#assassin reader

The call came in just past midnight.

A group of traffickers had been cornered by the GCPD, but instead of surrendering, they chose to barricade themselves in an abandoned warehouse at the edge of Gotham’s docks, using the taken children huddled inside as hostages. They were demanding cash, safe passage, the usual script. But Batman didn’t waste time on negotiations. The Batfamily was already moving before Gordon’s voice had even finished explaining the situation on the comms.

Yet, by the time the Batmobile growled to a halt, the situation had unknowingly shifted. The docks were unsurprisingly already swarming with flashing lights, patrol cars hemming in the warehouse. Red-and-blue strobes bled across the black water, painting the rusted steel with harsh colour. Uniformed officers ringed the perimeter in uneasy lines, their voices low as they shifted uncertainly, not quite sure what they’d stumbled into.

Nightwing and Red Hood swept left, Batgirl and Robin broke right, while Batman cut straight down the middle, towards the officer who seemed to be temporarily in charge.

The man straightened instinctively at the sight of the Dark Knight and his bats. Batman’s cape swept behind him as he cut through the crowd of uniforms.  His eyes flicked and then narrowed at the warehouse doors, where officers moved in and out with uneasy haste, their faces pale beneath the harsh strobing lights.

“Report,” he ordered, his voice low, gravel edged with iron.

The weary-looking officer cleared his throat, tugging at his collar before answering. “It’s the damnedest thing. We had the call about hostages, but when we got here… it was already over.”  He nodded over toward the opening doors. “The kids were shaken, but not a scratch on them. As for the perps—” He swallowed, eyes darting briefly toward the blood-slick concrete. “Whoever hit 'em, hit 'em hard. No one survived.”

Batman stilled, jaw set like stone. “Who?”

“That’s just it,” the cop muttered. “The children said someone came in… dealt with it all before backup could arrive. They said she was dressed in black and the reporting officers mentioned hearing screams—we thought it might be one of your…” His words faltered as the whites of Batman’s eye lenses narrowed, silencing the implication.

The officer swallowed, shifting uneasily on his feet. Around them, other uniforms busied themselves with ushering the children toward ambulances, wrapping them in blankets and murmuring hollow reassurances. Yet even as they worked, their eyes kept drifting back to the warehouse, to whatever horror they had glimpsed inside.

“Thermal confirms it.” Oracle stated, her voice crackling through the line. “No active signatures inside besides the kids and responding officers. Whoever it was, is already gone.”

Batman’s gaze slid toward the opening doors, and in the next heartbeat the family followed his line of sight.

The scene beyond was a study in violence. The traffickers were scattered like discarded dolls—slumped over crates, sprawled across the floor in contorted heaps, a few still clutching weapons in hands stiff with death, as if that could’ve saved them. Their throats had been slashed opened, their chests punctured cleanly, and their eyes stared wide, glassy at the ceiling.

Blood streaked the concrete in dark, glistening trails beneath the harsh industrial lights.

Red Hood gave a low, almost impressed whistle. “Damn.”

Nightwing’s gaze swept back towards the carnage, his brow furrowed as he sifted through possibilities. “Is this anyone we know?” he asked aloud, running down the mental list of vigilantes with darker morals, of villains who might spare children but none of the gallery was ever this clean yet brutal. None of the evidence or method seemed to fit with any of the usual suspects. 

The officer cleared his throat, drawing back their attention. He hesitated under the collective weight of their stares before turning to the youngest among them. Slowly, he extended his palm. “One of the kids wouldn’t let go of this,” he explained. “Said it was for Robin.”

A gold chain gleamed in the officer’s hand. A very familiar delicate crest at the end of the chain caught the light, the emerald glinting at him. All at once, every masked gaze turned toward Damian.

Damian stiffened. The world tunnelled, his focus narrowing to the emblem resting in the cop’s palm. Without a word, he snatched it up, his fist closing around the necklace protectively.

Batman’s gaze looked to his youngest, clearly waiting for an explanation. One, that Damian had no intention of giving. Before the question could come, the officer turned back toward Batman, fumbling through his report. And in that split-second of distraction, Robin was already gone.

By the time Bruce glanced back, the boy had vanished from his side. 

Damian’s boots struck the wall in a blur of movement, already vaulting up the side of the warehouse. He knew exactly where you would be.

Your back was turned to him, your silhouette framed against the lights below. From the rooftop you watched in silence as officers ushered the children out of the warehouse, wrapping them in blankets and guiding them toward waiting ambulances. You didn’t move at his approach, though he knew you had sensed him the moment he landed. Your body remained relaxed.

“You seemed to have forgot something,” He spoke up, coming up behind you. He lifted the chain and gently fastened it back around your neck.

You let out a hum, leaning back against the solid line of his body. His hands found your waist without hesitation. “I knew you would return it. And how,” you tilted your head just enough for your lips to curve against his jawline, “could I resist stealing a moment with you?”

Your lashes fluttered as you felt him bow his head, his mouth pressing a kiss along the curve of your neck.

“If you missed me, habibti,” he murmured against your skin, his breath warm in your ear, “you should’ve just called.”

You turned in his arms, winding yours around his neck as your fingers toyed idly with the short strands of hair at the nape of his neck. His gaze softened as he looked down at you, and your voice lowered to match his. 

“This way is so much more efficient,” you purred. “Now I can see you… and do something good for the city you love so much.”

His expression eased further as he lifted a hand to cup your cheek. “You shouldn’t have taken the risk,” he murmured, his thumb lingered against your skin as if he couldn’t bear to stop touching you.

He yearned to tug away the mask, to drink in the sight of your eyes—eyes he loved more than he would ever confess aloud. But for now, he was content simply to have you here, pressed close, and in his arms.

Your lips curved faintly, a sigh of quiet contentment slipping past them beneath his touch. “And yet,” you teased softly, “you still worry.”

His mouth tightened, the softness he reserved for you warring with the steel in his voice. “I don’t worry about your skill. I worry about my father who would rather see you behind bars than admit you saved lives tonight.”

You leaned into his palm. “And you? Would you condemn me for my actions, my love?”

His hand slid from your cheek to the back of your neck, drawing you closer until your foreheads met. “Never,” he breathed. “I would follow you into any shadow. I would cut down anyone who dared to try and stand in your way.”

“You know I would never ask you to turn on your family,” you murmured.

His other hand tightened at your waist, possessively. “You are mine,” he breathed without hesitation. “Always mine. I don’t care who it is—anyone who tries to take you from me will face my wrath.”

You nearly melted at the words. You were one of the most feared assassins in the world and Damian was dangerous in his own right, but here—on this rooftop, away from everyone else—you let yourself be soft for him. The same hands that brutally ended over hundreds of lives touched him now with reverent gentleness; your thumb traced the sharp line of his cheekbone as if you hadn’t already committed every part of him to memory.

The kiss that followed was unhurried and savouring, his devotion laid bare in the press of his lips against yours. For a fleeting, holy instant the city and its sirens fell away; there was nothing but the heat of him. The kiss deepened, your fingers fisted the fabric of his uniform, feeling the steady drum of his heart beneath the Kevlar.

His grip at your waist tightened, tugging you so close there was no space left between you two.

But the moment shattered with the sound of boots on gravel.

“Damian.” The low growl of Batman’s voice cut through the night like a whip.

You drew back just enough to glance over to the sight of rest of the Bats having joined the two of you on the rooftop, silhouetted against the city skyline. Despite Batman’s cowl, his disapproval of the two of you was clear.

Nightwing’s expression was strained, not quite condemning but caught somewhere between concern and reluctant understanding. Red Hood leaned back on his heels, arms folded, his stance casual and lacking the judgment the big bat carried. Red Robin, however, was tense, his eyes flicking uneasily between Damian and Bruce as though bracing for the inevitable clash.

Damian’s jaw hardened. Rather than retreat, he drew you closer, sliding an arm fully around your waist until your body was pressed to his side, glaring defiantly at his father.

“She saved the children,” he snapped, daring anyone to deny it. “Judge her methods if you must, but those children are alive because of her. No one else.”

“She murdered those men.” Batman growled. “She’s a killer.”

“Those men were the scum of the earth,” you hissed. “They would have done worse to those children if given the chance—and now they won’t get the chance at all.” You started forward, but Damian’s arm curled firmly around you, pulling you back as he stepped in front of you, his body a shield.

“You know as well as I do,” Damian shot back, his voice cold with fury, “you’ve let villains worse than her walk free. You condemn her because of me.”

“She’s not good for you, Damian,” Batman argued.

Damian’s jaw clenched, his arm locking tighter around your waist, enough that you might have marks later on. “You don’t decide that,” he bit out. “You never have. You never will.”

“She is an assassin. A killer who murders for money,” Bruce snapped, his voice like gravel. “She will only drag you down with her.”

“I choose her,” Damian shot back, his voice sharp with conviction, his green eyes blazing with defiance. “I choose her knowing exactly who she is. I know her code, her honour, her truth. She is no worse than you, Father—only more honest.”

Your hand rose, pressing lightly against his chest, a silent reminder for him to breathe. But the storm in him would not be tempered.

They didn’t know you the way he did. Yes, you killed—but only the worst of the worst. You had saved countless people, countless children, from lives of torment and abuse. Every stain of red on your hands belonged to someone who had earned it, someone who deserved nothing less.

“Look at yourself,” Bruce pressed, his tone deepening, harder now. “You’re protecting her like she’s worth more than everything we stand for.”

“She is worth more!” Damian’s shout cracked through the rooftop, startling even Nightwing. His voice rang with fire. “She is worth more than your endless war, more than your half-measures and excuses. She does what you won’t. She saves people—even if it stains her hands. And I will never apologize for standing with her.”

For a long moment, there was only silence. Father and son stood locked in place, glaring at one another, neither willing to yield an inch.

The standoff was broken by a low, humourless laugh. “You know, he’s not wrong, B.” Jason spoke up, his helmet tilting as his arms folding over his chest. “She’s not the problem here. Your system is. How many times have we dragged psychopaths back to Arkham just so they can kill again the next week? She’s no different than me. Hell, I’d say she’s better. And I guarantee you, she’s not worse than Talia.”

Batman’s head snapped toward Jason, the weight of his glare enough to silence most men. Jason barely flinched. He had long since grown used to Bruce’s disapproval—especially on this subject—and by now, he was immune to it.

From over Damian’s shoulder, your gaze found the whites of Red Hood’s eye lenses. You gave him a small nod of gratitude, and to your surprise, he returned it without hesitation.

Damian had spoken often of his family. When it came to Jason, his words to describe him usually included reckless imbecile, impulsive, infuriating. Yet in this moment, you were grateful that at least one of Damian’s brothers stood openly at your side.

Because what you had told Damian was true. Despite everything, you understood how much his family meant to him. You didn’t want to be the reason he was forced to choose.

