Chapter 12

"A woman's mind is cleaner than a man's: She changes it more often."
- Oliver Herford

If there was anything Jungkook thought while watching the girl sipping from her black coffee, it was that she was unlike every person he had ever met before.

Not to sound cliché – it wasn't like a ray of sunshine emerging from her, making her stand out to him like in those movies.

But her personality made him kind of interested in her.

The way she sat back in her seat comfortably, the way she always answered kind of cockily, the way she didn't cover her face when she laughed out loud.

The fact that, to the question what her name was, she had replied with “You need to earn that.”

Jungkook cupped both his hands around his steaming mug, leaning a little forward and propping his elbows onto the table.

“Tell me a bit about your friends” she said, leaning one arm over the backrest of her chair casually.

“What about them?” Jungkook asked, squinting his eyes.

He desperately tried to get into her head for the third time, but he couldn't read anything. No signs of feelings in her features, her eyes cold as stone, even when she asked questions.

“Anything” she gave back, yawning.

“Uh. Well...” Jungkook rubbed his nose, trying to think of something he could tell her. “They are both a year older than me and-”

“How old are you?” she interrupted, leaning forward now, though he still didn't see any hint of personal interest behind her question.

Jungkook sighed and forged eye contact – he looked at the clock in the way back of the cafe, just an inch away from her eyes. He felt kind of intimidated every time their eyes met by accident.

“Are you always this impatient?” he muttered and heard her snort – a sound very unlike for a girl.

“Don't make a fuss about it. It's just a question” she grunted in amusement, a smirk tugging at one corner of her lips.

“I'm 20.”

She hummed and cocked her head to the side, her eyes wandering over his face so obviously that it made him a little uncomfortable, the heat rising into his cheeks as quick as a wildfire spread in the summer.

Jungkook tried to regain his composure, getting back to her original question.

“Their names are Jimin and Taehyung and they are my best friends” he answered, his voice almost robotic from embarrassment.

A finger rose to her lips, covering up how hard she tried to suppress a grin.

What she replied made Jungkook almost choke on his coffee.

“Your only friends.”

“How do you know?” he coughed, setting his cup down so hastily that liquid spilled, building a small puddle on the table top.

Now, her grin was full on visible – and sly.

“I-I mean...that's none of your business.”

Jungkook cursed himself for how pathetic his voice sounded. To cover up his insecurity, he picked a few tissues from the dispenser, mopping up the spilled coffee.

“Dasom.”

Jungkook stopped in his tracks, his head snapping up.

“Huh?” he blurted, looking at her confused.

His eyes followed her as she swiftly got out of the chair, her hair covering her face as she bend down to pick up her bag. Then she swung it over her shoulder and turned around, giving him a dashing smile over her shoulder.

“My name.” she returned. “You pay.”

Jungkook was so dumbfounded that all he could do was watching her strut right out of the cafe, leaving him all by himself.

Thus skipping her very first lecture because of severe tiredness and a mild hangover, Dalnim dragged her body into the next one.

This lecture hall wasn't as huge as the other one – but it was crammed anyway.

While sitting in an uncomfortable chair – this time without the comfort of a small desk to sleep on – Dalnim leaned back, biting the already damaged insides of her cheeks as she actually listened to her lecturer talk about the human mind.

As she did, though, her eyes observed the students sitting around her, searching for a face in the crowd.

A face she had seen in the photograph before.

But as hard as she concentrated, as good as her vision was, it was in vain.

The target wasn't here, even though it was supposed to.

Dalnim groaned loudly, letting her head fall back into her neck. People around her started looking at her, she felt their stares boring through her body.

“Excuse me?” a voice rang through the hall, clearly addressing Dalnim.

She lazily tilted her head forward again, her gaze fixed on the prof.

“Is my lecturing so boring that you get frustrated, Miss-?”

Dalnim sat up straight in her seat, closing her eyes and slowly counting to 3 before something inappropriate would slip .

“No, sorry. Very interesting. Just got little sleep last night. And it's Yoon Dasom. I'm new” she replied robotically, her eyes fixed onto the whiteboard behind the professor.

“Miss Yoon, I assume that your arrival must've been really exhausting” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “But I don't really need another Mr. Jeon who falls asleep frequently.” His eyes scanned the auditorium before a snorting sound escaped his lips.”Speaking of...has somebody seen Mr Jeon?”

Students started looking around, but everybody shook their heads, causing the prof to sigh and rub his forehead.

“Sir, I don't have a clue who you're talking about” Dalnim started, annoyance bubbling in her stomach. “But I'd rather have you continuing your lecture instead of running your mouth about people that aren't even present.”

Next to her, a girl gasped audibly, her face twisted in disgust.

“Awesome, another freak” she heard behind her, and at those words, a dangerous grin appeared on Dalnim's lips.

Wind howled through the narrow alleyway somewhere behind the campus. Dalnim's breathing went hard as she straightened her back, wiping beads of sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand, leaving a bloody smear on face.

As she fiddled her phone from her leather jacket and dialed a number, the free signal was the only thing disturbing the silence.

“Hmh?”she heard a sleep-drunken voice on the other side.

“Yah, Yoongi” Dalnim breathed into the phone, an askew grin distorting her features, making her look a little insane. “Help me clean something up, will you? I have a” She looked down, her booted foot shoving away a limp leg carelessly. “A little situation.”

The only answer was a low chuckle followed by the line being disconnected.

