𝚣𝚒𝚙𝚙𝚎𝚛

note from the author: for narrative purposes, company details have been altered from reality. additionally, though this work is meant to include certain aspects of idol and trainee life, details pertaining to weight management and diet culture have been mostly if not wholly omitted on account of the fact that i do not like them and i think they're bad <3. all characters in this work should be assumed to be aged 20 and above.

𝕒𝕔𝕥 𝕠𝕟𝕖: 𝕡𝕣𝕖-𝕕𝕖𝕓𝕦𝕥

𝚘𝚗𝚎 | 𝚝𝚠𝚘 | 𝚝𝚑𝚛𝚎𝚎 | 𝚏𝚘𝚞𝚛

𝕒𝕔𝕥 𝕥𝕨𝕠: 𝕕𝕖𝕓𝕦𝕥

𝚏𝚒𝚟𝚎 | 𝚜𝚒𝚡 | 𝚜𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚗 | 𝚎𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 | 𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚎 | 𝚝𝚎𝚗

𝕒𝕔𝕥 𝕥𝕙𝕣𝕖𝕖: 𝕣𝕠𝕠𝕜𝕚𝕖

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blurring the lines

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Jeonghan drabble

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His reflection

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Your wits are now fully with you, and your reaction time perfectly up to speed with what you have grown so used to. Jeongin's eyes widen when the distance between the two of you turns into almost nothing, but you lurch backwards just enough to avoid a nearly certain collision.

"What's the rush?" you ask, now chewing on the bite you've taken. You look him over once in an attempt to infer as much information as you can before he responds, but there's little given. Jeongin's attire is casual and a little tattered, no doubt a result of combat from the past yet kept for some reason or another. A keepsake, perhaps. "Is something happening, and should I know about it?"

"Nothing in particular is happening, no, but I've been sent on a mission," he says. His eyes narrow as he smiles rather mischievously, and that's all it takes for you to regret ever having asked. "To retrieve you."

"Me?" The face you make is nearly a twist of revulsion, an overreaction, surely. "Who could possibly be calling for me?"

"Minho!" Jeongin's voice is much too chipper for your liking. "He wants you to meet him down in the training quarters."

Not an overreaction, after all.

The two of you stand there in the quiet hallway surroundings for a long stretched moment, but when there is no indication of a joke being told you finally relent and say, "Are you sure he wants me? Minho said me, by name?"

"Yeah, I was just in there with him," Jeongin says, reaching towards the back of his shirt and pulling a much more torn up portion of it to the front. "Who else on this ship would have the audacity to do this?"

"Fair enough, I guess. Did he say anything else? Anything like… why he wants to see me?"

Shaking his head, Jeongin is quickly growing bored of the conversation as his attention on you begins to wane and drift past you down the hall. "No. Didn't ask."

Sitting on this information, you consider your options moving forward. Meeting Minho in another enclosed space is something you have been thoroughly warned about, though those warnings had come with the knowledge that at one point you were wholly incapable of physically defending yourself. Now, you are healthy, strong, and as far as you're concerned; perfectly able to put him in his place should you need to.

You should tell Chan about this before going, so that he knows where you are in the case of something going awry. Unfortunately, if something is to go awry, by the time anyone arrives it'll be too late.

But more than all of that is the deep and stubborn desire to find a way to navigate through Minho's paranoid, dangerous exterior and win his good favor without the help of anyone else in this crew.

"Okay," you say, shrugging all of those previous thoughts from you with a careless ease. "If I'm not back in an hour then I guess he killed me, or whatever."

Shooting you a look as if to call you dramatic without the words, Jeongin simply says, "He's not going to kill you," and finally considers himself relinquished from the incredibly dull conversation he has been roped into.

Standing in front of the door to the training facility, one of your hands rests lazily inside of your jacket pocket… caressing the handle of a small blade you've decided to keep there.

Thinking back to Jeongin's words, you tumble over them inside of your head. For the first time since boarding this ship you are not particularly scared of Minho. Close physical combat has always been a specialty of yours; knives, hand-to-hand, even when a shuffle comes to blows on the floor you're often the one that comes out on top. 

Inhaling slowly and deep, you wonder how easily you could snap his neck. If it were to come down to it. 

You've handled men bigger than him before, and without Hyunjin in the room beside him, the limiting x-factor is not a concern. Walking into this room puts you and Minho in close confines with little more at either of your aid than each of your clear cut physical capabilities—and truth be told, you fully trust that you can take him.

You slide the door open and immediately find the man that has invited you.

His dress is simple; black sweat pants and a fitted black t-shirt that hugs all of the curves of muscle you didn't know he had. It seems obvious now—of course he would be fit—but Minho tends to drape himself in layers to conceal his less dangerous secrets.

His taped fist lands a strong strike against a bag anchored to the floor, and though there is ample distance between you, his wits are perfectly with him. Minho stops, turns to look at you and says, "What took you so long?"

"Suppose you would expect me to drop whatever I'm doing to come at your behest, but as it would turn out, meeting you is pretty far down my current list of priorities."

"And what makes up the rest of that list?" he questions, though it sounds more like he is talking to himself. "Mulling about the ship, making small talk with the rest of the crew, distracting our captain… Anything I'm leaving out?"

"Eating your food," you say. "Maybe a nap, if I can manage to fit it into the schedule."

Turning fully to face you, Minho gives a slightly amused smile as if actually enjoying the banter taking place and begins to make his way towards you. From this angle, you can easily see the rest of the muscle lining his arms and chest, the veins protruding beneath his skin as a result of the arduous work he has put into maintaining his physique while down here. A hand runs through his disheveled black hair, and when he finally lands right in front of you, the light sheen of sweat glistening across his skin becomes chillingly evident.

But Minho's appearance is not something that is new to you. Your willingness to acknowledge it, however, is becoming so.

"Chan has informed me that he formally invited you to be a member of this crew. He also mentioned that you did not give him a response. From where I'm standing, if you want to join us then you need to earn it, because right now you bring nothing to the table."

Unsurprised by how quickly news travels between captain and lieutenant, you choose not to reply.

Your hand is still sitting inside of your pocket.

"Levva never dies, so long as there is blood pumping through your veins and oxygen in your lungs. Your pair being dead is an unfortunate outcome, but it does not strip you of what you are. It does, however, make you fairly useless to us as far as that is concerned."

"I was perfectly capable of being a problem long before this levva thing ever came to be. I've been bounty hunting for a decade; I know how to shoot, I know how to fight, and I know how to navigate less than ideal situations in a way that ensures everyone makes it out of there alive." Your eyes on him do not falter, and with a particularly sly raise of an eyebrow you add, "Perhaps you've noticed as much."