To your surprise, Nightwing stepped forward next.  “B,” he said quietly, “the kids downstairs are alive because of her. That’s the part you’re ignoring.” His gaze flicked between you and Damian, his voice gentling. “I don’t like the blood, and I don’t condone it… but if Damian’s defending her, maybe that says more about who she is than you think. If Damian trusts her we should give her a chance.”

“Bruce…” Oracles voice cut in through the comms, “Dick’s right, she saved those kids, I’ve pulled files on the men she killed. Trust me, you won’t be losing sleep over them.”

Bruce’s mouth opened, but another voice cut in.

Red Robin.

“I’ve been watching her patterns for months,” he admitted, his tone reluctant but steady. Damian’s eyes narrowed at the revelation, though not with surprise—Drake was far too nosy for his own good. Still, the knowledge that Tim had been aware of your existence—and his relationship with you—wouldn’t go unanswered. Damian would see to that later.

“She’s not indiscriminate,” Tim continued, his gaze sharp as he studied you. “No innocents. No children. It’s not justice the way you’d choose, but it isn’t chaos either.” He exhaled slowly, then looked to Damian. “And he’s right. She’s done more than you realize—toppled criminal empires, dismantled syndicates, saved thousands of lives. She doesn’t kill for greed or pleasure, B.”

Damian’s chin lifted, his glare sweeping over his brothers before landing squarely back on his father. But he wasn’t alone, all his brothers were on his side, on your side.

Jason smirked, his hands resting casually on the butts of his pistols. “Face it, old man. The kid’s got a point. Let the baby bat have his girlfriend. She’s not worse than any of yours.”

A soft laugh slipped past you before you could catch it, muffled against your hand. The nickname drew an instant bristle from Damian. But for once, he let it go and swallowed the retort burning on his tongue. Jason was taking his side and that mattered more than pride.

Dick sighed, folding his arms across his chest as his gaze shifted from Bruce to Damian. “And for once,” he said evenly, “we all agree with him.”

Tim gave the smallest nod. “She’s not the enemy, B.”

Bruce’s jaw worked beneath the cowl, unreadable in the dark. It was clear anything more disapproval would be pointless and only serve to push Damian away.

Damian stood with you tucked to his side, unyielding, his voice quiet but absolute. “She is mine. And I will not let you take her from me.”

For a long moment, Bruce didn’t move. Then his shoulders sagged beneath the armour, the smallest crack in his implacable façade. He gave a single, stiff nod. When he spoke again, his words were directed not at his son, but at you.

“If you hurt him—”

“—Then I won’t fight you when you come to lock me away,” you finished for him, your tone steady. “But that would never happen. I love your son.”

Bruce held your gaze, the whites of his mask narrowing. “No more killing in my city,” he said at last, his voice rough with command. “I don’t care what code you follow—here in Gotham, you follow mine.”

Displeasure flickered across your features, sharp as the steel you carried. But then your gaze shifted to Damian who looked ready to fight his father, and the fire in you softened. For him, you would do anything. You exhaled, resigned, and gave a reluctant nod. “Fair enough. Your city, your rules.”

Bruce answered with another stiff nod. That was all he could offer—for as much as he might hate it, he understood you, and he understood Damian. And knowing this was a battle he could not win, he turned away and left.

Nightwing lingered for a moment longer, his expression gentler than before. “Bring her for dinner one night,” he said quietly. “I think we’d all… like to get to know her under better circumstances.”

Damian only gave a stiff nod, and with that, his brothers followed Bruce into the shadows.

A sigh slipped past Damian’s lips as he turned back to you, the hardness finally bleeding from his expression now that it was only the two of you again. His thumb brushed across your cheek tenderly. “He may never make it easy,” he murmured, his voice softer now, even as he spoke of his father. “But he cannot choose who I give my heart to.”

“I may always be death to him,” you said quietly, your tone edged with truth.

Damian shook his head, drawing you closer until your foreheads touched. “But you will always be life to me,” he whispered, You wished you could see his emerald eyes as his breath ghosted across your lips, the single word falling from him like a vow. “Umri.” Then he closed the distance, capturing your mouth in another kiss.

“Dinner with my family will be unbearable,” he muttered when he finally pulled back, the faintest smirk tugging at his mouth. “But for you, habibti, I’ll endure it.”

You chuckled softly, brushing your nose against his. “Then I’ll make it worth your while.”

As much as you hated to leave him, you couldn’t linger. The night wasn’t over yet, and Gotham still needed its Robin. “Until next time, my love.”

With one last lingering kiss, you stepped away, vanishing into the night as if you had never been there at all.

Translations

Habibti — My beloved / My love / Darling 

You turned.

The man was lanky, twitchy. Bad teeth. Knife in hand, eyes jittery with something chemical. “Wallet. Now.”

You blinked. Then sighed, pulling out a crisp hundred-dollar bill from your clutch and holding it out.

“Here.”

He stared. “The hell is this?”

“A hundred,” you said. “I don’t carry a wallet. Too bulky. You can buy three pizzas, get high, maybe even tip someone.”

The mugger hesitated. Then lunged for your bag anyway—fumbling, pulling, his fingers catching on your necklace.

Snap.

Pearls scattered like gunfire on the wet cement. They bounced and rolled, luminous little ghosts vanishing into storm drains.

You stared down at them, unimpressed. “Aw, man. I just bought that. Now I can’t pretend I’m Daisy Buchanan anymore.”

The mugger growled, “Are you serious?”

“I’m trying to be.”

“HEY!”

The voice hit like thunder—deep, familiar, jagged with fury.

From the shadows above, a shape descended. Not just a shape—a myth.

Batman.

Cape snapping behind him, boots hitting ground like judgment day. The mugger didn’t even get to scream before he was disarmed and flat on his back, out cold with a single blow.

You folded your arms. “Wow. He wasn’t even that good.”

Batman turned to you. Stopped.

And stared.

It wasn’t the pearls. It wasn’t the alley. It wasn’t even the crime.

It was you.

You looked like a ghost—Martha’s ghost.

Same eyes. Same bone structure. Same pearls—except, no, they were plastic, shattered, lost in puddles. But it didn’t matter. For one split second, Bruce Wayne was back in that alley. The one he never left.

And you—calm, perfectly dry despite the rain, blinking at him like he was the ghost—tilted your head.

“Uh… are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

He didn’t speak.

“Wait,” you frowned. “...Mr. Wayne?”

That made him flinch.

“Yeah,” you said, half-laughing. “Kinda obvious. I mean, the jawline. The brooding. All that justice.” You knelt to pick up one of the fake pearls. “You okay? You look like you’re gonna pass out.”

His throat worked, words caught there.

“I—You shouldn’t have been walking alone,” he finally said, voice rough like gravel. “Gotham’s not safe.”

You pocketed the pearl. “Tell me about it. I got mugged for the first time and lost my aesthetic in the same five seconds.”

A pause.

Then you smiled, too brightly for this haunted city. “Hey. Wanna walk me home? If you’re not too busy glowering.”

Batman—Bruce—nodded, slowly, still pale.

You didn’t see the way his fingers curled slightly when he looked at your hand.

You didn’t see the way his eyes followed each broken pearl like a funeral procession.

But you noticed the silence.

“…Do I remind you of someone?” you asked softly, as you walked together out of the alley.

He didn’t answer.

Didn’t need to.

The rain kept falling. But he stayed by your side the whole way home.

And when he finally disappeared into the dark, you whispered behind him, “Take care of yourself, Batman.”

Later, in the Batcave…

Dick: “Bruce? You okay? You look like death warmed over.”

Bruce: “…She looked just like her.”

Dick: half-joking “Martha?”

Bruce: silence

Dick: “…You’re not serious—wait. Wait. Was she wearing pearls?!”

Bruce: hollowly “They broke.”

Dick: “Oh my god.”

Your childhood home was more than just a house; it was a fortress built on secrets. To the outside world, it was an elegant picture of normalcy. It was a place where laughter echoed at the dinner table and birthdays were celebrated with cake and candles. But within its walls, a different kind of life unfolded. The house hummed with hushed conversations about blood and steel. Your family wasn't just respected; they were a storm on the horizon, feared by those who knew their true nature. They were assassins, strategists, and spymasters—people governments couldn't touch and enemies never saw coming.

Your training began before you could even comprehend what it meant. Your small hands were taught to hold a blade instead of a crayon. You learned where to strike to silence a body, how to read a lie in a fleeting expression, and how to move through light as if you were made of shadow. They didn't tell you to be cruel; they told you to survive. They taught you that every skill you gained wasn't for destruction but for protection—for keeping the family alive.

The most bewildering part of it all was that they loved you. The very hands that could end a life in an instant would gently ruffle your hair after a successful practice. The voices that were hardened by years of killing softened to remind you that you were their future, their greatest treasure. You would sit at a long dining table surrounded by people capable of unimaginable violence, and yet they would argue over who got to serve you dessert.

You never forgot what you were. Even as you hid behind thick glasses and a quiet smile at school, pretending to be just another timid child, you knew the truth. You were not like the others. You belonged to the shadows. You belonged to power. And you belonged to the family that had raised you with a lethal grace and an undeniable love. You understood, in a way most people never would, that your silence would be your sharpest weapon.

You grew up surrounded by a world of contradictions. To everyone else, your family's name was written in red—a mark of ruthless monsters in human skin. They were the people whispered to have toppled kingdoms, silenced politicians, and erased entire bloodlines without a trace. Their reputation was a shadow that traveled farther than they ever did. Yet, when you looked at them, you never saw killers.

You saw your father’s tired smile as he brewed tea every morning, humming old songs under his breath. You saw your mother’s hands, steady enough to end a life, gently braiding your hair so it wouldn't fall in your face during training. You saw old relatives who had left a trail of bodies behind them kneel to teach you chess, telling you that patience was a deadlier weapon than any blade. You never saw the crimson that clung to their names—you only saw the warmth, the quiet discipline, and the deep tenderness they reserved just for you.

Their work was deadly, yes, but it wasn't senseless. They drilled this lesson into you again and again. “We don’t kill for pleasure,” they would say. “We don’t kill for greed. We do what must be done.” As a child, you held on to that distinction with everything you had, for it was the only way to hold on to the love that filled your home without tainting it.

But the day came when training turned into reality. You were ten years old, small and thin, with a knife that felt too big in your hand. For years, they had prepared you, telling you that one day, you would have to step beyond the games of sparring and into something final. You didn't believe it until the night they sent you out, cloaked in black, with a name whispered in your ear.

He was a man with blood on his hands—someone who had betrayed your family, who had endangered them. That was all you were told. As you crept through the dark, your heart pounding like a drum against your ribs, you weren't thinking about his crimes. You were thinking about your family at home, waiting for you, trusting you.

