Chapter 14

"Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated."
- Confucius

Running.

Jeon Jungkook was running for his dear life, his breath going at a tearing pace as his head spun, looking over his shoulders again. And again and again and again.

A hollow laugh echoed through the night as he tried to escape and soon found himself on the night market.

As always, everyone stopped.

As always, everyone stared with empty eyes.

The eerie silence hurt his ears as he dashed along the street, waiting to meet the huge crossing. The crossing he knew would be his end, but there was no other way out.

Jungkook waited for the traffic light to turn green for pedestrians, and as it did, he stepped a foot onto the street, already turning his body to meet his fate.

This night, though, it had been the first time that a detail, even just a small one, changed.

Before the car hit him with the force of a train, sending him straight into darkness, he noticed a person standing on the other side of the street, looking – waiting, even. For him? He didn't know.

Just then, the car touched his body; his eyes fluttered shut, and the last thing he saw was-

Jungkook shot straight into a sitting position, drawing a sharp, gasping breath. His forehead was damp from sweat and his white shirt clung to his torso like he had gone for a dip with it.

He closed his eyes against the pain shooting through his head and pressed his cold palms to his face. Behind his lids, the last frame of his re-occurring nightmare were burned into his memory.

A platinum blonde shock of hair, that seemed just a little too familiar.

It had been the second day in a row where Jungkook's eyes were scanning the crowd for Dasom, but it seemed like she had vanished.

Nobody sleeping away the lecture; nobody throwing paper balls at him.

It was actually good for him. He was able to focus on the lecture, learning new and interesting things that would help him get a step closer to graduation. Why was it, though, that he felt like something was missing?

Jungkook leaned back into his seat, sticking the end of his pencil between his teeth as he looked back at the night before. He didn't want to admit it to himself, but when he had seen Dasom with another man, he had clenched his fists inside the pockets of his coat and imagined walking over, snatching her hand and pulling her over to his little group of friends.

A cracking sound snapped him back into the lecture hall, blankly noticing that he had smacked the pencil in half, his fist tightening around the top half with his knuckles standing out white.

Without letting any emotion show, his face completely blank and conserved, he stuck the broken pencil into his bag. He shook the thoughts of Dasom out of his brain, deciding it would be best to think about it later – or maybe not at all.

As the lecturer instructed them to read the introduction of the next chapter “Emotions and Motivation”, Jungkook unlocked his phone, for he had already mostly memorized the whole textbook anyway, and couldn't be bothered to read.

As he opened his KaTalk, there were a bunch of messages in the chat group including Jimin, Taehyung and Jungkook.

Tae-hyung 10:52

>why dont we go to the sea instead of Han river?

Jiminnie 10:59

>dude I don't really care. For all I know I gotta get out of here or I will burst!!

Tae-hyung 11:00

>@-@

>how about busan?

Jiminnie 11:12

>Tae...no.

You 11:18

>not busan. Ulsan is nice too.

Tae-hyung 11:18

>I FORGOT SORRY!

>FORGIVE ME!

Jiminnie 11:20

>idiot

>ulsan sounds nice. I'll go look for a cheap hotel.

Jiminnie 11:25

>uhm

>3 or 4 people?

You 11:26

>3. Don't think she'll say yes

Jiminnie 11:28

>Do you?

>Or do you not want her to say yes? >:D

Tae-hyung 11:29

>I want her to say yes!

>;)

Tae-hyung 11:35

>HEY! STOP IGNORING ME I CAN SEE YOU READ MY MESSAGE!

Tae-hyung 11:40

>You meanies! :(((

Jiminnie 11:56

>Shut your face, tae....

Jungkook sighed to himself, gathering his things up, for his lecture would end at 12 sharp.

Since last night, he felt uncomfortable thinking about Dasom. And thinking she would spend a weekend with them – with him? He felt his stomach twinge.

Just the second the lecturer released them for the day, Jungkook scooped up his backpack slinging it over one shoulder, and followed the masses heading for the exit.

With his ears filled with dull muffling, he let himself be shoven to the doors, occasionally bumping into other students.

Behind him walked two guys, their voices too loud to ignore, so he picked up some of their conversation.

“I kid you not! Areum's best friend's brother works at the police and he told her!” a tall boy with brown hair said, trying to sound hush but it was nowhere near working.

“Why would somebody kill him? I mean, sure, he was an , but he never did anything to offend somebody-” the other one countered, but got disrupted.

“Dude! There are real psychos on he street. Maybe it was just a robbery. But I swear to God, somebody killed Professor Park!”