"I'd hardly call poisoning yourself so that another does not become poisoned, a skill," Minho says, "Especially given it was an accident. Regardless of the details, I asked you to come down here to prove that which you claim. A lot of talking about what you've been capable of, but not a whole lot of showing it."

"I've been a bit preoccupied."

"Fine," he admits with ease, turning back towards the emptiness of the room. "But now you're not. So, show me."

You watch Minho make his way to the very center of the open area, where nothing else is besides himself and the plush of the mats underneath his feet. His resolve is firm, his eyes fiercely kept upon you as if unwilling to allow your exit from this place without first giving him that which he seeks. His demeanor seems calm, far less enraged by your presence than what you are typically used to seeing from him—you can't help but wonder why, and worry that you may have to find out.

But it is unreasonable to go into a sparring match with a jacket on, and Minho will not tear his eyes away from you long enough to move the blade from your pocket to elsewhere on your person. If you accept these terms you will have to do so without the luxury of a weapon. You once again look him over to assess whether or not you can kill him by hand.

Ultimately, you decide that you can.

Stripping the fabric from your shoulders, you discard it to the floor by the door and make your way down to meet him at the center of the room. Minho watches you all the while, never leaving his target for even a second. It's a little overwhelming, the weight he holds with nothing more than his gaze; manifesting disconcertingly all across your skin.

"Do you have a weapon?" you say, if for no other reason than it being a grave mistake not having done at least that.

A corner of his mouth tilts upwards, amused by it no doubt, but without a word, Minho's hands duck into the only two pockets of his pants and turn them inside out to show their emptiness.

"Do you?"

"Not anymore," you reply.

"Then come."

If not for the weeks of torment leading up to this moment, if not for all of the bitter words and careless threats lobbed your way by him so thoughtlessly, you might be more capable of slowing your assault. However, when the words fall from his mouth as easily as all of the rest always have, you are, for the first time, perfectly able to meet him precisely where he has been goading you to be met. You rush towards him, a hand tightly at one wrist as you duck beneath the intended onslaught of similarly aggressive blows to your head. Minho fails to make contact, and though you have him tightly in your grasp still, he is able to shuffle your bodies around so that it weakens ever so slightly.

The two of you break away from one another and stand in neutrality once again, though your stances tell a tale of something much different than what could be chalked up to anything neutral.

"You're quick," he says, "and strong. More so than I expected, I'll give you that."

"I don't need a pat on the back from you."

"I'm hardly giving you one. Since you've come around all I've seen you do is lay around and slowly die, you'll have to forgive me for my surprise."

You go to him again, the rush of adrenaline hot like lava underneath your skin. With a racing heart, you reach out to take hold of him again but he manages to pull away from it, and instead grasps you in a similar sort of way. Minho tries to strike at your head but you duck it—something he anticipates, because before you are able to get yourself away from him the fist finds a new opening against your ribs, and the follow-up is a knee slamming into your gut.

Rather than continuing, Minho roughly shoves you away from him and watches you clamour to get your bearings against the floor.

"Don't go easy on me."

Those words—words that sound absurd to you as they echo through your mind—having you gritting your teeth and slowly bringing yourself back up to your feet. You've been through worse; handled worse, survived worse, and though the pain feels new to you after so much of the time you have spent counting down the days until your certain demise, it is not unbearable. It's not enough to make you falter.

Pain rips through your side and stomach but you can't let it show. Instead, you swallow down the bile threatening at the back of your throat and huff out a laugh. 

"What makes you think I'd have any incentive to do that?"

"Because it's natural to us," Minho says. "You might not recognize it for what it is, but there's something intrinsic to us. Something that feels wrong when forced to inflict pain on our own kind. It's not unlike regular humans, if you really think about it."

"Is that why all those times you had a gun pointed to my head, you just couldn't manage to pull the trigger, after all?" Standing to your feet fully, you stretch your limbs and watch him. "It's not Chan, or anyone else. You can't bear the weight of having done so. You can't handle knowing. Even if you didn't know back then, you do now. You feel guilty for having done even that much."

Minho's jaw tightens, displeased by how much you are pressing him about the details of it and he says, "I'd get over it."

"Would you?" you say, once again making your way towards him. "Would you be able to live with yourself? Maybe all of this is just a whole hell of a lot of projection, after all."

This time Minho is the one to charge you first. He makes another play at taking you by the arm and rendering it useless but you manage to deflect it and instead grab hold of the one opposite. You twist, turning him so that his back is tight against your chest while your other hand reaches around to grip him roughly by the jaw. With him held like this, you know it's a weak move that he will quickly find his way out of, so instead of lingering it in until then, you dip your head just behind his ear and whisper, "Maybe we're not so alike, you and I."

You relent and relinquish him, knowing that he will soon get out of it anyway, but rather than returning to neutral as you expect, Minho rushes you in an instant and takes you down to the floor with little care to how either of you land. Having not anticipated the turn, the back of your head slams against the mat, and though it offers a mild plushness for impact, it does little to assuage the dizziness that shrouds your perception.

Trying to shake it off, you do your best to follow his movements but to no avail. Minho is on top of you; pinned down beneath his body, both wrists in one of his hands and the other tightly wrapped around your throat. He isn't choking you, but he could, and you are unsure if you can get out of this should he decide to do so.

All rookie mistakes. All mistakes that you would never make if you were out in the world, with your life at stake, against someone that you do not know. 

It's at that moment that you have no other option than to consider he is right.

Struggling to get out of his hands is useless, but rather than raining blows down upon you, Minho remains perfectly still and watches you silently from above. His chest heaves from the breaths his body is demanding, strands of black hair matted to his damp forehead as you stare at him from below and take in the sight of this. His eyes are narrow but thoughtful in a way that you can't quite comprehend—something is swimming behind them, but you don't dare ask what it could be.

Perhaps Minho is right, that the two of you bringing harm to one another is, in some ways, an ultimately fruitless endeavor. All of the anger in the world, the contention and the distrust cannot rewrite the chemical composition of who and what each of you are. 

You have killed one of your own—your own pair—an action taken to save him.

Looking up at him like this, in the tranquil calm of something that should not feel so, he appears almost innocent to you. The heat slowly dissipates from his features as he looks down at you, and over time, the grip at your wrists also loosens. 

Steadily, you pull a hand away from him and reach it up towards his face, the backs of your fingers gently ghosting against the sharp line of his jaw. Still, Minho does not move, almost as if rendered immobile by your touch. Speaking feels like a betrayal in a moment such as this, and thus, you dare not do so.