The strike was clumsy, hesitant. Your hands trembled, but you heard your mother’s voice in your mind: Quick. Clean. Merciful. The man fell, and the weight of what you had done was heavier than his body. You thought you would be sick. You thought you would run away and never look back. But when you returned, blood still on your gloves, your family didn’t cheer. They didn’t smile. They looked at you with a quiet, somber pride, acknowledging the line you had just crossed.

That night, your father held you against his chest until you stopped shaking. He didn’t tell you that you had done well. He only said, "Now you understand. We carry the burden so others don’t have to."

From that point forward, you saw your family for what they truly were. Not just assassins, not just killers, but guardians of a brutal code. They were protectors who bore their own sins so that you—and others—could live free. To the rest of the world, they were feared. But to you, they were simply home.

After your first kill, the missions never stopped. They started small—shadowing a target through crowded streets, slipping notes into the right hands, listening from corners where no one would ever notice a child. Your shyness was your sharpest weapon. A girl with glasses who stuttered when she was spoken to wasn't seen as dangerous. She was invisible. She was forgettable. In your world, that made you lethal.

Your family knew better than to push you too fast. They sent you on tasks where a mistake could be forgiven. Deliveries. Reconnaissance. Distractions. At first, your hands shook. Your excuses stumbled, your voice cracking when you had to lie. But with each mission, you came home a little steadier. A little quieter. A little sharper.

As the years passed, they began to trust you with more. Poison slipped into a drink. A knife under the ribs in a crowded alley. Secrets stolen from locked rooms. You never looked like the best. That was your protection. You weren’t the loud, confident one who drew attention. You were the one they never suspected until it was too late.

By the time you were fifteen, whispers circled through the criminal underworld about a ghost who could pass through crowds unseen. About jobs so clean they felt like accidents. About people vanishing without a sound. No one ever imagined the "ghost" was a timid girl, nervously pushing her glasses up her nose while stuttering her way through small talk.

Your family praised you quietly, not with applause, but with nods, with soft words, with the way their eyes lingered on you as if they couldn’t believe how far you had come. You were still their child, their quiet girl who sat with hunched shoulders at the dinner table. But in the shadows, you had become something else entirely—one of their best.

And you carried both halves of yourself always. The silence of your everyday life, and the silence of your work. One was timid. One was deadly. Both were true. Both were you.

It happened so gradually that by the time you noticed, it was already too late to deny it. You weren't just another blade in your family's arsenal anymore. You had become the blade. The one people whispered about in back alleys. The one crime lords, politicians, and even governments tried to buy, borrow, or beg for. You were needed. Wanted. Feared.

At first, you didn’t believe it. You were still the quiet one, the girl who ducked her head, pushed her glasses up nervously, and let words stumble clumsily out of her mouth. But behind the masks and shadows of the underworld, your name had become a legend. A phantom. The girl who never missed. The girl who could take down entire networks without leaving a single fingerprint behind.

Your father was the first to notice. He had always been the family’s strongest assassin, the one others called when the impossible had to be done. But then you began taking missions he would have claimed for himself. You came back successful, clean, and flawless. For the first time in your life, you saw it: pride in his eyes that was tinged with something else—awe.

Your mother never stopped smiling at you, though her smile carried a quiet ache. She still saw the child she once braided ribbons into, even while the world now saw a force they couldn’t contain. She would kiss your forehead after missions, her voice low as she whispered, "You’ve surpassed us all, haven’t you?"

The others in the family reacted in their own ways. Some clapped you on the back, half-joking, half-serious, calling you the new “queen of shadows.” Others shook their heads in disbelief, unable to reconcile the timid girl at the dinner table with the unstoppable phantom she became. A few were jealous—how could they not be?—but even that couldn't hide the truth: you had risen above them all.

And yet, to you, it never felt like that. You still saw yourself as the shy one. You never strutted, never bragged. You kept your voice soft, your shoulders small, your presence hidden. Maybe that was what made it all the more terrifying to others—that someone so invisible, so seemingly harmless, could become the most dangerous weapon your family had ever forged.

At home, though, you weren't a weapon. You were still their child. They teased you, argued over who got to pour you tea, and fought for your attention as if you hadn't surpassed every one of them. To the world, you were a legend. To them, you were their little ghost with glasses—the one who had quietly, impossibly, become greater than them all.

Training now was nothing like training then.

Back then, you were a child, stumbling through drills with wooden blades while your cousins laughed. You’d fumble, your glasses sliding down your nose, cheeks flushed with embarrassment as you tried to keep up. You were a small, timid girl trying to survive among giants.

Now, years later, the roles had reversed. You moved faster than all of them. Your father's blade never touched you; your mother’s traps were disarmed with a quiet ease. Cousins, uncles, aunts—every spar ended the same way, with you standing calm and composed, glasses glinting in the low light, the others catching their breath. The little girl who once stuttered through lessons now surpassed the masters who had raised her.

And yet, even as you bested them, a part of you never fully belonged. You had learned to kill, to vanish, to carry blood on your hands without flinching—but a part of you ached for something beyond the shadows and contracts. You dreamed of the sea. Of freedom. Of an adventure not bound by bloodlines and whispered secrets.

Even as a child, your family noticed. They saw how your gaze lingered on maps longer than on knives. How your ears perked when sailors passed through town, spinning wild tales of the Grand Line, of islands with skies of fire or seas of glass. They saw how your fingers traced books about pirates with more reverence than the weapons you were given. You thought no one saw how you clutched those dreams close, folding them away like fragile secrets.

But your family always saw. They saw when you snuck to the highest point of the estate to stare at the horizon. They saw when you paused before missions, looking not at the path ahead, but at the sky above. They knew that your silence wasn't just the silence of an assassin; it was the silence of someone who wanted to speak a different language, live a different life.

They never stopped your training. They never tried to break that part of you. Instead, they carried it quietly, the same way they carried their pride and their sorrow. You became their best, their legend—but you also remained their child, the one with a piece of her heart tied to something they could never give her.

Perhaps that’s why, even as you grew sharper than all of them, they still softened around you. Because they knew: one day, the shadows wouldn't be enough. One day, the sea would call louder than their world ever could.

You were eighteen now. In the underworld, your real name had long since been buried. Your identity was a mask, and yours had become one of the most feared. The "Ghost." A name whispered in terror, a phantom assassin who left no trace, who wore silence like a second skin. You had carried it well, slipping in and out of shadows, accepting contracts that no one else dared to take. Entire organizations crumbled under your touch. Yet, outside of the job, you were still just you—the timid girl who lingered behind her glasses, soft-spoken, shoulders drawn inward.

The two halves of your life never touched—until the day they did.

You were in a port town, cloaked in anonymity, the job simple enough: follow a target, end him quickly, and vanish. A routine kill, one you could almost do with your eyes closed. But then you saw them. The Straw Hat Pirates.

They were so loud it was almost a physical presence. Bright, blazing people who didn't belong in the gray of your world. Luffy’s laughter rang across the marketplace, a sound that could shatter the careful silence you had woven around yourself. Nami’s sharp voice cut through the noise of bargaining merchants. Sanji spun in a ridiculous frenzy over a passing woman. Zoro’s scowl was so visible it was almost comical. Usopp’s hands waved wildly as he bragged. Robin smiled, calm but radiant. Franky flexed with no shame. Chopper skipped like a child, and Jinbei’s presence loomed, steady and warm.

They didn't blend in. They didn’t even try. And you couldn’t look away.

You froze mid-step, your mark slipping from your mind for the first time in years. They were everything you weren’t—unashamed, bold, and fiercely alive. They glowed like fire in the middle of your carefully woven shadows. And then, impossibly, they noticed you.

“Oi—what’s with you?” Luffy’s voice carried, sharp and curious, like a child who had just found something shiny. His wide eyes locked on you through the crowd. You startled, clutching the strap of your bag tighter, trying to melt into the people around you. But it was too late.

“She looks nervous,” Nami said, brows drawn, though her tone wasn't unkind.

“Suspicious, more like,” Zoro muttered, his gaze narrowing in your direction.

“Now, now,” Robin’s calm voice intervened, her smile strangely gentle. “She looks more lost than dangerous.”

You stammered as their eyes fell fully on you, words fumbling out before you could catch them. “I—I… n-no, it’s nothing, I’m just… passing through.” You ducked your head, a blush creeping up your face as if the simple act of being seen was a fire.

But Luffy didn’t let it go. He grinned, a wide, reckless grin that made your stomach twist. “You should come eat with us! You look hungry!”

“Luffy—!” Nami snapped, exasperated.

“What? She looks like she needs it!”

Sanji’s eyes softened in that over-the-top way of his, stars practically flashing around him. “Of course she does! A delicate flower like you shouldn’t be wandering around by yourself. Let me take you somewhere safe, mademoiselle—”

You stumbled back, words catching. “I-I’m fine, really—”

Chopper bounded forward anyway, curious and innocent. “Are you okay? Do you need a doctor?”

You didn’t understand it. People usually overlooked you. They didn’t pick you out of a crowd—they let you disappear. But here they were, every single one of them seeing you, speaking to you, pulling you into their blinding orbit. And for the first time in years, your mission slipped further from your grasp, drowned out by something louder than fear, sharper than shadows: wonder.

For just a heartbeat, standing there with their eyes on you, you felt what it might be like to step out of the darkness you had always belonged to.

You hesitated when Luffy called to you again, grinning like he’d already decided you were coming with them. For a moment, you almost followed. Almost. But the weight of your mission pressed against your chest like a knife—you couldn’t ignore it. Not yet.

“I… I’ll be right back,” you whispered, your voice so small that they probably thought you were too shy to commit. And before their attention could lock you down any further, you slipped into the crowd, letting the noise swallow you whole.

The target wasn’t hard to find. He was sloppy, loud, too sure of himself—men like him never saw the quiet ones coming. You followed him into a narrow street, the kind people avoided, and ended it quickly. Clean. Merciful. You wiped your blade, slipped your mask of timidity back on, and stepped out into the light as though nothing had happened.

And somehow, impossibly, they were still there waiting for you.

Luffy lit up like you’d returned from an adventure instead of a kill. “There you are! Let’s go eat!”

You blinked, startled. “…You… waited?”

“Of course,” he said simply, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

And just like that, you were swept into their current.

At first, you kept your head down at the table, hands folded in your lap while plates of food piled high. But it didn’t take long for their noise to pull you in. Usopp told wild stories that made Chopper gasp, and you found yourself hiding a smile behind your hand. Nami leaned close to whisper snide little comments that made you giggle quietly. Robin’s calm gaze lingered on you, thoughtful, but not unkind. Sanji kept trying to serve you extra portions—every time you stuttered a "th-thank you," his heart practically exploded. Franky demanded you rate his sunglasses compared to your own, flexing until you laughed despite yourself. Jinbei spoke to you softly, steady, making sure you weren’t overwhelmed. And Zoro, though suspicious at first, softened when you didn’t rise to his jabs—eventually offering you sake with a grunt that felt almost like acceptance.

