The instant we finally get out of the ballroom, Jungkook briskly pulls me into a coat closet.

    “Don’t look,” I grumble, hankering down in the corner. He rolls his eyes.

     "Why would I have any interest in that?" he scoffs. Ignoring my indignant expression, Jungkook hastily undoes the buttons of his suit jacket and tosses it to me.

"Wear this," he mutters without looking at me.

"Thanks.”

His jacket smells like him; spearmint, with a woodsy, musky scent infused into it. I draw his jacket closer around my shoulders.

He looks at me for a moment, his lips pressed together- and suddenly, his face splits into a grin.

“What?” I snap. “Stop laughing at me.”

“Seriously, though, who wears a dress like that? There was barely anything to tear. It was already so low cut.”

My face turns bright red. “I know, okay? But I looked cute.”

    Jungkook scoffs. “Says who?”

    “Says me.”

    “You don’t count.”

    “Fine, you want to see?” I stand up. “Let’s go find a guy and ask him if I look pretty. I bet you he’ll say-,”

    “No.” Jungkook yanks me back from the door. "Are you seriously planning to go out like this?"

     I angrily turn to him. "Yeah, why not?" I say with my hands on my hips. "What are you going to do about it?"

     He stares at me for a long moment. There is a strange look in his eyes- a bizarre combination of disbelief, mirth, and... wistfulness.

My stubborn expression slowly fades away as he continues looking at me.

"Jungkook?" I ask quietly.

"I'm the son of one of the founders of the 4 Flames," he says suddenly. "All of us are- me, Namjoon, Hoseok, the rest of BTS. We're all children of the Yohan executives."

      I slowly slide down onto the floor, staring up at him intently. He takes a seat in front of me.

      "Our parents founded the 4 Flames as a simple street gang, but they eventually so much gained power, influence, and money that they wanted to expand even more. Bring in more profits. So they set up Yohan as a paper company to cover the 4 Flames. Yohan became so successful that they expanded to the US, China, and Europe."

        None of this is new information, but I lean forward, keep listening.

"Our mothers and fathers knew what they wanted to do with us from the moments we were born." A shudder runs through Jungkook. "We're the successors of Yohan. They observed our behavior from the start, and found different roles that we would take. Namjoon was determined to be the leader of the group."

"And you?"

       Jungkook's eyes are unfocused. "I have an affinity for physical combat and instinctive actions. I'm good at predicting people, and... I never say no. They said I was a natural killer.”

    I swallow.

    “They made us train individually at first. I specifically learned fight techniques, how to handle weapons, the parts of the human anatomy, how to read a person... and they sent me on more solo missions.”

    “Your first kill was at the age of 11,” I utter.

    “It was all a game to me. It was a way to make my teachers and my parents proud. Every time they called me a prodigy... I wanted to do it more and more. I didn’t even question who I was killing.” Jungkook takes a deep breath. “I watched them until the light faded out of their eyes, because it meant that I would be praised again. It meant that I was more powerful than them. I was invincible. I started loving it.”

    “But then one day, I was sent out on my first group mission with BTS. Namjoon and them hadn’t seen me in action. They were horrified. Yoongi ended up shooting me in the back.”

    My mind flashes back to the video clip Chanyeol sent me. With a shock, I realize that it must have been the time that Jungkook is talking about right now.

    Jungkook is quiet for a moment. I gently prod his foot in reassurance. “I’m listening,” I tell him softly.

    “They realized the monster they had made out of me, and locked me up,” he says hoarsely. “I was confined in a room for a year. I went ballistic. I destroyed the place, started screaming until I lost my voice, hurt myself, eventually tried to kill myself by choking myself with a belt and my bedpost. For a while, they had to sedate me. It wasn’t until a month when I agreed to therapy. I was allowed to attend school and have more free time as ‘healthy diversions’.”

    “But they still make you run missions.”

    “Yes.”

    “Why?”

    “Because I’m an asset,” he tells me dully. “Yohan can’t lose an asset.”