Your next action is a swift one, and before Minho has a chance to gather his bearings, you have thrown him off of you and to the side, jammed your fist into the still-healing wound at his shoulder, and scrambling back up to your feet as he writhes on the floor in pain.

Physical pain, and if you didn't think any better, another kind, as well.

Curled into himself, Minho turns his head back only enough to land his eyes on you. A hand clutching at a weakness that he certainly regrets having forgotten about.

"Don't let your guard down so easily," you say, a shake to your voice that you hope travels inaudibly towards the ground. "I've killed one of you before, don't think I can't do it again."

Your footsteps towards the door become more hurried and urgent the closer you get to it, and as you messily collect your belongings from the floor, the racing of your heart demands nothing less than the feeling of needing to escape.

Not from danger, but something else that you are far less equipped for handling.

Hurling yourself through the hallway, your heartbeat slams inside of your chest, echoing in your ears and already you can feel the prickling of a headache threatening at your temples. You can't help but look back towards that cursed doorway, unsure of what you hope to find. The emptiness of the otherwise abandoned space, or the face of a man that still lingers in your incredibly recent memory.

Nothing awaits you there, but before you have a chance to sort through your emotions in regards to that, your body abruptly meets a stiff… something.

Stumbling back, you turn to face whatever has put an end to your fleeing, only to find Seungmin waiting there in equal surprise.

"In a hurry?" he says, gently reaching towards you as if you have fallen. "Can't imagine there's anywhere worth going with that kind of vigor to your step. Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine," you say, wiping yourself down with your palms and straightening your jacket. It is a feigned calmness, an act you are putting on in hopes that Seungmin will be too disinterested to press much further on the matter. "Everything is fine, I was just on my way back to my room. Finished my workout."

Glancing past you and down towards the training facility, Seungmin slowly straightens his posture and locks his sights on you again. At first, he says nothing, which indicates a sort of uncertainty in your words as far as you can tell. This isn't a topic you wish to be pushed on, and all you can do is pray that he somehow picks up on that fact.

As if having read your mind, full of chanting pleas, Seungmin squints at you for just a second but ultimately only says, "We'll be landing soon—within the day, actually. A detour has sprung up and Chan says we're in perfectly good placement for it."

Thank fuck. "Already? We only just left Vhara. Can't say I'm all that excited about venturing out into another city with who-knows-what waiting for us."

"Your apprehension is understandable, of course, but unfortunately; you are the reason we have to detour, at all." Seungmin must see the evident shock sprawled across your face, because he chuckles at the sight of it and then says, "I exhausted a lot of my resources aboard this ship to keep you alive for as long as I did. We're going to need to replenish that stash as soon as possible… and well before something else could go wrong."

A wash of guilt blankets over you, though you do your best not to dwell in it. There is nothing in Seungmin's demeanor to suggest that he feels negatively towards you for what has been required of him.

You cannot help but roll your eyes regardless. "And let me guess," you say, "It's a very safe city, absolutely nothing to worry about."

"I see you have also grown tired of hearing the same rhetoric from our captain."

"What can I say? I'm beginning to lose trust in his idea of what 'safe' might entail."

Smiling, Seungmin nods for you to follow him along his way.

"If it means anything coming from me, he might be right this time. We're staying the night at a lodge, Changbin knows the owner there. He used to spend a lot of time here before he was picked up by us, so suppose I trust his opinion on the matter far more than Chan's."

"If that's the case, then my concerns are moderately assuaged."

Gala Lunas is opulent and strikingly illuminated, and though you have heard of it in passing before, Changbin takes it upon himself to catch you up on the perks of what he considers to be his second home.

As the crew makes their way into the welcoming streets of the city, you keep your guard up for any eyes that may be lingering in curiosity. The women saunter through the streets in gowns lined with what appears to the eye as a phosphorescent glow; greens, blues, pinks and purples floating through the alleys like beautiful lightbulbs one is meant to follow. Often matched by an equally impressive and well kept partner hanging at their side.

"Aside from the visual grandiosity of it all, it's a fairly boring city," Changbin goes on to explain. "There's a lot of money here, but it's mostly an entertainment capital. The arts are distinguished here, differences and self-expression are celebrated in ways that are often stamped out by overarching government systems in other cities, like the Biodome. As a result, the tourist economy is always booming."

"So, why do you like it here so much?" 

"Well, because people mind their business, mostly. Not to mention, I have a rather large list of clientele who are interested in cosmetic cybernetic enhancements, and they don't mind paying the rather high premium I demand." Glancing towards you, something sly sits on his face and he says, "If you see anyone with a pretty little glow behind their eye, that's the handiwork of yours truly."

You issue an accepting nod. "I can only hope this trip goes as well as you seem to believe it will."

Changbin nudges you playfully and says, "What do you have to worry about? You can handle yourself just fine nowadays, isn't that right?"

"I'm sure she'd rather not have to."

Cutting into your conversation, Chan hangs back just enough to edge his way between the two of you. He continues on to say, "You'll have to forgive me for the last time eventually, I was not aware that you were harboring such pertinent secrets."

"Neither was I!" you snap.

"Say, most of the guys are going to head off with Seungmin to help him carry all of the cargo he's going to have to bring back to the ship, what do you say we head to the lodge and grab ourselves a dinner and drink?"

Heat rushes to your face, the boldness of Chan to ask you this in front of Changbin giving you immense pause. Looking past Chan and towards Changbin, he stifles a humored laugh and instead stares up and away—towards the sky.

"Um, yeah, sure… that sounds nice."

"Great!" Chan says, "It's a date."

You don't dare look at Changbin again, afraid of the humiliation that undoubtedly awaits you there.

Lucky Dog is quiet at this time of the night.

By this time of day, the majority of people checking in for their rooms have already done so, yet it is still too early for the allure of a bustling nightlife to truly begin blooming. The small restaurant area is nice enough without being over the top; clean floors, polished tabletops and a handful of staff happy to accommodate any incoming request.

For once, it would seem that Chan had been right.

"So," he says, "What do you reckon?"

"In what way?"

"Gala Lunas, of course."

You haven't seen enough of the city to make a judgement either way, but this is one thing about it that stands out above all the rest. "I like that we haven't been ambushed, so I suppose that's a win."

"The night's still young."

As you shoot him a displeased look, one of the wait staff makes their way over to deliver a round of drinks that neither of you have ordered.

Like most things in Gala Lunas, they glow as if harboring some kind of life. Shades of golds and reds swirl around each other inside of the glass, both clashing, colliding and mixing together to create new colors right before your very eye. It looks as though dawn is manifested behind the bar.