Luffy, though… Luffy never stopped smiling at you. He asked questions with no hesitation, tugging you into the center of their chaos whether you wanted it or not. He didn’t care that you stuttered, that you pushed your glasses up nervously, or that your voice trembled. He treated you like you already belonged.

The strangest thing was, you didn’t feel out of place. Not for a second.

It was as if you had been a missing piece of their puzzle all along, sliding perfectly into their rhythm. You laughed more in that single day than you had in years, and for a little while, the weight of your world—the blood, the contracts, the ghost you were forced to be—faded away. For the first time, you weren’t "The Ghost." You weren't an assassin. You were just… you. And somehow, that was enough for them.

The night stretched soft and warm after dinner, lanterns glowing along the port town’s streets. You found yourself walking with them, your steps tucked into their rhythm without even meaning to. Luffy had been grinning all evening, but as the group slowed near the edge of the docks, he turned to you with that same unshakable brightness.

“Hey,” he said simply, “join my crew.”

The words hit you like a stone dropped into still water. Around him, the others reacted in their own ways. “She’d be useful,” Zoro admitted with a shrug.

“She would make a good navigator’s assistant—or a spy,” Nami said, her eyes softened like she was already imagining you with them.

“Of course she should join! She’s adorable!” Sanji swooned, kneeling dramatically.

“She fits,” Robin said, smiling knowingly.

Usopp and Chopper chattered excitedly about how you’d make them stronger, and Franky bellowed about how “SUPER” it’d be. Even Jinbei gave you a quiet nod, as though he’d seen something in you worth trusting.

And you? You stood frozen, hands twisting in your sleeves, heart pounding at the sheer audacity of it. To be invited, just like that. To belong.

“I… I’ll think about it,” you stammered, your voice softer than the night air. “If… if I decide to come, I’ll be here in the morning.”

Luffy just grinned wider, like he already knew your answer. “Okay!”

You parted ways with them soon after, walking alone through darkened streets. Every step toward your family’s estate felt heavier. Not with dread, but with something sharper—finality. When you entered, they were waiting. They always knew when you were gone, and when you returned. The room was quiet as your father looked up from his tea, your mother’s gaze steady on you.

“You’ve decided,” your father said, not asking, but knowing.

You swallowed hard, your voice trembling though your resolve didn’t. “I want to stop. The jobs, the killing… I don’t want this life anymore. I want to try something else. To see the sea. To be free.”

Silence stretched, heavy, but not hostile. Then your mother smiled faintly, her eyes wet with pride. “We always knew,” she whispered. “Even when you were small. Your heart was never meant to stay in shadows.”

Your father rose, crossing the room to place a firm, grounding hand on your shoulder. His gaze was steady, proud. “You’ve surpassed us all. We never raised you to be chained here—we raised you to be strong enough to choose.”

Around you, the rest of the family nodded. Some smiled, some looked wistful, but none were angry. None condemned you. Instead, they embraced you—offering soft words, blessings, promises that their doors would always remain open.

“Go,” your father said at last. “Find what you’re searching for. And know that wherever you sail, you carry us with you.”

That night, for the first time, you slept without the weight of contracts pulling at your thoughts. And when dawn broke, you knew exactly where you belonged. The harbor. With them. With the crew who had looked at a timid girl with glasses—and seen a piece of their family.

The morning air was crisp with salt, the sky streaked with early gold. You stood at the edge of the harbor, your heart pounding so loud you thought the waves might carry it away. For the first time in years, you carried no blade, no mask, no orders—only a single, terrifying decision.

The Thousand Sunny waited at the dock, the crew already stirring. You caught sight of them one by one—Zoro yawning as he stretched, Sanji unloading crates of food, Usopp tinkering with something near the railing, Chopper scampering around with excitement. Their voices carried over the water, bright and alive, and for a moment you almost turned back.

Then Luffy saw you.

“There she is!” he shouted, his grin splitting wide as he pointed directly at you, like you were the only thing on the docks that mattered. “I told you she’d come!”

Every head turned.

Nami’s eyes softened, relief flickering in her smile as she crossed her arms. “Knew it.”

“SUPER!” Franky bellowed, throwing his arms into the air.

“Y-you really came!” Chopper shouted, bouncing up and down.

Usopp puffed out his chest. “Ha! I wasn’t worried for a second!” (He absolutely had been.)

Sanji nearly dropped his crate, hearts exploding from his eyes. “My angel has chosen us! What an honor!”

Robin’s smile was calm, but her gaze lingered on you with a knowing warmth, as if she’d already seen this outcome. Jinbei bowed his head respectfully, a gesture that carried weight. Even Zoro, though he only smirked faintly, tilted his head as if to say you’ll do just fine.

You froze under the weight of their attention, your hands trembling against your sides. The words almost caught in your throat—but you forced them out, timid but steady. “I… I’d like to join. If… if you’ll have me.”

The answer came not in words but in Luffy’s sudden sprint across the dock. He grabbed your wrist with all the reckless energy in the world, tugging you toward the ship with a grin so wide it burned away every shadow still clinging to you.

“Of course we’ll have you! You’re part of us now!”

And just like that, you were pulled up the ramp and onto the Sunny. Their cheers and chatter surrounded you, warm and overwhelming. For the first time in your life, you weren’t entering a fortress of shadows or a room of killers. You were stepping onto a home.

As the Sunny’s sails caught the morning wind, carrying you out toward the endless horizon, you knew: this was where you belonged.

The first weeks on the Sunny felt like stepping into another world. Your old life had been a rhythm of shadows—calculated steps, whispers in the dark, blood washed quietly from your hands. Every move had been measured, every breath purposeful.

Here, there was no silence. The Sunny was alive in ways your childhood home never was. Laughter spilled into every corner, arguments broke out over nothing and everything, and meals were a chorus of voices rather than a hushed, guarded affair.

At first, you struggled. You woke at dawn out of habit, waiting for orders that never came. Your hands twitched for knives you no longer needed, your eyes scanning for threats in places where danger was a joke away. But slowly, piece by piece, you began to adjust.

Luffy was the hardest to understand. He was reckless where you were careful, loud where you were quiet, open where you were guarded. But he pulled you into his world without hesitation—dragging you to eat meat with him, shoving treasures into your hands like they were priceless when they were just shiny rocks. His faith in you was absolute from the start. You didn’t need to prove yourself. To him, you were already one of his own.

Zoro tested you. He sparred with you, not because he doubted you, but because he wanted to know your strength. His blows were blunt and unyielding, but when you parried with precision, he smirked like he’d found a rival worth respecting. He didn’t talk much, and you didn’t either—but your silences together weren’t uncomfortable.

Nami was sharp-eyed. She noticed how you hesitated over coins, how you weren’t used to spending money freely. She noticed how you folded in on yourself when voices got too loud. So she guided you gently—explaining the value of things beyond money: maps, moments, memories. Sometimes she teased, but beneath it was a steady hand that helped you step into this new life.

Usopp was the one who made you laugh. At first, you hid it, covering your mouth, but he caught the glimmer in your eyes anyway and his own face lit up. He made it his personal mission to coax that timid smile from you as often as possible, spinning wild stories, showing off little inventions, and dragging you to the deck to see the stars. With him, you learned how to play again—a skill you thought you had lost as a child.

Sanji never stopped fussing. He noticed when you ate too little, piling food onto your plate and calling you delicate, even when he saw the strength in your hands. At first, his dramatics overwhelmed you, but as the days passed, you realized his kindness was genuine. In his kitchen, you found a place where you didn’t have to hide—where someone cared about the small, human needs you had once ignored.

Chopper became your shadow in a way you never expected. He asked endless questions about you, your glasses, your habits. His innocence melted your defenses. Where others might have seen danger in your quiet, he saw someone safe to cling to. In caring for him, you remembered what it meant to be gentle with yourself.

Robin understood. She never pressed you, never asked what you weren’t ready to share. But her gaze was too knowing to ignore. She saw the cracks, the pieces of your old life you still carried, and she never judged. She was the first person you trusted with the truth of your family—not all of it, but enough. And when she said, “I’m glad you’re here now,” you believed her.

Franky was chaos embodied, but somehow he made you comfortable in your own awkwardness. He celebrated every little thing you did, no matter how small. When you fixed something on the deck, he declared it “SUPER!” so loudly you nearly cried from embarrassment. But secretly, it made you feel… good. Visible, in a way that wasn’t suffocating.

Brook made you shy at first—his bluntness, his music, the way he asked to see underwear without a shred of shame. But then he would play songs in the evening, and the soft notes would settle your nerves. You learned to laugh at his oddities, to appreciate the quiet gentleness in his soul. His music reminded you there was beauty in being alive.

Jinbe was steady ground. He spoke to you like he had known you all your life, never rushing, never pushing. His wisdom eased the parts of you that still felt unsteady. With him, you didn’t feel like the timid girl pretending to fit—you felt like someone who belonged, just as you were.

And so the weeks passed. Slowly, the contrast between who you had been and who you were becoming blurred. You were no longer only the phantom assassin or the timid girl with glasses. On the Sunny, you were something new. You were Y/N. A Straw Hat. And for the first time, that was all you needed to be.

You thought you were careful. You kept your head down, your glasses perched low on your nose, and a soft smile ready for anyone who spoke to you. When Sanji was too busy in the kitchen, you stepped in quietly, preparing side dishes without a word. When Zoro trained, you lingered nearby, not to spar, but to watch—offering a towel or water before he even realized he needed it. When Usopp scraped his knee or Luffy crashed headfirst into something, your hands were already there, patching them up before Chopper could even reach for his bag. You told yourself it was just being helpful. Just blending in.

But there were things you couldn’t hide. The way you always sat with your back to a wall, eyes flicking to doors and windows no one else thought twice about. The sharpness of your gaze as you scanned a crowd, seeing details others missed. Your posture, too straight, too ready, even when you tried to relax. The way your hand hovered near a knife a little too naturally, like muscle memory.

Robin noticed. Of course she did. Her eyes lingered sometimes when you thought no one was watching—on the way your shoulders tightened at sudden noises, on how precise your movements were when you stitched a wound, on the silence that fell over you when talk turned to family or pasts. She didn’t ask. She didn’t need to. But in the spaces between her calm smiles and gentle words, you knew she suspected. And for reasons you couldn’t name, it didn’t scare you.

You didn’t always join in their noise. Luffy’s laugh echoed down every street, Chopper’s chatter overlapping with Usopp’s exaggerations, Sanji yelling at Zoro while Nami scolded them all. You walked behind them, quiet, letting the chaos roll ahead of you. Sometimes you smiled when no one was looking—small, fleeting curves of your lips that you hid behind lowered lashes and the tilt of your glasses.

