After a while, they stopped in front of familiar doors and Seulgi was in the elevator again, heading down this time, when Yeri spoke again.

            “She must’ve really taken...something to you though.” Then, at Seulgi’s questioning gaze: “Irene doesn’t assign me or Wendy to personally take on any...recruits while they learn the ropes. It’s always been reporting to the caporegimes for anyone who owns a nightclub, and it’s been a while since I was the one to directly accompany a lower ranking member for this long.”

            Seulgi thought Irene might just be wanting to keep an eye on her but latched onto something else, because that thought bothered her a lot. “When was the other time?”

            Yeri frowned, youthful face looking rather innocent despite the negative emotion painted on her face. “Joy.” She waved her hand dismissively. “You don’t need to worry about her now.”

            Well, that was one way to make Seulgi curious, but she didn’t comment further on that topic. “Do you know anything about the location of my business and where I’ll be?”

            “Your establishment will be in Gangnam, probably in Cheongdam-dong. We’ll reveal your housing when the time comes, but just be warned: you won’t be alone.”

            Puzzled, Seulgi didn’t notice the doors open, so Yeri dragged her out impatiently. “I’ll have a roommate? Housemate? Are they part of the organization too?”

            “You ask too many questions.” They were in the Atrium again. Scent dizzying. Floors sticky. “Since it isn’t too late yet, I’m going to take you around to meet some important people you’ll have to know and get the files you need to have memorized by the end of the week.”

            “Why the heck do I need to memorize stuff?”

            Yeri walked her past the Atrium into a small entryway during which several people bowed ninety degrees to the younger girl. She dismissed them with a vaguely affirmative sound. “We do dealings with influential people. People with power beyond what you can imagine.” A car stood waiting at the end of the place they had come through. “You have to know who they are and how they can ruin you so you don’t mess anything up.”

            A woman decked out in what pretty much seemed to be the standard techwear style/uniform for the members stepped out of the car and opened the backseat door, bowing. There was a white scar across her right cheek but the twinkling of her eyes indicated playfulness, which contrasted the almost angry definition of her bare arms against her black clothing. Yeri hummed and gestured for Seulgi to enter first.

            “Taeyeon, take us to the Stacks. Call in and say that I’m bringing a pup.”

            “Should I get a room in the Hall ready too?”

            “Not necessary. She’ll be staying with us.”

            Question marks went off in Seulgi’s head at the final statement, but Yeri didn’t glance once her way as the car started moving, tinted windows showing very little in the darkness of the underground they were in. When the light did start to stream in faintly, Seulgi felt a bone-deep exhaustion set in. She shouldn’t have slept. It was probably best that she stayed alert. But in the quiet ambience of the car’s interior, the humming motor and leather smell of the seats, Seulgi felt her eyelids flutter shut despite her will to stay awake, away from the darkness of her unconscious mind and the mnemic dreams that plagued it.

-------

            When Seulgi woke up, the car engine was still on, but the driver, Taeyeon, was nowhere in sight. She turned her head to the right and