Yet all you can think about is that deadly sip taken back in Nuvia.

When you look up from the drink, Chan's eyes are already locked on you.

"I get why you're worried, but you can't live in fear forever. Those circumstances back then are very different from the ones we're in now."

"Are they?" you say. "Because this is just as strange of a place to me as that one was."

"Changbin knows these people, they're good people."

"Do you know them?"

Still staring at you, Chan gives a slight smirk then moves his hand towards the glass sitting on the table. He takes it, brings it to his lips, and easily gulps down a generous serving of the liquid inside without so much as a word about it.

"Have you thought about my offer?" he asks instead.

It is only natural that this topic of conversation might come up, and just as naturally, your thoughts drift to that brief time spent in the training facility with Minho. The sharp ends of his cat-like eyes, the strength exhibited through years of toning muscle, the feeling of his hand wrapped snugly around your throat…

And the pause given during a single, indecipherable shared moment.

"Of course I have, but it isn't as easy as just saying yes or no."

"Why not?"

Scoffing, you say, "Oh, I don't know. Maybe because your lieutenant is vibrating with unchecked power and privilege?"

Taking another sip, Chan nods. "I can't say that isn't true to some degree, but I'd like to believe things between the two of you are at least evening out a bit. At least, he doesn't complain to me about your being here nearly as much as he once did. I might even start thinking he's warming up to you."

Finally, you release the tension in your shoulders, let down your guard, and take a sip from the glowing drink sitting in front of you.

The taste is positively delightful, fruit with a hint of earthiness to it that rounds out the flavors at the tail end. You're glad to have tried it, even if doing so is only in an effort to buy you a little more time.

You should tell him. Be honest about what you have experienced when alone with Minho, but at the same time; what do you even say? How do you explain the oddities that have transpired, how do you conjure it up into something that makes any kind of sense to someone on the outside, when it doesn't even make sense to you?

"I don't know about that," you say, still struggling with indecisiveness on where to take this. Your mind is flooded with potential options, but by the time you run out of leeway, you can only land on the most pertinent response of all. "But yeah, I'm gonna join the crew. I want to stay with you all."

Chan's face lights up at that, though his attention is immediately torn away and towards something going on behind you. Thankfully, his face remains elated, so at least you don't have to make for your gun.

"Have you two been here the whole time?" you hear Hyunjin say from behind you, and before you have the chance to look, Minho takes it upon himself to move right to your side.

"Had better things to do than galavant through the city," Chan says. "Besides, Seungmin had more than enough help getting his things in order."

Minho is watching, and you do everything in your power to ignore that fact.

"The good news is that I've finally talked her into officially joining the crew! You've arrived with perfect timing, she just informed me of her decision to do so."

From your other side, you feel the weight of Hyunjin happily draping himself over your shoulders and pulling you into a congratulatory embrace. It feels warm, welcoming; everything one might hope to receive upon the declaration of such news. However, the dark cloud of something unspoken still remains from your other side, and it reigns so heavily that the joy is muted—dampened with a dissatisfied haze.

"Cheers to me," you say, awkwardly raising your glass. 

As the evening falls darker upon Gala Lunas, the city itself brightens just that much more with life.

Beautiful gowns glow, hair pieces of glittering jewels and small, shimmering lights adorning the intricately woven hair of the passersby as you watch from one of the lodge's downstairs windows.

For a short moment, you wonder if you could make a life for yourself in a place like this; if you're making the right choice in joining Chan's misfit crew, at all.

Nuvia is home, but you could just as easily move on from it. Your life as you have known it for the past two decades has been little more than street survival, honing your skills, and becoming the most skilled hunter that you can ever possibly be. For the most part, you feel as though you have reached this, and joining his crew could, in fact, give you the opportunity to branch out and reach more than previously conceived.

You think about the woman back in Vhara, your levva pair, and how hard she must have fought to find you. Why had you not known? Why had you not felt it just as she had? Why is it that nothing drew you to her in the same fashion she had been drawn to you?

Then, you think of Minho.

Obsession. The word comes to mind beyond your control, and now that you have been left alone with nothing more than your thoughts, you afford yourself the luxury of accepting something that you have spent a good portion of your time with them trying to ignore: Whatever feelings Minho is struggling with in relation to you are felt in regards to him, too.

The softness of his face at your fingertips lingers there as if you are still touching him, though you quickly work to shake the memory of it out of your head. 

Nothing good can come from this, but most of all, you need to learn more about the levva chemistry coursing through you.

Standing to your feet, you glance around at your surroundings. The lobby of the lodge has cleared out even more by now, far from being one of the hotspots of Gala Lunas nightlife. A single elderly man sits in the corner near the stairs with a fanciful coat that reflects his age; the fanciful adornments dull yet still buzzing with the insistence of life.

The weariness of a long day has begun to catch up, and sleep beckons you. Making your way down the barely lit hallway towards your room, your thoughts begin to wander again. You wonder where Chan is since having left with Minho and Hyunjin; where they've ended up, what company they may keep. The prickle of curiosity creeps up your skin thinking about your captain, thinking about the beautiful women that are so easily found in a city as stunning and affluent as this one.

But then you feel another sensation, and before you have the chance to turn and look behind you, your back is harshly shoved up against the dense cement wall.

Your head knocks against it, dizzying you. It takes you far too long to recognize the blade pressed up against your throat, as well as who it is that is holding it.

"Allow me to give you a piece of advice," the voice growls, and as your vision clears you're able to focus on the all too familiar sinister glint of Minho's eyes. "Leave Chan to handle his business."

"How did I know you were going to have something to say about that," you say, squirming uncomfortably beneath Minho's alarmingly strong hold. "We were just talking, not that it should be of any concern to you."

"The last thing he needs is some woman meddling in his plans, distracting him from the bigger picture. You may mean well, but—"

"That might be the nicest thing you've ever said to me. Am I growing on you?"

Pushing the blade firmer against your throat, Minho's eyes narrow even further into a hateful glare.

"I'm not playing with you. You're speaking rather flippantly for someone currently seated on the wrong end of a sharp knife."

"We've been over this, have we not?" you say, a playful curl settling into your lips. "You won't kill me, you can't do it. You don't have what it takes to get the job done, and if I didn't know any better then I might think…"

Raising your chin just slightly, your eyes cast down to his lips. Your voice lowers and you continue on to say, "You're jealous."

Minho does not respond, nor does he falter in his grip on you.