It happened the first time in a market square. They were too busy laughing, haggling, and arguing over snacks to notice the man slipping between stalls, a blade glinting toward Nami’s back. You didn’t think, you just moved—your hand closing around his wrist, twisting sharply until the knife clattered to the ground. You didn’t say a word, just gave him a sharp shove that sent him stumbling away before anyone turned to see. When Nami looked over her shoulder, all she caught was you adjusting your glasses, your face unreadable.

It happened again in an alley. Some drunk pirate lunged at Usopp, his words slurred and his knife drawn. Before he could even blink, you had already shifted—an elbow to his temple, a quiet thud as his body hit the ground. The crew kept walking, Usopp still ranting about his “great escape,” never realizing you had made it happen.

And again, on a crowded dock. Luffy was distracted, his grin wide as he shouted about meat, when another pirate slipped through the crowd with murder in his eyes. You didn’t let him get close. A swift strike to the throat, a twist of his collar, and he went limp before he ever touched the captain. You caught him, lowered him to the ground, and blended back into the group before anyone turned around.

It became a rhythm—your quiet protection. They laughed, argued, and lived loudly, and you, just steps behind, ensured they never saw the danger. To them, you were the timid girl with glasses who trailed along. But more than once, you walked away from a street littered with unconscious bodies while the crew never even realized they had been in danger.

It started after another close call. You had moved too quickly this time—kicking a sword clean out of someone’s hand before it could graze Jinbe’s side. He had turned, his brow raised, but you had already stepped back into line, your hands folded neatly in front of you as if nothing had happened.

Later that night, when the Sunny drifted quiet on calm waters, the crew gathered on deck. You sat a little off to the side, watching the lantern light flicker across their faces, pretending not to notice when the conversation turned.

“She’s got good instincts,” Nami said, her arms crossed but a thoughtful smile tugging at her lips. “It’s like she knows something’s coming before it even happens.”

“Like Observation Haki?” Chopper piped up, his ears perked. “But I’ve never seen her use it.”

Zoro shrugged, sipping lazily from his sake. “Doesn’t matter what it is. She’s sharp. People don’t sneak up on her.”

“She doesn’t even hesitate,” Sanji added, a cigarette glowing between his fingers. “I mean, I can handle a knife, but she just—bam! Like she was born with it.”

Brook leaned on his cane, his voice carrying that soft amusement. “Yohoho! Perhaps she simply has eyes in the back of her head. Ah, if only I had eyes at all!”

Usopp laughed nervously. “No, but seriously… I’ve been around her, and half the time I don’t even notice when she moves. One second someone’s coming at me, the next they’re out cold. It’s kinda scary, actually.”

“It’s not scary,” Luffy interrupted with his usual grin, his arms slung behind his head. “It’s awesome! She’s strong. Super strong! That’s why I want her on my crew.”

Robin’s voice was calm and low. “Strength isn’t the only word for it. It’s… precision. She doesn’t waste movement.” Her eyes flicked toward you then, soft but sharp, like she was holding more questions than she would ever ask aloud.

Jinbe gave a slow nod. “Regardless of what it is, it’s saved us more times than I can count. I am grateful.”

Their words swirled around you, warm and bright, but you sat very still, staring down at your hands. You felt almost guilty. They saw instinct, senses, strength—things to admire. They didn’t see the blood on your past, the years of training meant to make you a weapon. You weren’t sure they ever should.

When Luffy laughed again, clapping his hands and declaring, “She’s perfect for us!” you smiled, but it was small and quiet, carrying the weight of secrets you weren’t ready to share.

The island was loud with markets and chatter, stalls lined with bright fabrics and the scent of frying food. You trailed behind the crew as usual, your hands clasped in front of you, letting their laughter carry down the street. It felt… normal. Safe.

Until you heard it.

A voice, low and rasped, slipping between the noise of the crowd.

“—that’s her. The ghost of the Black Veil…?”

Your body stiffened before your mind caught up. You didn’t turn your head, didn’t let the slip show on your face, but the words clawed at your chest. That was one of your names. One you hadn’t heard outside of shadows, outside of blood-soaked halls and whispered contracts.

Nami paused mid-bargain, her brows furrowing. “Hm? What did he just say?”

Usopp leaned closer, squinting into the crowd. “Sounded like… I dunno, something about a veil?”

Robin’s eyes flicked to you. Always, always too perceptive. Her calm smile didn’t shift, but you could feel the weight of her gaze.

You forced your lips into a faint curve, shrugging your shoulders like it was nothing. “Probably… mistook me for someone else,” you murmured, the stutter in your voice working in your favor. They’d accept that. They always did.

But the figure didn’t vanish. You felt it—a shadow threading behind you, steps too deliberate to be chance. Every time the crew stopped, you sensed it nearby. Every time you laughed at something Luffy said, you caught the flicker of eyes on you.

Your past wasn’t gone. It had found you here, on this sunny, ordinary day, threading itself back into the edges of your new life. And for the first time since stepping onto the Sunny, you realized: you couldn’t outrun it forever.

It spread fast—like wildfire through dry brush. The whispers. The stares.

At first, it was only one voice, low and doubtful. Then another, sharper, almost excited. “Is that her? The Black Veil? No, impossible—she’s too young.”

Another stall over: “No mistake. I’ve heard stories—glasses, quiet, but they say she’s a ghost with a blade.”

And then: “What’s she doing with them? With pirates?”

Your pulse quickened. The Straw Hats were still caught up in their usual antics—Luffy pressing his face against a meat stall’s glass, Sanji already arguing with the vendor about seasoning, Chopper tugging at Usopp’s sleeve to look at strange herbs. Too loud, too noticeable.

You forced your smile into place, your voice quiet but firm. “We… should go. Now.”

“Eh? But the meat!” Luffy whined, his cheek smushed against the stall.

“Another island, Captain,” you said quickly, stepping closer, herding them like shadows nipping at your heels. “This one’s… dangerous.”

Jinbe’s gaze lingered on you a little too long, his dark eyes narrowing like he could hear the unspoken. He didn’t argue, just gave a slow nod. Robin, too, tilted her head, her lips curved in that serene smile—but her eyes flicked to the crowd, catching the way the whispers turned heads, the way people lingered just a moment too long on you.

Nami, sharp as ever, muttered under her breath, “They’re staring… whispering…” She frowned, scanning the crowd. “It’s not like when people look at us because we’re pirates. This feels… different.”

You didn’t let her finish. You caught her wrist lightly and tugged. “Please.” Your voice cracked just enough to sound frightened instead of calculating.

And so you moved. Pushing the crew along, urging them toward the docks with a shy insistence they didn’t question. Luffy grumbled about leaving food behind, Usopp whined about not buying supplies, Sanji fussed about not finding the perfect spices—but they followed.

By the time you reached the Sunny, the gossip behind you had swelled to something more dangerous. “She’s alive?”

“No one survives the Black Veil… not even their enemies.”

You didn’t look back. You only kept your hands steady as you urged the anchor up, your heart pounding at how close your two lives had just collided.

The days after that island were restless ones for you. Even aboard the Sunny, with the salt wind in your hair and the laughter of the crew around you, your ears never stopped searching. A whisper too faint on the breeze, a murmur exchanged at a dock, a stare that lingered one second too long—all of it made your stomach twist. You hid it well. A smile here, a soft nod there. You stuttered in conversation, the same way you always had, and they bought it as nerves. But beneath the calm mask, your pulse was a constant thunder.

A week passed, every island the same—more whispers, more eyes. You felt them crawling on your skin even when no one was looking. And then, one evening, as the sun dipped low and painted the waves in gold, it came.

A crow. Sleek, black-feathered, its eyes glinting with too much intelligence to be natural. It circled the mast once before landing neatly on the railing beside you. Its talons clicked against the wood as it tilted its head, waiting. Your breath caught. That bird was unmistakable.

Your fingers trembled only once as you untied the letter from its leg. The paper was thick, its edges pressed with your family’s seal. And the ink—always red, sharp against the pale parchment.

You barely opened it before you felt them near. Sanji noticed first, raising a brow as he leaned out of the galley window. “Oi, what’s with the bird?”

Then Luffy, wide-eyed, bounding over. “Cool! A crow! Is it for you, Y/N?”

It was too late to hide it. Robin’s eyes lingered on the crimson ink, Jinbe’s brow furrowed at the trained stillness of the animal, and even Nami’s lips pressed thin as she caught the seal. The bird was too sharp, too purposeful. This wasn’t a message from a friend.

The letter read simply:

We hear the whispers too. Word travels fast. They know you sail with Straw Hat Luffy. Be cautious, little ghost.

Signed, as always, in crimson script.

You folded it quickly, pressing it to your chest before anyone could glimpse more. The crow cawed once, sharp as a blade’s edge, then took flight into the dusk.

The silence it left behind was heavy.

“Family?” Robin asked softly, but not unkindly.

You forced a smile, small and trembling at the edges. “Y-Yes… j-just family.”

They let it rest, for now. But the letter burned in your hands. Because if your family knew, that meant the world knew. And no matter how quietly you walked, your past was chasing faster.

The Sunny drifted into port at dawn, the island rising from the mist like something out of a dream. It wasn’t like the last ones—no raucous markets, no gaudy taverns spilling noise into the streets. This place was quiet, gentle almost, its cobblestone streets lined with flowering trees, their petals brushing against the shoulders of passersby. The air smelled faintly of spice and sea salt, and children ran barefoot through the square, laughing.

For once, it felt normal. Safe.

“Meat first!” Luffy shouted the moment the anchor dropped, already sprinting down the gangplank.

Sanji sighed, chasing after him with muttered curses about manners, while Chopper and Usopp darted after the children, eager to join in their games. Nami had her eyes fixed on a row of shops, calculating profits and prices in the gleam of her gaze. Zoro wandered off in the wrong direction, of course, while Brook trailed behind, plucking at his violin strings, filling the air with soft music. Jinbe stayed closer to the ship, calm as ever, watching the flow of the harbor.

You followed with careful steps, your glasses catching the soft glow of morning light. Every street corner, every rooftop—you scanned them all. But here, at least for now, there were no whispers, no stares that lasted too long. Just smiling vendors and curious villagers, their voices warm and welcoming.

Robin walked beside you, her hands folded neatly in front of her, her gaze flicking over the petals falling on the breeze. “It’s peaceful here,” she murmured.

“Y-Yes,” you replied, your voice quiet, almost surprised by how true it felt.

For hours, everything was fine. The crew scattered and regrouped, filling the day with their usual chaos—food, laughter, squabbles, and games. You even found yourself laughing once, a small sound you hadn’t meant to let slip. And for that moment, under the shade of flowering trees, it felt like maybe the world hadn’t noticed you yet.