    “But your parents-,”

    “My parents don’t care. I haven’t seen them in years, anyway. I’m their son, but more importantly, I’m the future of their precious gang.”

    I look at him with wide eyes.

All these years of arguing and fighting and threats and taunts, and I didn’t ever expect this. For so long, I thought that Jungkook was some superficial rich boy, whose only cares in the world were girls and basketball and parties. I didn’t know that he went through all of this.

“You should’ve told me,” I murmur.

He chortles. “You were the last person I wanted to tell.”

“What? Why?”

“Remember how we first met?”

A scowl immediately appears on my face. Oh, god.

It was only the second week of freshman year, but I had already realized how stupid my school was. The idiotic Neanderthals that roamed the halls of Brookhaven, bragging to their “bros” about how y their cheerleader girlfriends were, combined with the excessive drama over house parties and breakups, had disgusted me from the get-go. At the center of this entire clique of popular jocks were some guys who everyone was fawning over. Although they were only freshmen- I thought they were in a few of my classes?- they had somehow captured the attention of all 3,000 people at my high school. I didn’t really care about them, so I had only caught a few glimpses of them.

I was walking to 3rd period, reading an article pulled up on my phone about a programming language named Java or something, when my shoulder slammed into someone else’s. Being the pathetically small 14 year old that I was, I went tumbling to the floor. All of my things went flying all over the ground.  

    “Ow!” I exclaimed, angrily looking up. A tall, lithe boy was coolly staring down at me, his floppy black hair pushed to the side. Behind him were two other guys, each as attractive as the first one.

    “Watch where you’re going,” he said coldly, and continued walking. I scrambled up.

    “Look here, !” I hollered. The entire hallway stopped and gaped at me. “You can’t just push someone over and act like it’s their fault!”

    The boy in the middle slowly pivoted back around towards me. There was an astonished expression on his face. His two friends were blatantly gawking at me.

    “What the hell?” the boy said. “Who do you think you are?”

    “Who do you think you are?” I snapped. “Jeez, you’re so freaking rude! You could at least help me pick up my stuff!”

    “Why should I do that?” the boy scoffed. “You’re the one who dropped it all.”

    “Because you bumped into me!”

    “That’s your own fault!”

    “How is it my own fault? Are you stupid?”

    What the- was this crazy idiot grinning?! Did he think this was a joke? I glared at him with the full power of my ire.

“No, really, who are you?” he asked again.

“Get the hell away from me,” I grumbled. Irritatedly gathering my things from the floor, I stormed past him, making sure that I hit his shoulder on my way.

    I thought that would be the last time I ever encountered that annoying piece of .

    Unfortunately, when I got to 3rd period, someone growled, “Well, well, well.”

    It was the boy.

    He had been sitting next to me the entire year.

It was the start of a beautiful enmity.

    “Why are you bringing that up?” I ask curiously.

    “Because it felt like you were the first person who looked at me for who I was,” he replies. “You just thought that I was some moronic prep, and you weren’t afraid to talk back to me. No one had ever talked back to me. You made me feel like a normal person, you know?”

    I crack a grin. “So you actually liked arguing with me? Oh, yeah, that’s perfectly normal, Jungkook.”

    “You dolt. You know what I mean. And then you got involved with the 4 Flames- the one thing that I never wanted you in particular to find out about. Inevitably, you learned the truth about me.” He gives me a rueful little smile. “So now you know. Are you even more scared of me now?”

    I sigh dramatically, and scoot over so that I'm sitting next to him.

    “I’m just pissed that you didn’t tell me this stuff sooner,” I tell him.

Jungkook frowns. "Seriously, Ami."

"Seriously. I'm not going to deny that I was really freaked out at first. There was a disconnect between the person I knew and the person that I had heard... things about. But a few people made me realize that I should probably listen to your side of the story before jumping to conclusions and stuff." I throw him a resentful look. "If you'd just told me all this earlier, then I would've gotten it."

    Jungkook rolls his eyes as he nudges me with his shoulder. “So cheesy."