Jungkook's eyebrows furrowed at those words. Being put down by him almost every lecture for various reasons, Jungkook really despised that man – but murder? It must have been an accident, if this was valid at all.

“I heard it was one of the students” a girl chimed in, pushing Jungkook out of the way to join the conversation. “I mean, it's kind of logical if you think about it. I read somewhere that a lot of psychologists suffer from some kind of illness as well. Maybe there's a psycho killer among us.”

It made Jungkook sick how amused her voice sounded. The human psyche wasn't a joke. Especially not to Jungkook.

“Who knows” one of the boys murmured in full conspiracy mode. “maybe it was Jeon. He's so strange.”

“You do know that I can hear you?” Jungkook plainly said, not even turning his head.

Hushed giggles emerged from the girl. “Ah, he didn't mean it like that!” she assured, but it sounded insincere.

Jungkook rolled his eyes at them, pushing past the people in front of him to escape their nonsense. Just before he was out of earshot, he picked up a sentence that made the blood freeze in his veins.

“Or maybe” the first boy went on interweaving his conspiracy. “It's that girl. I mean, who starts classes mid-term? And she didn't even show up today. So strange.”

“Achoo!” Dalnim sneezed, rubbing her nose and picking up the sheet of paper that just slipped her hand.

“Bless you” the waitress at the diner said, putting down a plate of bacon and eggs before her.

Dalnim gave her a court smile and thanked her for the meal.

She sat in an old-fashioned, american-style diner in the heart of Seoul, an empty mug of coffee sitting before her and a pile of papers stacked up next to it.

To anyone's eyes, she probably looked like a girl studying for an upcoming exam or researching for an essay – but in reality, Dalnim did the work of a killer.

Once again, she was going through the information Yoongi had collected for her, and she figured out a way how she would play that little game of life and death.

She tried thinking of it as a game of chess, her every move planned, but not yet executed. She was good in her terrain, but you'd never know what kind of strategies your opponent would come up with. Back-up would be needed.

She glared at the pictures attached, inspecting every detail of the faces in the photograph. The person had definitely matured since it was taken. How long must this have been ago? 12, maybe 13 years?

The sound of her rumbling stomach caused her to sigh, not having eaten at all since her dinner with Hoseok. She put the pictures away, pulling the steaming plate closer to her and started eating.

When she had woken up in the morning, she didn't feel like going to class. She missed her pure freedom to do as she pleased, when she pleased. So, in order to regain it a little, she slept in despite having Nari nagging about it, gabbed her stuff and came to this diner at around 11 am.

The coffee wasn't the best, it was decent, really – but the food was great.

Back when she had been in the earlier stages of her career as a killing-machine, she often came here with Jin, Hoseok and, under much protest, Yoongi would have sometimed tagged along as well.

The memories plastered a smile on her features as she happily shove more of her lunch into , chewing it with pleasure. 

Outside the windows, Dalnim could see gusts of wind shaking the traffic lights and twirling dead leaves around the sidewalk in little whirlwinds. It would soon become winter and she shivered at the thought. She didn't like snow.

When she thought of snow, she thought of red-dabbed footprints taking the innocence of a clear snowfield. She thought of finding Hoseok lumped to the ground with blood gushing out of a cut on his back and how, for a second, her whole word shattered into a million hurtful pieces, thinking he was dead.

Dalnim shook her head, trying to get rid of the mortifying pictures in her mind and jumped in shock as she realized someone was calling her.

Jimin raked his freezing fingers through his orange hair as he jogged across the street, approaching his friend Taehyung, who was waiting for him with his hands deep into the pockets of his coat and a warm scarf covering his nose.

“Yah!” he called as Jimin was about 10 feet away from him. “Don't make me wait. It's cold!”

Jimin crinkled his nose, bumping his cold fist with Tae's warm one.

“Sorry” he jittered, cursing himself for only wearing a thin jacket. “Practice took a little longer.”

“Obvious. Let's go now or else we'll be ice sculptures in a second.”

“I'd make a pretty handsome sculpture” Jimin pondered, tapping his index finger to his lips, then giving his friend a playfully doubtful side glance as they set in motion. “Not sure about you, though.”

Taehyung snorted, brushing the comment off by wiping his nose coolly.

“How's practice coming along?” he asked instead, burying both hands into the warm pockets again.

Jimin furrowed his forehead, scrunching his face up at the question.

“Ah, don't even ask” he grumbled. “I still can't believe that rascal really signed us up to this.”

Taehyung shrugged, kicking a lonely pebble out of his way and watched it jump over the