But in the back of your mind, the memory of the crow’s crimson-marked letter lingered. Peace, you knew, never lasted long.

The sun had barely climbed when chaos tore through the quiet streets. Marines flooded the harbor, their uniforms bright against the muted colors of the town. Orders were shouted, blades were drawn, and smoke curled from overturned carts. The Straw Hats scrambled, drawing swords, fists, and wits, ready to defend themselves.

You moved instinctively, slipping through the melee with quiet precision, checking your surroundings, scanning for threats before anyone else even realized they existed.

And then you saw him.

He froze mid-step, his eyes locking on you as if the world had stopped. Recognition hit him first—sharp, undeniable. A flash of memory: a previous contract, a whispered name, a shadow he’d hired to remove a high-ranking pirate, or maybe a government official. That shadow had been you.

You froze as well. Instantly. Your hand twitched near the small dagger at your side, but you didn’t move. You hadn’t expected to see someone who had known that side of you outside the shadows you’d carefully left behind.

The noise of the battle seemed to fade around you—the shouts, the clanging of steel, the panicked cries of civilians—all reduced to a dull hum as your eyes held his. For a moment, it was only the two of you, the weight of past deeds pressing in the space you shared.

His grip on his sword tightened, but he didn’t advance. You didn’t flinch. Time stretched as recognition battled disbelief. Then, barely perceptible, a flicker of hesitation crossed his face—fear, respect, and something else you didn’t bother to name.

Everything else waited. For a heartbeat, neither of you moved. And in that suspended moment, you realized that the past you thought was buried had caught up, and it had found you here, in the middle of the chaos you had hoped to leave behind.

The moment stretched like a taut string. Then the man whispered it. Low, deliberate, meant for only the most attentive ears:

“Y/N… Black Veil. Daughter of the Kurogane family.”

The effect was immediate.

Marines faltered mid-step, their swords wavering in their hands. Even the high-ranking officers halted, their eyes widening behind their polished masks. The name alone carried weight—legend, fear, reputation. It wasn’t just a ghost story. It was you.

The Straw Hats froze as well. Luffy blinked, his jaw slack. Usopp’s hands went pale as he clutched his slingshot, his heart hammering. Chopper froze mid-hop, his ears perked.

But some of them knew.

Robin’s eyes went wide, her hand half-raised as though to stop the world. She hadn’t expected this. She had always suspected your background—the way you moved, the precision, the quiet. But hearing it confirmed aloud—and seeing the sheer terror it invoked—made it undeniable.

Zoro’s scowl deepened, his jaw tight. He recognized the name instantly, the memory of whispers from bounty hunter days surfacing, names of elite assassins that weren’t supposed to exist outside of rumor. He glanced at you—the shadows in your posture, the calm in the face of chaos—and smirked faintly, not that anyone noticed.

Usopp and Brook took longer. At first, the syllables rolled past their comprehension. But when the marines’ collective hesitation became obvious, when the officers backed away slightly and all focus turned toward you, comprehension clicked into place.

“The… the Black Veil?” Usopp whispered, his voice trembling, realization dawning too late.

Brook’s jaw dropped, his hands gripping his cane. “Yohoho… That’s her? All this time…?”

Even Luffy didn’t fully grasp it. He saw the shift in the marines’ attention but didn’t understand why their shouts faltered, why the officers didn’t advance. Chopper followed his gaze, confused, until Nami tugged him back, whispering: “That’s Y/N…”

Your own heart stayed steady, but your hands tightened into fists at your sides. The calm mask you’d perfected for years now carried a different weight—the recognition wasn’t just theirs. The past had caught up. And it was staring you down.

The marines, frozen, high-ranking officers included, kept their weapons poised but unmoving, their eyes locked on you as though they were remembering every story, every contract, every whispered rumor you’d left in the shadows. And in that moment, the crew realized it was you they had been protecting. Every instinct you’d shown, every subtle intervention—it wasn’t luck. It wasn’t coincidence. It was Y/N. The Black Veil. The daughter of the Kurogane family.

The quietest one of them, glasses perched low on your nose, stood calm amidst the sudden chaos, and for a heartbeat, no one breathed.

Something inside you snapped. Not the fear you’d expected, not the panic you’d buried under smiles and quiet gestures. Something else—a spark you’d tucked away the moment you joined the Sunny, the part of you that had longed for the chaos, the adrenaline, the sharpness of life balanced on a blade’s edge.

You moved before anyone could think to stop you. Your feet slid, your arms struck, every movement fluid and precise as though you’d never left the shadows. Marines lunged, their swords raised, but you were already there—hitting pressure points, twisting limbs, redirecting momentum. In seconds, bodies collapsed, unconscious or disarmed, sprawled across the cobblestones like discarded dolls.

A laugh slipped from your lips, soft at first, almost shy, then growing louder, sharper, the kind that carried the thrill you had been starving for. You hadn’t allowed yourself to feel it for years—not since leaving your family’s halls, not since stepping aboard the Sunny. But now it surged through you, intoxicating and wild.

Your polite mask dropped entirely. Your glasses slid down your nose with a sudden jolt, and your eyes glinted with cold amusement. The corners of your lips lifted into a sharp grin, one that didn’t hide anything. It wasn’t playful—it was dangerous, radiant with the joy of being fully, unapologetically yourself.

Robin’s breath caught. Even she had suspected, but seeing it unleashed—the precision, the confidence, the lethal elegance—it stunned her. Zoro’s eyes narrowed, a faint smirk tugging at his lips. He recognized that grin, that flow, that deadly rhythm. It was not just skill. It was pleasure.

Usopp and Chopper froze, unsure whether to be terrified or awestruck. Luffy’s mouth fell open, but he didn’t move, mesmerized by the sudden shift in the timid girl he thought he knew. Sanji’s fists clenched—not in anger, but in awe. Brook’s jaw nearly dropped from its usual slack state, and Nami’s eyes widened as she realized the extent of what she’d been traveling with.

Every motion you made was fluid, devastatingly fast, and mercilessly efficient. But underneath it all was something they hadn’t seen yet: the spark of someone finally letting herself be free in a way she hadn’t allowed in years.

And as the last marine collapsed, you straightened, your glasses crooked on your nose, the grin still there. The street was quiet again—except for your laughter, soft and sharp, a sound you hadn’t realized you’d been missing so badly.

You crouched for a moment, catching your breath, the chaos around you settling into quiet. One hand went to your face, wiping a smear of blood from a fallen marine—just a streak, nothing permanent. You let the gesture linger, almost savoring the feeling, a small, wild smile curling at your lips.

And then you saw them.

The Straw Hats. All of them, standing just beyond the edge of the fight, their eyes wide, their hearts hammering. You froze mid-motion, the smile faltering, your pulse spiking. A deep, familiar feeling settled in your chest—one you hadn’t expected after years of burying it.

You’d imagined it countless times: anger, betrayal, perhaps fear. That they’d see you—truly see the killer you’d hidden for so long—and recoil. That they’d doubt you, maybe even leave.

But it didn’t happen.

Luffy’s mouth hung slightly open, stunned, but he didn’t step back. Usopp’s hands trembled on his slingshot, but he didn’t turn away. Chopper’s ears drooped, yet he stayed rooted to the spot. Nami’s eyes widened, but she didn’t scowl or judge. Robin’s gaze softened, a quiet acknowledgment in the corners of her eyes. Sanji’s fists hung at his sides, tension there but no accusation. Zoro simply observed, his smirk gone but not his acceptance. Brook tilted his head, silent but fully attentive. Jinbe’s expression was calm, measured—but firm, unwavering.

No one moved to flee. No one whispered in shock or horror.

The weight in your chest shifted—confusion, relief, and something else you hadn’t felt in years: belonging. The laughter, the thrill, the sharp edge of your skills, none of it mattered in this moment.

Because for the first time, after everything, you realized it didn’t scare them. They didn’t see you as a monster. Not as a ghost from the shadows. They saw you.

And somehow, that was more terrifying—and more freeing—than the fight ever was.

The moment stretched, the street quiet except for the gentle clatter of bodies you’d left unconscious, and the breeze carrying the faint scent of blood and salt. You expected hesitation, questions, maybe even a lecture. But none came.

Luffy blinked a few times, then grinned wide, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Heh… you’re awesome! Really awesome!” He didn’t seem afraid at all, only excited, like he’d just discovered a new game.

Usopp shook his head, letting out a shaky laugh. “I… I knew you were good, but that… that was—” He trailed off, letting the awe linger in the air. “—that was way beyond anything I imagined.”

Chopper’s ears drooped in worry for a second, then he stepped forward carefully, still wide-eyed. “Y-Y/N… you didn’t… hurt anyone on purpose, right?” His small hands clutched at his bag of medkits.

“No,” you whispered, your voice quieter than a breeze.

“That’s what matters,” Chopper said, relief flooding him as he relaxed.

Nami shook her head, exhaling softly, a half-smile tugging at her lips. “You’ve always had this edge… this skill. But I’ve never doubted you’d use it for us. Just… careful, okay?”

Sanji, fuming at first from adrenaline, smirked and offered a hand. “Hmph. If anyone dares mess with us while you’re around, they’ll regret it. You’ve got my protection… and my respect.”

Zoro leaned against a post, arms crossed, his expression unreadable—but the faint smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth betrayed him. “I knew you were sharp. That… that was enough.”

Robin’s gaze softened, her usual calm even more present than ever. “You’ve carried so much for so long. It’s good to see you let yourself be… all of it. You don’t have to hide here.”

Brook tilted his head, his voice warm and quiet. “Yohoho… I must say, your timing and elegance are impeccable. Truly, the deadliest among us has returned… and yet, still one of us.”

Jinbe simply nodded, steady and reassuring. “You’ve always been part of this crew. Every part of you belongs here, Y/N. Don’t forget that.”

Luffy threw his arms around you before you could protest, laughing. “See? I told you! You’re perfect for us! All of it! Every bit!”

And in that moment, something inside you softened. The thrill, the fear, the adrenaline of the fight—it was still there, but it no longer weighed on you the way it had in the past. Because for the first time, every shard of yourself—timid, deadly, calculating, and wild—was accepted. Unconditionally.

You smiled, a real smile this time, letting the weight lift. And for the first time in years, you felt… home.

From that day on, things shifted. You didn’t shed the quiet entirely—you still spoke softly, kept to the edges when the crew’s chaos became too loud—but your smiles came easier now, unguarded, small sparks that appeared without thought. You laughed more often, let your fingers linger on a violin string, helped Chopper with herbs, and even teased Usopp back when he got carried away.

Yet the past wasn’t gone. Sometimes, habits honed over years in shadows slipped through. A sudden threat—a bandit, a wandering marine, someone too reckless for their own good—would cross your path. And without a word, without hesitation, your hands would move. Your glasses sliding slightly down your nose, your eyes glinting with precision, you’d hit pressure points, twist limbs, and leave them unconscious before anyone even realized the danger.