Growing tired of the theatrics, you lazily ply yourself out from under him with little fight given, and as you palm down your clothing and situation yourself more comfortably as a result of your freedom, you give an exceptionally bored sigh and say, "And here's my word of advice: Don't pull weapons on people you have no intention of actually following through on the killing with, especially when they have made it more than clear that whatever apprehensions you woefully carry with you, are not shared. You are not infallible, as has been demonstrated even by my own hand, don't push your luck." You shoot him a pointed glance, and then go on to add, "Especially when your own captain seems to have taken quite a liking to me."

"You're stupider than I thought if you think Chan will choose you over me."

"Might not want to put yourself in a position to find out."

You turn your back to Minho and continue on your way, only a few more steps until reaching your door. Without another word, you unlock it and make your way inside.

He does not follow.

Your wits are now fully with you, and your reaction time perfectly up to speed with what you have grown so used to. Jeongin's eyes widen when the distance between the two of you turns into almost nothing, but you lurch backwards just enough to avoid a nearly certain collision.

"What's the rush?" you ask, now chewing on the bite you've taken. You look him over once in an attempt to infer as much information as you can before he responds, but there's little given. Jeongin's attire is casual and a little tattered, no doubt a result of combat from the past yet kept for some reason or another. A keepsake, perhaps. "Is something happening, and should I know about it?"

"Nothing in particular is happening, no, but I've been sent on a mission," he says. His eyes narrow as he smiles rather mischievously, and that's all it takes for you to regret ever having asked. "To retrieve you."

"Me?" The face you make is nearly a twist of revulsion, an overreaction, surely. "Who could possibly be calling for me?"

"Minho!" Jeongin's voice is much too chipper for your liking. "He wants you to meet him down in the training quarters."

Not an overreaction, after all.

The two of you stand there in the quiet hallway surroundings for a long stretched moment, but when there is no indication of a joke being told you finally relent and say, "Are you sure he wants me? Minho said me, by name?"

"Yeah, I was just in there with him," Jeongin says, reaching towards the back of his shirt and pulling a much more torn up portion of it to the front. "Who else on this ship would have the audacity to do this?"

"Fair enough, I guess. Did he say anything else? Anything like… why he wants to see me?"

Shaking his head, Jeongin is quickly growing bored of the conversation as his attention on you begins to wane and drift past you down the hall. "No. Didn't ask."

Sitting on this information, you consider your options moving forward. Meeting Minho in another enclosed space is something you have been thoroughly warned about, though those warnings had come with the knowledge that at one point you were wholly incapable of physically defending yourself. Now, you are healthy, strong, and as far as you're concerned; perfectly able to put him in his place should you need to.

You should tell Chan about this before going, so that he knows where you are in the case of something going awry. Unfortunately, if something is to go awry, by the time anyone arrives it'll be too late.

But more than all of that is the deep and stubborn desire to find a way to navigate through Minho's paranoid, dangerous exterior and win his good favor without the help of anyone else in this crew.

"Okay," you say, shrugging all of those previous thoughts from you with a careless ease. "If I'm not back in an hour then I guess he killed me, or whatever."

Shooting you a look as if to call you dramatic without the words, Jeongin simply says, "He's not going to kill you," and finally considers himself relinquished from the incredibly dull conversation he has been roped into.

Standing in front of the door to the training facility, one of your hands rests lazily inside of your jacket pocket… caressing the handle of a small blade you've decided to keep there.

Thinking back to Jeongin's words, you tumble over them inside of your head. For the first time since boarding this ship you are not particularly scared of Minho. Close physical combat has always been a specialty of yours; knives, hand-to-hand, even when a shuffle comes to blows on the floor you're often the one that comes out on top. 

Inhaling slowly and deep, you wonder how easily you could snap his neck. If it were to come down to it. 

You've handled men bigger than him before, and without Hyunjin in the room beside him, the limiting x-factor is not a concern. Walking into this room puts you and Minho in close confines with little more at either of your aid than each of your clear cut physical capabilities—and truth be told, you fully trust that you can take him.

You slide the door open and immediately find the man that has invited you.

His dress is simple; black sweat pants and a fitted black t-shirt that hugs all of the curves of muscle you didn't know he had. It seems obvious now—of course he would be fit—but Minho tends to drape himself in layers to conceal his less dangerous secrets.

His taped fist lands a strong strike against a bag anchored to the floor, and though there is ample distance between you, his wits are perfectly with him. Minho stops, turns to look at you and says, "What took you so long?"

"Suppose you would expect me to drop whatever I'm doing to come at your behest, but as it would turn out, meeting you is pretty far down my current list of priorities."

"And what makes up the rest of that list?" he questions, though it sounds more like he is talking to himself. "Mulling about the ship, making small talk with the rest of the crew, distracting our captain… Anything I'm leaving out?"

"Eating your food," you say. "Maybe a nap, if I can manage to fit it into the schedule."

Turning fully to face you, Minho gives a slightly amused smile as if actually enjoying the banter taking place and begins to make his way towards you. From this angle, you can easily see the rest of the muscle lining his arms and chest, the veins protruding beneath his skin as a result of the arduous work he has put into maintaining his physique while down here. A hand runs through his disheveled black hair, and when he finally lands right in front of you, the light sheen of sweat glistening across his skin becomes chillingly evident.

But Minho's appearance is not something that is new to you. Your willingness to acknowledge it, however, is becoming so.

"Chan has informed me that he formally invited you to be a member of this crew. He also mentioned that you did not give him a response. From where I'm standing, if you want to join us then you need to earn it, because right now you bring nothing to the table."

Unsurprised by how quickly news travels between captain and lieutenant, you choose not to reply.

Your hand is still sitting inside of your pocket.

"Levva never dies, so long as there is blood pumping through your veins and oxygen in your lungs. Your pair being dead is an unfortunate outcome, but it does not strip you of what you are. It does, however, make you fairly useless to us as far as that is concerned."

"I was perfectly capable of being a problem long before this levva thing ever came to be. I've been bounty hunting for a decade; I know how to shoot, I know how to fight, and I know how to navigate less than ideal situations in a way that ensures everyone makes it out of there alive." Your eyes on him do not falter, and with a particularly sly raise of an eyebrow you add, "Perhaps you've noticed as much."

"I'd hardly call poisoning yourself so that another does not become poisoned, a skill," Minho says, "Especially given it was an accident. Regardless of the details, I asked you to come down here to prove that which you claim. A lot of talking about what you've been capable of, but not a whole lot of showing it."

"I've been a bit preoccupied."

"Fine," he admits with ease, turning back towards the emptiness of the room. "But now you're not. So, show me."