"Wha- I'm trying to support you!" I cry indignantly. The oversized flaps of his jacket flail around as I try to cross my arms.

He chuckles. "You look really stupid with that jacket on."

    “You want to have this conversation again? I can go outside and get someone now-,”

    “You still look beautiful.”

    My mouth opens, and then closes just as abruptly. Jungkook suddenly realizes what he has said, and quickly looks away.

We sit there in awkward silence for a few moments, trying not to let each other see us staring. A warm feeling fizzles in my chest.

    “Thanks,” I finally cough, looking up at the ceiling. “You look, uh, pretty good, too.”

    “Wow. That’s the first compliment you’ve ever given me.”

    I wrinkle my nose. “I’ve seen no other occasion to compliment you.”

    “But I’m the complete package. I’m hot, smart, incredibly hilarious, and I can beat people up.”

    “The complete package plus extreme douchebaggery,” I add.

He throws me a sullen look. “Give me my jacket back.”

    “What? No!”

    “I only help people who are nice to me.”

    “Oh, I get it,” I snicker. “You want to see me topless.”

    Jungkook’s face turns the color of a stop sign. “What the- I never said that!”

    A smug smile sits on my lips. It’s so nice seeing him squirm out of embarrassment. “Keep those dreams for your right hand, you monkey. Save that for Emma."

    “Emma, Schmema,” Jungkook smirks. “Come on. I’ll take you home. Maybe you’ll let me in...?”

    “Shut up!” I exclaim, stomping out of the coat closet. “God, this is all Baekhyun’s fault. I hate that-,”

    “Wait.” Jungkook stiffens. “Did you say Baekhyun?”

    .

My stomach drops. I'm not supposed to know Baekhyun.

“Yeah, Baekhyun,” I casually respond. “Marge pointed him out to me. He’s the one who bumped into us. He works with computers, right?”

    His face relaxes. “Yeah, he does. For another gang.”

    “Oh, wow.” I let out a nervous laugh. “That’s... cool.”

    I am spared from continuing this conversation by a sudden shout from another hallway. Jungkook and I look at each other in confusion.

    “Who is that?” he murmurs. We tiptoe around the corner and down the hall.

My eyes widen in surprise. Yoongi is engaged in a fierce argument with a long-haired girl wearing a fitted red chiffon gown. Her back is to us- all we can see is Yoongi’s furious expressioin.

“Yoongi?” Jungkook calls out in surprise.

Yoongi’s eyes dart up to us in shock. In the next instant, he has yanked the girl to him and started kissing her. His arms wrap around her, caging her in his embrace.

“Not again,” Jungkook groans, turning around. I look at him in confusion.

“Yoongi has a thing for picking up girls at balls,” he explains, shaking his head. “Honestly, I thought he would’ve learned after the last time.”

“What an ,” I snort.

Jungkook sighs. “He's not an . He just doesn’t open up very easily,” he says.

I raise an eyebrow. “Yoongi doesn’t easily open up? That’s the pot calling the kettle black.”

“Hey, I spilled my guts to you 10 minutes ago,” Jungkook protests. “At least give me some credit for that. And besides,” he adds, a smirk growing on his face, "I could get you to open up pretty quickly, if you get what I'm saying-,"

“I'm going to beat the out of you," I hiss, grabbing him by his collar. He yelps in protest as I tug his hair as hard as I can.

"That's for Training," I say.

"Oww! Okay, fine, I'll stop with the ual jokes! Now let go!"

I beam in triumph. "Yeah, that's what I thought. Nobody messes with Ami Hwang. I'm a gang member, did you know?"

Jungkook bursts out into laughter. "No kidding."

"Now take me home, or I'm going to use my street fighting techniques to take you down."

"You're such an idiot, Ami," Jungkook sighs, but I can see the wide smile on his face.

I'm sure he can see mine, too.

A/N: yeah this was so cheesy and kind of pointless tbh but whatever but i liked this chapter

i feel like ive been writing too many cheesy chapters lately but w/e

finally more insight into jungkook's past! hmm heheheh

thanks for reading guys!! :D