One moment, you were helping Nami with maps. The next, a loud shout erupted from the docks—a thief trying to grab Sanji’s ingredients. You turned, and in the blink of an eye, he crumpled to the cobblestones.

Luffy froze mid-grin, his jaw dropping.

“Yup,” Zoro muttered, his arms crossed.

Sanji’s hands froze over the knife he’d been sharpening.

“Yup…” Usopp whispered, wide-eyed, already reaching for his slingshot like he should’ve done something.

Chopper’s ears drooped, but a tiny smile crept onto his face.

Brook chuckled softly, adjusting his cane. “Yohoho… indeed, that is her,” he said.

Nami shook her head, exhaling with a smirk. “Of course. That’s just Y/N.”

Y/N’s boots scraped against the cracked pavement as she made her way toward the house, each step sharp and deliberate, echoing faintly in the quiet afternoon air. The world around her seemed distant, children’s laughter from down the street, the low hum of traffic, a dog barking somewhere far away. All of it faded to a dull murmur, as though the world itself was holding its breath. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been sitting in the truck before she finally got out. Time had stretched, melted. She’d stared at the house so long it stopped being a house and became something else, a monument to everything she’d lost, and everything she’d tried to forget.

A light breeze shifted, bringing with it the scent of wisteria and citrus, soft and sweet. The smell hit her like memory itself, uninvited and inescapable. It wrapped around her, dragging her back to a time she’d buried deep, a life that refused to stay gone no matter how far she’d run. The house stood before her exactly as it always had in her mind, unchanged, unmoved, stubbornly permanent. It had waited for her, and now that she was here, she wished it hadn’t.

Her fingers ached when she finally realized she was still gripping the steering wheel, knuckles white. She released it slowly, feeling blood return to her hands, her fingers stiff and cold. How long had she been frozen like that, trapped somewhere between past and present, watching the minutes crawl by as if through glass?

She didn’t know why she’d come. The drive had felt inevitable, a slow drift toward a place she’d sworn never to see again. Maybe she’d wanted closure. Maybe revenge. Maybe just proof that the past was real. But now that she stood here, she understood the truth, there was no going back. Whatever had pulled her here wouldn’t let her leave until it was done with her.

She started walking. The yard was the same, only older. A small red tricycle leaned on its side, one handlebar twisted at an odd angle. A beach ball lay deflated near the steps. A stuffed bear, missing an eye, sat slumped against the porch rail, its fur faded by sun and time. Every detail felt like a ghost of something pure that had been left to rot. These weren’t just toys, they were fragments of a life she had once been close to. A life that now felt obscene in its normalcy.

The mailbox read THE BELLS, the letters painted neatly in black. Through the front window, she could see picture frames lining the hallway. The light caught their glass, turning each one into a little mirror. She couldn’t see the faces clearly, but she knew them.

Jimin Park.

The name rose unbidden, heavy on her tongue. Her heart stuttered in her chest, a sharp, painful reminder that she wasn’t as hardened as she pretended to be. She could still remember him, his laugh, the warmth in his eyes when they were alone, the way he’d talked about his mother with quiet reverence. Before it all curdled. Before the betrayal. Before everything burned.

Her breath shook. She hated herself for feeling anything at all. Years of guilt and anger had settled in her bones like cement, and she’d carried that weight everywhere she went. She had told herself she was free of it. That she was over him. But standing here now, the truth hit her hard, some ghosts never stopped breathing.

The wind picked up, tugging at her hair, but she didn’t move. The house loomed over her, its soft pink paint peeling, the wood warped from rain and time. It looked harmless, but she knew better. It wasn’t a home, it was a tomb.

Her body moved before her mind caught up. Shoulders squared. Chin lifted. She started up the steps. Her pulse thundered in her ears, but it wasn’t fear anymore, it was something sharper, colder. Purpose. She’d run long enough.

The door was old, the paint chipped, the brass handle dulled by years of use. She didn’t bother to knock. This place had been waiting for her, and she could feel it in the air, thick and electric. She raised her hand, her fingers trembling, not from fear, but from the muscle memory of violence. The silver ring on her finger caught the light as she pressed the doorbell.

Ding-dong.

The sound echoed through the house, bright and ordinary, mocking her. Inside, she heard movement, a shuffle, a voice she knew too well.

“Coming!”

Her breath caught. The doorknob turned. The door opened a few inches, then wider.

“Sarah, I can’t believe you’re early—”

Jimin Park stood in the doorway, framed by the sunlight behind her. He looked older, the boyishness stripped from him, replaced by sharp edges and quiet control. The white shirt, the rolled sleeves, the calm confidence, he looked like every suburban husband in every good neighborhood. But she saw past it. The tension in his shoulders, the flicker in his eyes, the predator still lived there, just buried deeper.

For a second, neither of them moved. His eyes locked on hers, recognition flaring like a struck match. The breath left his chest, and his composure fractured, if only for a heartbeat.

Y/N didn’t speak. She didn’t need to. The silence between them said everything. Years of unspoken words, of pain and betrayal, hung in the air so heavy it seemed to press the walls inward.

He opened his mouth as if to say something, but no sound came out. Whatever excuse or apology had formed in his head died before it reached his lips.

And in that small, suspended moment, she saw it, the flicker of memory in his eyes. The chapel. The blood. The laughter. His laughter. Her pain. The betrayal that had shattered everything. She saw him remember too.

Something inside her snapped.

Before Y/N even registered the decision, her body was already moving. The world narrowed, sounds warped, and time fractured into raw instinct. The door exploded inward as she slammed against it, the wood cracking under the force. They hit each other hard, two bodies colliding in a violent blur that sent them stumbling through the doorway. A lamp crashed to the floor, the bulb bursting in a spray of sparks and glass that scattered like shrapnel.

Her fist connected first, clean, hard, and deliberate. The sound of it meeting his jaw echoed through the house like thunder, deep and final. She didn’t think, didn’t feel. Every ounce of her rage, her grief, her years of silence poured into that single hit. Jimin staggered but caught himself, his face snapping back toward her, teeth clenched, eyes wide.

He shoved her, hard, but she didn’t give him space. She lunged again, driving him backward until his heel caught the edge of the coffee table. The wood split beneath their weight, the crash deafening. Splinters and shards shot across the room, littering the carpet like evidence of something that could never be undone.

Jimin’s elbow rammed into her ribs. Pain flared white-hot, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t. Her next punch landed squarely against his cheek, her knuckles screaming as bone met bone. He grunted, blood flying from his mouth. For the briefest moment, she saw the recognition in his eyes, he knew she wasn’t holding back.

Then he kicked her. The blow to her stomach was brutal, precise. Air rushed out of her lungs in a single, strangled gasp. She stumbled back, clutching her side as a side table tipped and crashed, scattering unopened mail and a ceramic dish that shattered on impact. The house, once tidy, domestic, was now unrecognizable, a war zone built on memories.

But she wasn’t done. Y/N surged forward, slamming into him again with everything she had. The two of them hit the bookshelf with a hollow, metallic groan. The frame buckled and gave way under their combined weight. Books poured down around them, heavy thuds filling the room as pages tore and spines cracked. Photographs followed, frames hitting the ground, glass splintering, faces of a happy life falling face-first into the dirt.

Among them, one photo slipped free and twirled through the air like a leaf caught in wind. When it hit the floor, Y/N saw it.

His mother.

Her throat tightened. That black-and-white photo, the one he used to keep folded in his wallet, worn at the corners from how often he touched it. She remembered sitting with him years ago, back when they’d both still believed in something. He’d shown it to her late one night, voice low, eyes glassy. “She was fifteen when the soldiers came,” he’d whispered. “She didn’t make it out.” He had cried then, quietly, and she had held that photo for him until the shaking stopped.

Now it was split clean down the middle, the glass cracked through her mother’s face.

But the moment passed as fast as it came. The fight didn’t wait. The bookshelf gave one last groan and collapsed completely, sending both of them to the ground in a cloud of dust and debris.

For a breath, there was only stillness.

Y/N’s chest heaved, her pulse pounding in her ears. Jimin was beside her, blood on his lip, a deep bruise already forming along his jaw. Her fingers curled instinctively, brushing against the jagged edge of broken glass. She raised her hand to strike again, but before she could move, Jimin’s head snapped forward. His forehead slammed into her knuckles. The crunch was sickening. Pain shot up her arm, but she bit it down, forcing herself to stay upright.

He staggered back first, stumbling toward the kitchen, his movements jerky but purposeful. Y/N wiped at the blood trickling from her nose, the metallic taste flooding her mouth. She knew that sound before she heard it, the scrape of metal on wood, the hiss of a drawer opening.

He was arming himself.

Jimin reappeared in the doorway, breath coming fast, a butcher knife gleaming in his hand. The blade caught the light, its edge bright and cold, the reflection slicing across his face. His grip was steady. His eyes were not.

Y/N’s pulse kicked up, though her expression stayed calm. She’d seen worse. She’d survived worse. Slowly, she slid her hand under her jacket. The familiar weight met her palm, solid and reassuring.

Click.

The sound of the lock disengaging was soft but carried through the room like a heartbeat. She drew her SOG knife from its sheath, the blade whispering as it came free. The metal shimmered faintly, balanced perfectly in her grip. She gave it a single spin, not to show off, but to feel its weight, to remind herself that she was still in control.

Across the wreckage, Jimin watched her. His shirt clung to him, damp with sweat, his breath shallow and uneven. He looked like a man at war with himself, part of him still trying to be the husband, the father, the man who fixed things around the house. The other part, the one she knew too well, was the trained killer. The one who didn’t hesitate.

They faced each other in the ruins of their past. Shattered glass glinted beneath their feet. Blood smeared across the floor. Dust hung thick in the air. Between them lay the broken photo of his mother, the woman’s eyes staring up through the crack as though watching what they’d become.

Neither spoke. The silence was its own language, one made of grief, anger, and the ghosts that refused to die.

Then Jimin’s lips parted, and his voice came out low and raw. “Come on, bitch.”

He lunged. The knife sliced through air, close enough for her to feel the rush of wind against her neck. She leaned back, fluid, her movements practiced and precise. He swung again, a wide, desperate arc. She stepped aside, blade held close, her breathing steady.

He was slower now. Softer. Too careful. She wasn’t. Y/N moved like a shadow, every motion born of muscle memory, every strike an echo of survival. She could see the doubt in his eyes now, the regret that dulled his edge. And in that instant, she knew she would win.

She took a step forward, ready to finish it.

And then a sound split the air. A long, drawn-out hiss. Not a scream. Not a strike. Not the clash of steel. Air brakes.

Both froze, the noise cutting through their fury like a blade. Their heads turned almost in unison toward the window.

