“Cha—“ Something clicked, and Changmin was gone. Yu Jin put down her phone with shaking hands and turned around to face Taecyeon. “T-Taecyeon… who is your boss?”

 

“Shim Changmin.” He replied simply as he stood up and made his way towards her. “He’s everyone’s boss, isn’t he?” Taecyeon chuckled – and his chuckle sounded so different from Changmin’s. Not nearly as sinister.

 

Yu Jin pulled her shoulders out of his grip and shook her head. “We have to leave, now.” She told Taecyeon. He slipped his arms around her waist instead and pulled her close against him. “But we just got here.” He said softly as he leaned down to nip at her shoulder. She pushed him away, effectively making him fall on his backside as she hurried to put her suit jacket and hat back on.

 

“Yu Jin—“

 

She looked around the room, wondering if there was any money that she could take for them to use. When she turned back to look at Taecyeon, he was standing in the middle of the room, a soft expression on his face. “Taecyeon! We have to go!” He didn’t understand. Changmin was coming to kill him.

 

Taecyeon said it himself. Shim Changmin was everyone’s boss. There’d be no one to defend Taecyeon if Changmin got a hold of him. They had to go. Now.

 

Despite the rising pitch and desperation in Yu Jin’s voice, Taecyeon didn’t move. “Yu Jin—“

 

She ran over to him, taking his hand in hers, and giving it a hard tug. Only, he was heavier than she thought he was, and it didn’t help much. “We have to go! You don’t understand—“

 

He put a single finger over her lips and gave her a soft smile. “I guess I don’t. I just want to stay here with you.” He whispered softly as he leaned down to give her another kiss. She tried hard not to melt in his embrace. To not fall for the temptation of those luscious, soft, lips… Oh, who was she kidding?

 

Too soon, Taecyeon pulled away from her and rested his forehead against hers. He traced her cheek as she panted softly for breath. “Yu Jin… I need to ask you something.”

 

“What—“

 

He pulled her close to him so that his lips were right beside her ear. As he spoke, his words tickled her ear and made her want to giggle. And she might have, if it weren’t for the words he was whispering in her ear.

 

“You want me to…what?”

 

Taecyeon smirked at her. “It’s not so bad. It would only take a few moments. Changmin would never notice the difference until it was too late.”

 

Yu Jin gaped at him. He couldn’t seriously be asking her to do that. There was no way she could do that. It wouldn’t just ruin Changmin, it’d ruin her, too. Surely, Taecyeon knew this.

 

A glance up into Taecyeon’s eyes made Yu Jin realize that he did know this. And he didn’t care. He didn’t care about her.

 

“N-no. I can’t.”

 

A muscle above Taecyeon’s eye twitched, but he kept his smirk painted across his face as he leaned down to kiss Yu Jin again. His kiss still made her want to melt, but she pushed him away anyway. “I won’t.” She said firmly.

 

“Babe, please? I really need this. You don’t know how much—“

 

Yu Jin took a step away from the advancing man. “No. No, I won’t!” She couldn’t. Anything but that. It didn’t matter the time change. Yu Jin knew that doing that would never lead to anything good. She knew Changmin would be ruined, and while she didn’t care much for the city’s sadistic boss, she cared about herself. She wouldn’t let herself be ruined too.

 

Not even for Taecyeon.

 

Another step back made her fall onto her bed. She looked up, helpless, at the advancing man.

 

Taecyeon’s smirk was no longer charismatic. In fact, now, it was no better than Changmin’s chuckle had been. He pinned her down on the bed and gave her a devious smile. “If you won’t help me, I’ll –“

 

The door burst open. Yu Jin could see Changmin standing in the doorway, gun in hand and face wild with fury. “I’ll shoot.” He said simply, his voice dark and shaking.

 

Taecyeon didn’t seem fazed at all. In fact, it was quite the opposite. In one quick, swift movement, he pulled out a gun from the hidden depths of his trench coat and pointed it at Yu Jin. “Put the gun down, or she’ll dead before you can pull the trigger.”

 

Changmin flashed his eyes from Taecyeon, to the gun in his hand, to Yu Jin. He stared at Yu Jin, his eyes dark and angry, and in that moment, Yu Jin was hit by a shocking thought.

 

He didn’t love her.

 

Changmin dropped the gun and it made a clang on the floor before he put his hands up and kicked it towards Taecyeon’s feet. Taecyeon stopped the spinning gun with his foot and smirked at Changmin. “Nice choice.”

 

He then pushed Yu Jin off of the bed and ran for the door. Changmin ran to block the door, and Yu Jin saw both black-suited bodies grappling with each other.

 

The shock in her body seemed to resonate, somehow, within her. Neither man loved her. She was alone.

 

She made up her mind fast. Nearly as quick as Taecyeon had been, Yu Jin reached forward and propped herself up on both elbows.

 

Before she could blink – BANG!

 

 

 

 

 

 

BANG!

 

Yu Jin crouched and covered her ears, trying to block out the sound of the gunshot and some girl’s screaming. She waited for a moment, and wondered why the screaming didn’t stop – ah, no, she was the one screaming. She stopped and opened her eyes, looking up – only to see the body of the man she had been exchanging tonsils with only seconds ago, spread-eagled in a pool of his own blood.

 

Yu Jin suppressed another scream. He couldn’t be dead, could he? It couldn’t be...

 

She crawled over to him, putting a hand on his and another on his chest where the blood seemed to be blossoming out of him. “T-Taecyeon...?” Taecyeon didn’t respond. He remained still, stiff as a board, cold as a – well... a corpse. But his eyes were open, wide, and unblinking – dead, but looking at a point behind Yu Jin. Against her better judgment, Yu Jin turned her head to look in the direction of Taecyeon’s gaze.

 

The next thing Yu Jin knew, there was a searing pain in her head, and everything began to go black. She looked up as she collapsed backwards, onto Taecyeon’s stomach.

 

A person. Tall and masculine, holding a gun in one hand and a raising a metal pipe where Yu Jin’s head had been only moments before. Yu Jin knew that man. She knew him. He –

 

Everything went black, and Yu Jin let herself fall into a blissful, painless oblivion.

 

 

 

When Yu Jin woke up, she was lying in a dark room. Her back was sore, her head throbbed, and she could feel the blood pulsing painfully within her arm.

 

Where was she?

 

She sat up and looked up – straight into Changmin’s eyes.

 

She gaped at him and let out a strangled sort of cry. “Y-you!”

 

Changmin stayed still and solemn as he stared at her. “Me. I didn’t have a choice.”

 

Yu Jin’s jaw dropped. Taecyeon was dead, and all Changmin could say was “I didn’t have a choice”? “How dare you?” She asked softly.

 

“Don’t ask me that. You knew you had it coming since the day you started cheating on me.” His voice was harsh, piercing. She didn’t like it. She hated even more that he be so cold, so harsh, despite what he’d just done.

 

She didn’t care that Taecyeon didn’t love her. She cared that Changmin killed him.

 

She stood up and tried to walk to the metal bars separating them, but found that her hands and ankles were bound. “What…”

 

Changmin gave her a condescending smile. The smile she hated. “I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re thinking. You did.”

 

Yu Jin killed Taecyeon.