You watch Minho make his way to the very center of the open area, where nothing else is besides himself and the plush of the mats underneath his feet. His resolve is firm, his eyes fiercely kept upon you as if unwilling to allow your exit from this place without first giving him that which he seeks. His demeanor seems calm, far less enraged by your presence than what you are typically used to seeing from him—you can't help but wonder why, and worry that you may have to find out.

But it is unreasonable to go into a sparring match with a jacket on, and Minho will not tear his eyes away from you long enough to move the blade from your pocket to elsewhere on your person. If you accept these terms you will have to do so without the luxury of a weapon. You once again look him over to assess whether or not you can kill him by hand.

Ultimately, you decide that you can.

Stripping the fabric from your shoulders, you discard it to the floor by the door and make your way down to meet him at the center of the room. Minho watches you all the while, never leaving his target for even a second. It's a little overwhelming, the weight he holds with nothing more than his gaze; manifesting disconcertingly all across your skin.

"Do you have a weapon?" you say, if for no other reason than it being a grave mistake not having done at least that.

A corner of his mouth tilts upwards, amused by it no doubt, but without a word, Minho's hands duck into the only two pockets of his pants and turn them inside out to show their emptiness.

"Do you?"

"Not anymore," you reply.

"Then come."

If not for the weeks of torment leading up to this moment, if not for all of the bitter words and careless threats lobbed your way by him so thoughtlessly, you might be more capable of slowing your assault. However, when the words fall from his mouth as easily as all of the rest always have, you are, for the first time, perfectly able to meet him precisely where he has been goading you to be met. You rush towards him, a hand tightly at one wrist as you duck beneath the intended onslaught of similarly aggressive blows to your head. Minho fails to make contact, and though you have him tightly in your grasp still, he is able to shuffle your bodies around so that it weakens ever so slightly.

The two of you break away from one another and stand in neutrality once again, though your stances tell a tale of something much different than what could be chalked up to anything neutral.

"You're quick," he says, "and strong. More so than I expected, I'll give you that."

"I don't need a pat on the back from you."

"I'm hardly giving you one. Since you've come around all I've seen you do is lay around and slowly die, you'll have to forgive me for my surprise."

You go to him again, the rush of adrenaline hot like lava underneath your skin. With a racing heart, you reach out to take hold of him again but he manages to pull away from it, and instead grasps you in a similar sort of way. Minho tries to strike at your head but you duck it—something he anticipates, because before you are able to get yourself away from him the fist finds a new opening against your ribs, and the follow-up is a knee slamming into your gut.

Rather than continuing, Minho roughly shoves you away from him and watches you clamour to get your bearings against the floor.

"Don't go easy on me."

Those words—words that sound absurd to you as they echo through your mind—having you gritting your teeth and slowly bringing yourself back up to your feet. You've been through worse; handled worse, survived worse, and though the pain feels new to you after so much of the time you have spent counting down the days until your certain demise, it is not unbearable. It's not enough to make you falter.

Pain rips through your side and stomach but you can't let it show. Instead, you swallow down the bile threatening at the back of your throat and huff out a laugh. 

"What makes you think I'd have any incentive to do that?"

"Because it's natural to us," Minho says. "You might not recognize it for what it is, but there's something intrinsic to us. Something that feels wrong when forced to inflict pain on our own kind. It's not unlike regular humans, if you really think about it."

"Is that why all those times you had a gun pointed to my head, you just couldn't manage to pull the trigger, after all?" Standing to your feet fully, you stretch your limbs and watch him. "It's not Chan, or anyone else. You can't bear the weight of having done so. You can't handle knowing. Even if you didn't know back then, you do now. You feel guilty for having done even that much."

Minho's jaw tightens, displeased by how much you are pressing him about the details of it and he says, "I'd get over it."

"Would you?" you say, once again making your way towards him. "Would you be able to live with yourself? Maybe all of this is just a whole hell of a lot of projection, after all."

This time Minho is the one to charge you first. He makes another play at taking you by the arm and rendering it useless but you manage to deflect it and instead grab hold of the one opposite. You twist, turning him so that his back is tight against your chest while your other hand reaches around to grip him roughly by the jaw. With him held like this, you know it's a weak move that he will quickly find his way out of, so instead of lingering it in until then, you dip your head just behind his ear and whisper, "Maybe we're not so alike, you and I."

You relent and relinquish him, knowing that he will soon get out of it anyway, but rather than returning to neutral as you expect, Minho rushes you in an instant and takes you down to the floor with little care to how either of you land. Having not anticipated the turn, the back of your head slams against the mat, and though it offers a mild plushness for impact, it does little to assuage the dizziness that shrouds your perception.

Trying to shake it off, you do your best to follow his movements but to no avail. Minho is on top of you; pinned down beneath his body, both wrists in one of his hands and the other tightly wrapped around your throat. He isn't choking you, but he could, and you are unsure if you can get out of this should he decide to do so.

All rookie mistakes. All mistakes that you would never make if you were out in the world, with your life at stake, against someone that you do not know. 

It's at that moment that you have no other option than to consider he is right.

Struggling to get out of his hands is useless, but rather than raining blows down upon you, Minho remains perfectly still and watches you silently from above. His chest heaves from the breaths his body is demanding, strands of black hair matted to his damp forehead as you stare at him from below and take in the sight of this. His eyes are narrow but thoughtful in a way that you can't quite comprehend—something is swimming behind them, but you don't dare ask what it could be.

Perhaps Minho is right, that the two of you bringing harm to one another is, in some ways, an ultimately fruitless endeavor. All of the anger in the world, the contention and the distrust cannot rewrite the chemical composition of who and what each of you are. 

You have killed one of your own—your own pair—an action taken to save him.

Looking up at him like this, in the tranquil calm of something that should not feel so, he appears almost innocent to you. The heat slowly dissipates from his features as he looks down at you, and over time, the grip at your wrists also loosens. 

Steadily, you pull a hand away from him and reach it up towards his face, the backs of your fingers gently ghosting against the sharp line of his jaw. Still, Minho does not move, almost as if rendered immobile by your touch. Speaking feels like a betrayal in a moment such as this, and thus, you dare not do so.

Your next action is a swift one, and before Minho has a chance to gather his bearings, you have thrown him off of you and to the side, jammed your fist into the still-healing wound at his shoulder, and scrambling back up to your feet as he writhes on the floor in pain.

Physical pain, and if you didn't think any better, another kind, as well.

Curled into himself, Minho turns his head back only enough to land his eyes on you. A hand clutching at a weakness that he certainly regrets having forgotten about.

"Don't let your guard down so easily," you say, a shake to your voice that you hope travels inaudibly towards the ground. "I've killed one of you before, don't think I can't do it again."