Dalnim's face twisted in disgust when she looked down at her victim in revulsion.

It had been unplanned. She actually just wanted to scare him. happens.

It took Yoongi only 10 minutes to arrive.

Dalnim didn't even question where he had been, considering the fact that, from their home, it would have normally taken him a solid hour.

She watched him open the door of his snow-white BMW, slowly sliding out of the driver's seat and, with his hands in the pockets of his jeans, walked straight over to her.

Taking a closer look, he wore his shirt inside out, his hair was really disheveled and his eyes were rimmed red.

“Are you high?” Dalnim scoffed, crossing her arms.

Yoongi only shrugged, giving her a relaxed smile.

“Didn't think there would be work today.”

His gaze slowly wandered from Dalnim over to the lifeless body on the floor – his eyebrows rising underneath his bangs immediately.

Yoongi tilted his head and took a better look at it, as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

“Messy” he commented, looking back at Dalnim again. “Very unlike you.”

Now it was Dalnim's turn to shrug, leaning back against the concrete wall behind her.

“He got me really pissed. Don't bother asking.”

Her eyes slowly wandered over the corpse, which, by now, was cooled down, drained of life.

The first thing she saw was blood. Blood everywhere. It soaked his clothes, stained the floor and the walls. There was a hole in his stomach, one perforating his lungs – and a third; her usual shot between the eyes.

Yoongi scratched his head, sighing.

“You get the bleach” he ordered, pointing to his car with his thumb. “I'll pack him up.”

They both did their jobs. Dalnim thoroughly making sure no blood stains were left behind. A sudden giggle interrupted the silence and she looked up to find Yoongi cracking up about something.

“Yah! What's so funny?” she hissed, aggressively rubbing the floor where just a few minutes before, a puddle of red decorated the gray stone.

“Look” he cackled, leaning to the side to enable her a better view. “A human burrito!”

Dalnim rolled her eyes, getting up and throwing a blood-stained cloth at him.

“I like you better when you're sulking.”

“Party pooper” he muttered.

Then, both of them grabbed an end of the 'human burrito' and carried the body into the trunk of Yoongi's car. With a loud thud, he closed the door and turned to Dalnim.

“I'll sink him in the river” he informed her and she nodded.

“Thanks a lot, Yoongi.”

He waved it off, pulling her into a half-hug and awkwardly patting her shoulder.

“We're family. Do you need a ride?”

“Sounds good.”

As Jungkook arrived at the dorm, it was, once again, past mid-night.

But this time, he had actually managed to get a new mirror for his bathroom.

He stopped in front of his door, putting the heavy package down, fumbling for his keys.

Just then, the light in the hallway switched on, revealing a person he actually welcomed to see. Jungkook didn't know what to do, though. Should he ignore her since she made him pay for her coffee? Or should he play it off and try talk to her?

There wasn't much time left to think, and so his body acted on its own as Dasom came closer step by step.

“You” he said, a grin on his lips as he leaned the mirror against the wall in front of his room.

She snorted and eyed him up and down.

“We need to stop meeting in this hallway when everyone else is asleep already.”

A chuckle escaped Jungkook's lips – an honest little chuckle. That didn't happen often, but he enjoyed it as soon as he noticed.

“Ah, probably” he agreed, ruffling his hair.

He then allowed himself to take a better look at her.

She looked kind of tired, but her face was flushed. Her hair was messy and she was wearing a complete different style of clothing as he had seen her in before. A smudge of red stood out from her face, which his eyes fixed on.

“You, uh” he began, motioning at her face. “You've got something on your face.”

For a second, her expression dropped, but then her jaws clenched so tight, he could see the muscles shift underneath her fair skin.

“Ah” she chuckled. “I helped out painting a friend's new apartment. Something must have gotten on my face.”

Jungkook watched her raise her arm and wiping it off with the sleeve of her leather jacket.

“So, uhm” she said, gesturing to his side. “What have you got there? I hope it's not a portrait of me, because that would be realy awkward.”

“A mirror” he explained after a second of silence, furrowing his eyebrows at her weird words. “I broke mine recently and needed a new one.”

Dasom gave him a weird side-glance, even arching her brow.

“At 12:56 in the morning?” she said, her voice amused.

Jungkook shrugged, crinkling his nose.

“It's my time of the day.”

“Same.”

Something rushed through Jungkook's head. Just the faint ghost of an idea. He wanted to get to know her better. He...he kind of liked her. And he wanted to know why he couldn't read her.

“Dasom, was it?” he asked innocently, watching her nod. “Do you...would you mind giving me a hand? That thing is really heavy and I can't unlock the door when I'm holding it.”

He held out his keys to her in expectation, and her gaze slowly draped from the key over to Jungkook's eyes.

And then she did something he wasn't expecting at all.

She broke out in silent laughter that was making her whole body shake.

“This” she gasped for air. “Is the worst pick-up line I have ever heard!”

She grabbed the keys anyway, unlocked his door and gestured for him to carry the mirror in.

But he was dumbstruck.

Was she laughing at him?

“Are you coming?” she giggled, poking his side.

“Why are you laughing?” he asked, dead-serious.

She drew her eyebrows together, and if Jungkook couldn't read her until now, he knew that she was trying to contain her laughter.

“You know, I've been asked a lot of things to do with my hands, but this is definitely something new.”

Jungkook mentally slapped himself. He winced in embarrassment, grabbed the mirror and wa