Your footsteps towards the door become more hurried and urgent the closer you get to it, and as you messily collect your belongings from the floor, the racing of your heart demands nothing less than the feeling of needing to escape.

Not from danger, but something else that you are far less equipped for handling.

Hurling yourself through the hallway, your heartbeat slams inside of your chest, echoing in your ears and already you can feel the prickling of a headache threatening at your temples. You can't help but look back towards that cursed doorway, unsure of what you hope to find. The emptiness of the otherwise abandoned space, or the face of a man that still lingers in your incredibly recent memory.

Nothing awaits you there, but before you have a chance to sort through your emotions in regards to that, your body abruptly meets a stiff… something.

Stumbling back, you turn to face whatever has put an end to your fleeing, only to find Seungmin waiting there in equal surprise.

"In a hurry?" he says, gently reaching towards you as if you have fallen. "Can't imagine there's anywhere worth going with that kind of vigor to your step. Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine," you say, wiping yourself down with your palms and straightening your jacket. It is a feigned calmness, an act you are putting on in hopes that Seungmin will be too disinterested to press much further on the matter. "Everything is fine, I was just on my way back to my room. Finished my workout."

Glancing past you and down towards the training facility, Seungmin slowly straightens his posture and locks his sights on you again. At first, he says nothing, which indicates a sort of uncertainty in your words as far as you can tell. This isn't a topic you wish to be pushed on, and all you can do is pray that he somehow picks up on that fact.

As if having read your mind, full of chanting pleas, Seungmin squints at you for just a second but ultimately only says, "We'll be landing soon—within the day, actually. A detour has sprung up and Chan says we're in perfectly good placement for it."

Thank fuck. "Already? We only just left Vhara. Can't say I'm all that excited about venturing out into another city with who-knows-what waiting for us."

"Your apprehension is understandable, of course, but unfortunately; you are the reason we have to detour, at all." Seungmin must see the evident shock sprawled across your face, because he chuckles at the sight of it and then says, "I exhausted a lot of my resources aboard this ship to keep you alive for as long as I did. We're going to need to replenish that stash as soon as possible… and well before something else could go wrong."

A wash of guilt blankets over you, though you do your best not to dwell in it. There is nothing in Seungmin's demeanor to suggest that he feels negatively towards you for what has been required of him.

You cannot help but roll your eyes regardless. "And let me guess," you say, "It's a very safe city, absolutely nothing to worry about."

"I see you have also grown tired of hearing the same rhetoric from our captain."

"What can I say? I'm beginning to lose trust in his idea of what 'safe' might entail."

Smiling, Seungmin nods for you to follow him along his way.

"If it means anything coming from me, he might be right this time. We're staying the night at a lodge, Changbin knows the owner there. He used to spend a lot of time here before he was picked up by us, so suppose I trust his opinion on the matter far more than Chan's."

"If that's the case, then my concerns are moderately assuaged."

Gala Lunas is opulent and strikingly illuminated, and though you have heard of it in passing before, Changbin takes it upon himself to catch you up on the perks of what he considers to be his second home.

As the crew makes their way into the welcoming streets of the city, you keep your guard up for any eyes that may be lingering in curiosity. The women saunter through the streets in gowns lined with what appears to the eye as a phosphorescent glow; greens, blues, pinks and purples floating through the alleys like beautiful lightbulbs one is meant to follow. Often matched by an equally impressive and well kept partner hanging at their side.

"Aside from the visual grandiosity of it all, it's a fairly boring city," Changbin goes on to explain. "There's a lot of money here, but it's mostly an entertainment capital. The arts are distinguished here, differences and self-expression are celebrated in ways that are often stamped out by overarching government systems in other cities, like the Biodome. As a result, the tourist economy is always booming."

"So, why do you like it here so much?" 

"Well, because people mind their business, mostly. Not to mention, I have a rather large list of clientele who are interested in cosmetic cybernetic enhancements, and they don't mind paying the rather high premium I demand." Glancing towards you, something sly sits on his face and he says, "If you see anyone with a pretty little glow behind their eye, that's the handiwork of yours truly."

You issue an accepting nod. "I can only hope this trip goes as well as you seem to believe it will."

Changbin nudges you playfully and says, "What do you have to worry about? You can handle yourself just fine nowadays, isn't that right?"

"I'm sure she'd rather not have to."

Cutting into your conversation, Chan hangs back just enough to edge his way between the two of you. He continues on to say, "You'll have to forgive me for the last time eventually, I was not aware that you were harboring such pertinent secrets."

"Neither was I!" you snap.

"Say, most of the guys are going to head off with Seungmin to help him carry all of the cargo he's going to have to bring back to the ship, what do you say we head to the lodge and grab ourselves a dinner and drink?"

Heat rushes to your face, the boldness of Chan to ask you this in front of Changbin giving you immense pause. Looking past Chan and towards Changbin, he stifles a humored laugh and instead stares up and away—towards the sky.

"Um, yeah, sure… that sounds nice."

"Great!" Chan says, "It's a date."

You don't dare look at Changbin again, afraid of the humiliation that undoubtedly awaits you there.

Lucky Dog is quiet at this time of the night.

By this time of day, the majority of people checking in for their rooms have already done so, yet it is still too early for the allure of a bustling nightlife to truly begin blooming. The small restaurant area is nice enough without being over the top; clean floors, polished tabletops and a handful of staff happy to accommodate any incoming request.

For once, it would seem that Chan had been right.

"So," he says, "What do you reckon?"

"In what way?"

"Gala Lunas, of course."

You haven't seen enough of the city to make a judgement either way, but this is one thing about it that stands out above all the rest. "I like that we haven't been ambushed, so I suppose that's a win."

"The night's still young."

As you shoot him a displeased look, one of the wait staff makes their way over to deliver a round of drinks that neither of you have ordered.

Like most things in Gala Lunas, they glow as if harboring some kind of life. Shades of golds and reds swirl around each other inside of the glass, both clashing, colliding and mixing together to create new colors right before your very eye. It looks as though dawn is manifested behind the bar.

Yet all you can think about is that deadly sip taken back in Nuvia.

When you look up from the drink, Chan's eyes are already locked on you.

"I get why you're worried, but you can't live in fear forever. Those circumstances back then are very different from the ones we're in now."

"Are they?" you say. "Because this is just as strange of a place to me as that one was."

"Changbin knows these people, they're good people."

"Do you know them?"

Still staring at you, Chan gives a slight smirk then moves his hand towards the glass sitting on the table. He takes it, brings it to his lips, and easily gulps down a generous serving of the liquid inside without so much as a word about it.

"Have you thought about my offer?" he asks instead.

It is only natural that this topic of conversation might come up, and just as naturally, your thoughts drift to that brief time spent in the training facility with Minho. The sharp ends of his cat-like eyes, the strength exhibited through years of toning muscle, the feeling of his hand wrapped snugly around your throat…

And the pause given during a single, indecipherable shared moment.

"Of course I have, but it isn't as easy as just saying yes or no."

"Why not?"

Scoffing, you say, "Oh, I don't know. Maybe because your lieutenant is vibrating with unchecked power and privilege?"

Taking another sip, Chan nods. "I can't say that isn't true to some degree, but I'd like to believe things between the two of you are at least evening out a bit. At least, he doesn't complain to me about your being here nearly as much as he once did. I might even start thinking he's warming up to you."

Finally, you release the tension in your shoulders, let down your guard, and take a sip from the glowing drink sitting in front of you.

The taste is positively delightful, fruit with a hint of earthiness to it that rounds out the flavors at the tail end. You're glad to have tried it, even if doing so is only in an effort to buy you a little more time.

You should tell him. Be honest about what you have experienced when alone with Minho, but at the same time; what do you even say? How do you explain the oddities that have transpired, how do you conjure it up into something that makes any kind of sense to someone on the outside, when it doesn't even make sense to you?

"I don't know about that," you say, still struggling with indecisiveness on where to take this. Your mind is flooded with potential options, but by the time you run out of leeway, you can only land on the most pertinent response of all. "But yeah, I'm gonna join the crew. I want to stay with you all."

Chan's face lights up at that, though his attention is immediately torn away and towards something going on behind you. Thankfully, his face remains elated, so at least you don't have to make for your gun.

"Have you two been here the whole time?" you hear Hyunjin say from behind you, and before you have the chance to look, Minho takes it upon himself to move right to your side.

"Had better things to do than galavant through the city," Chan says. "Besides, Seungmin had more than enough help getting his things in order."

Minho is watching, and you do everything in your power to ignore that fact.

"The good news is that I've finally talked her into officially joining the crew! You've arrived with perfect timing, she just informed me of her decision to do so."

From your other side, you feel the weight of Hyunjin happily draping himself over your shoulders and pulling you into a congratulatory embrace. It feels warm, welcoming; everything one might hope to receive upon the declaration of such news. However, the dark cloud of something unspoken still remains from your other side, and it reigns so heavily that the joy is muted—dampened with a dissatisfied haze.

"Cheers to me," you say, awkwardly raising your glass. 

As the evening falls darker upon Gala Lunas, the city itself brightens just that much more with life.

Beautiful gowns glow, hair pieces of glittering jewels and small, shimmering lights adorning the intricately woven hair of the passersby as you watch from one of the lodge's downstairs windows.

For a short moment, you wonder if you could make a life for yourself in a place like this; if you're making the right choice in joining Chan's misfit crew, at all.

Nuvia is home, but you could just as easily move on from it. Your life as you have known it for the past two decades has been little more than street survival, honing your skills, and becoming the most skilled hunter that you can ever possibly be. For the most part, you feel as though you have reached this, and joining his crew could, in fact, give you the opportunity to branch out and reach more than previously conceived.

You think about the woman back in Vhara, your levva pair, and how hard she must have fought to find you. Why had you not known? Why had you not felt it just as she had? Why is it that nothing drew you to her in the same fashion she had been drawn to you?

Then, you think of Minho.

Obsession. The word comes to mind beyond your control, and now that you have been left alone with nothing more than your thoughts, you afford yourself the luxury of accepting something that you have spent a good portion of your time with them trying to ignore: Whatever feelings Minho is struggling with in relation to you are felt in regards to him, too.

The softness of his face at your fingertips lingers there as if you are still touching him, though you quickly work to shake the memory of it out of your head. 

Nothing good can come from this, but most of all, you need to learn more about the levva chemistry coursing through you.

Standing to your feet, you glance around at your surroundings. The lobby of the lodge has cleared out even more by now, far from being one of the hotspots of Gala Lunas nightlife. A single elderly man sits in the corner near the stairs with a fanciful coat that reflects his age; the fanciful adornments dull yet still buzzing with the insistence of life.

The weariness of a long day has begun to catch up, and sleep beckons you. Making your way down the barely lit hallway towards your room, your thoughts begin to wander again. You wonder where Chan is since having left with Minho and Hyunjin; where they've ended up, what company they may keep. The prickle of curiosity creeps up your skin thinking about your captain, thinking about the beautiful women that are so easily found in a city as stunning and affluent as this one.

But then you feel another sensation, and before you have the chance to turn and look behind you, your back is harshly shoved up against the dense cement wall.

Your head knocks against it, dizzying you. It takes you far too long to recognize the blade pressed up against your throat, as well as who it is that is holding it.

"Allow me to give you a piece of advice," the voice growls, and as your vision clears you're able to focus on the all too familiar sinister glint of Minho's eyes. "Leave Chan to handle his business."

"How did I know you were going to have something to say about that," you say, squirming uncomfortably beneath Minho's alarmingly strong hold. "We were just talking, not that it should be of any concern to you."

"The last thing he needs is some woman meddling in his plans, distracting him from the bigger picture. You may mean well, but—"

"That might be the nicest thing you've ever said to me. Am I growing on you?"

Pushing the blade firmer against your throat, Minho's eyes narrow even further into a hateful glare.

"I'm not playing with you. You're speaking rather flippantly for someone currently seated on the wrong end of a sharp knife."

"We've been over this, have we not?" you say, a playful curl settling into your lips. "You won't kill me, you can't do it. You don't have what it takes to get the job done, and if I didn't know any better then I might think…"

Raising your chin just slightly, your eyes cast down to his lips. Your voice lowers and you continue on to say, "You're jealous."

Minho does not respond, nor does he falter in his grip on you.

Growing tired of the theatrics, you lazily ply yourself out from under him with little fight given, and as you palm down your clothing and situation yourself more comfortably as a result of your freedom, you give an exceptionally bored sigh and say, "And here's my word of advice: Don't pull weapons on people you have no intention of actually following through on the killing with, especially when they have made it more than clear that whatever apprehensions you woefully carry with you, are not shared. You are not infallible, as has been demonstrated even by my own hand, don't push your luck." You shoot him a pointed glance, and then go on to add, "Especially when your own captain seems to have taken quite a liking to me."

"You're stupider than I thought if you think Chan will choose you over me."

"Might not want to put yourself in a position to find out."

You turn your back to Minho and continue on your way, only a few more steps until reaching your door. Without another word, you unlock it and make your way inside.

He does not follow.