Outside, a yellow school bus rumbled to a stop in front of the house, releasing a final hiss of steam. The doors folded open with a creak, and a small figure stepped out, sunlight catching her hair. Noelle. She was humming softly, her backpack bouncing against her shoulders as she started up the walkway, unaware of the blood and ruin waiting behind the door.

Jimin’s expression changed instantly. The fight drained from his face, replaced by sheer panic. His hand trembled around the knife. His gaze snapped to Y/N, and in it she saw something that wasn’t fear for himself, it was for her. For the girl.

Please. Not here.

He didn’t say it out loud, but he didn’t have to.

Y/N’s knife stayed raised for one long, motionless second. Then her eyes met his, and something shifted, not forgiveness, not mercy, just recognition. A line drawn silently between them.

She exhaled, slow and quiet.

Okay.

The front door swung open, spilling sunlight into the wrecked living room. The brightness cut through the chaos like a blade, casting gold across broken glass and upturned furniture. It wasn’t just light, it was innocence, raw and unguarded, invading a place that had forgotten what it felt like.

“Daddy, I’m home!”

The voice was small and pure, the kind that made your chest ache before you understood why. A child’s voice. Soft, high, full of trust. It didn’t belong here, not in this house thick with blood, dust, and silence.

Y/N froze. So did Jimin. It wasn’t fear that held them still; it was something heavier, like time itself had stopped to see what they’d do. The air shifted, the violence retreating to the corners of the room, hiding beneath the wreckage like a wounded thing.

Noelle stepped inside, her sneakers squeaking against the floor. Her pink overalls were smudged with dirt, the knees green from grass stains. A cartoon monkey smiled from her pocket, the thread frayed and worn. In one hand she carried a plastic lunchbox, fingers gripping it tight, knuckles white. Whatever was inside, stickers, pebbles, treasures only a child could see, she held it like it was everything.

She took a few steps forward, eyes wide. The room swallowed her small frame. Her gaze drifted from the shattered lamp to the cracked TV, the table split in two, the couch half off its legs. A picture frame dangled crooked on the wall, another lay shattered on the floor, the image inside torn through the middle.

Something caught her attention.

Y/N followed her eyes and felt her stomach knot. Among the debris, half a porcelain dish lay face-up, its surface painted with a woman in a hanbok. The woman’s face was cracked clean down the bridge of her nose, one painted eye still visible, calm and unblinking, the other lost in the shards.

Noelle clutched her lunchbox tighter. Her shoulders tensed. The box was her armor, her small defiance. She took another step, and the air thickened until it felt like the whole house might collapse under the weight of it.

“Daddy…” Her voice trembled, barely more than a whisper. “What happened to you? And the TV?” The question landed like a stone dropped in still water. The ripples went out in every direction, touching everything. Y/N said nothing. Her knife hung loosely at her side now, no longer a threat, just a shadow in her hand.

Jimin’s breath came slow and deliberate. She saw the shift in him immediately, the way his shoulders straightened, the way his eyes softened just enough to fool anyone who didn’t know him. The transformation was seamless. His voice came out calm, even friendly, the kind of tone he must have used every morning over breakfast.

“Oh, that good-for-nothin’ dog of yours,” he said with a laugh that didn’t reach his eyes. “Got into the living room and acted a damn fool, that’s what happened.”

Noelle blinked, studying him. Doubt flickered in her small face, quick but unmistakable. “Barney did this?” she asked quietly.

Y/N’s gaze slid toward Jimin. Her face gave nothing away, but her silence said enough.

Noelle took another step, and Y/N’s voice broke the stillness. “Baby,” she said softly, steady but firm, “you can’t come in here. There’s glass all over the floor. You’ll cut yourself.”

The girl froze mid-step, her toes curling just above a shard. Her head lifted toward Y/N. Their eyes met. For a moment, everything else fell away.

Y/N felt that stare like a hand pressed against her chest, curious, unguarded, almost too knowing. There was no fear in it. Just… understanding. The kind children weren’t supposed to have. Noelle’s gaze traveled lower, tracing the blood smeared at Y/N’s lip, the dirt along her jacket. She didn’t recoil. Didn’t look away.

She was just trying to make sense of it.

Jimin moved first. His voice cracked slightly, then smoothed into something too quick, too controlled. “This is an old friend of Daddy’s,” he said, smiling again, his tone overly bright. “Haven’t seen her in years.”

Y/N lowered herself slowly, her knees aching, her ribs burning with every breath. She crouched so she was at Noelle’s level, careful to hide the knife behind her leg. Her movements were deliberate, precise, the way someone moves when they know one wrong twitch can destroy everything.

“Hi, sweetie,” she said quietly. The words came gentle, but her tone carried something else underneath, age, exhaustion, the echo of loss. “I’m Y/N. What’s your name?”

Noelle didn’t answer. She just stared, her wide eyes flicking between Y/N and Jimin.

Jimin filled the silence too quickly. “Her name’s Noelle,” he said, almost like he was afraid Y/N might say it first.

Y/N nodded, repeating the name slowly. “Noelle,” she said, letting it settle. “That’s a beautiful name. For a beautiful girl.” She gave a small smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “How old are you, Noelle?”

Still nothing. The silence pressed close again.

Jimin’s jaw flexed. “Ellie,” he coaxed softly, but there was tension creeping into his voice now. “Y/N asked you a question.”

Noelle’s eyes moved from Y/N to him. The change was subtle, but it was there, something in her gaze hardening, a flicker of quiet resistance. Then she spoke.

“I’m four.”

Y/N blinked. Her expression didn’t change much, but something in her eyes did, a flicker, quick and deep, like a memory striking a nerve. Jimin saw it. He always noticed.

“Four years old,” Y/N murmured, voice thin, distant. “You know… I once had a little girl.” Her throat tightened around the words, but she didn’t stop. “She’d be about your age now. Maybe you two could’ve played together.”

The silence that followed was unbearable. It wasn’t empty, it was thick with grief and anger and everything they’d never said.

Jimin swallowed hard. His hand twitched once, curling and uncurling at his side like he couldn’t decide whether to reach for her or for something that might still keep him grounded. “Now, baby,” he said finally, forcing a smile that didn’t touch his eyes. “Me and Y/N have some grown-up things to talk about, alright? Why don’t you go to your room until I come get you?”

Noelle didn’t move. Her brow furrowed, small and uncertain, but not afraid.

“Go on, Ellie.” His voice sharpened as the facade began to crack. He snapped his fingers, one short, crisp sound that broke the air between them. “Now.”

The word hung there, cold and final.

Noelle blinked, her shoulders dipping under the weight of something she didn’t understand. She nodded once, her lips pressed tight, and turned away. Her Mary Janes tapped softly against the floor, the steady rhythm of her small steps almost unbearable in the silence. The lunchbox at her side bumped against her leg with each step, the faded Disney princesses scratched and dulled by time. Their pastel smiles looked tired now, like they, too, had seen too much.

She picked her way through the wreckage with delicate precision, careful not to step on the glass. The crunch beneath her shoes sounded almost normal, but it wasn’t. It was the sound of a home quietly breaking. She passed her father without looking at him. His jaw was tight, his eyes dark. She passed Y/N too, taking in the smudges of dirt, the blood along her chin. But she didn’t ask. She didn’t speak. She just kept walking.

At her bedroom door, she turned the handle slowly and slipped inside. The click of the door closing was soft, but it hit like a gunshot.

The silence she left behind was heavy, suffocating. It pressed down on both of them. Y/N’s hand tightened on the knife, not to strike, not even in threat, but as if holding it kept her from unraveling. Jimin exhaled slowly, the sound hollow and low, a man coming undone without wanting to show it. The mask dropped from his face, leaving him exposed, tired, older, and somehow smaller.

They stood there in the aftermath, motionless. She held the weapon that had defined her life; he held the weight of every decision that had brought him here. They faced each other not as enemies or allies, but as two people bound by the same ruin. The fight was over, but the wound it left behind still bled quietly between them.

Neither spoke. The walls, the broken furniture, the shards of glass scattered across the floor, those were their words now.

Then, after what felt like a lifetime, Jimin finally broke the silence. His voice was quieter than she remembered, almost fragile. “Want some coffee?”

Y/N blinked. Her fingers loosened around the knife, the smallest shift. “Yeah,” she said softly. “Sure.”

He moved toward the kitchen, each step deliberate, slow. She followed a few seconds later, their movements muted and strangely domestic. He slid the butcher knife back into its drawer without hesitation, as if shelving a weapon after breakfast. She sheathed her own blade with a faint scrape of metal against leather, her hand steady even though her ribs still ached. Neither of them looked at the carnage behind them. They just walked away from it.

Outside, the faint jingle of an ice cream truck drifted through the open window, bright, tinny, too cheerful for the weight of the moment. The world, it seemed, kept moving forward, even when they couldn’t.

The kitchen greeted them like a photograph, tidy, framed, pretending at normalcy. Ceramic frogs smiled from the windowsill, each wearing a tiny hat. The air smelled faintly of cinnamon and bleach. The table was clean, polished to a shine that belonged to a life carefully maintained. Bananas rested in a bowl on the counter, their skins freckled and sweet with age.

Y/N sat down at the table. The chair creaked under her, its sound too loud in the quiet. Her hands rested flat on the surface, fingers spread wide, as though she needed to feel something solid beneath them.

Jimin moved through the motions like a man performing muscle memory. Mug. Mug. Coffee. Pour. It was the same rhythm he had probably done every morning for years. The small, practiced motions of a man who had learned to keep living even when the past clawed at his back. He didn’t tremble. Didn’t speak. Just poured.

Y/N watched him. Her gaze wasn’t angry, it was distant, searching, full of something that might have once been love or pity or both. He looked so much like the boy she’d known, and yet nothing like him at all. That boy had laughed easily. He had trusted her. They had survived together once, side by side, in a world that never gave second chances.

Now they sat in the ruins of what came after.

He turned and met her eyes for the first time since Noelle had left the room. “Cream and sugar?”

“Both,” she said quietly.

He nodded, stirring the cups with careful precision. When he placed hers in front of her, the faint clink of porcelain against wood felt almost tender. She wrapped her hands around it, though the heat didn’t seem to reach her skin.

For a long moment, neither spoke.

The kitchen looked ordinary, but the air between them wasn’t. It was thick with ghosts, the kind that didn’t haunt through sound or sight, but through memory.

Y/N sipped her coffee. It was strong, too sweet, the way she used to take it. The taste sat heavy on her tongue. Across from her, Jimin leaned against the counter, his arms folded, his gaze fixed on her like he was waiting for something he didn’t know how to ask.

The silence between them said everything.

They were both pretending this was just coffee. But they knew better. This was a wake. A final ritual for everything they’d destroyed together, and for everything that was still left to lose.

“How’s Loretta?” Y/N asked at last. Her voice wasn’t curious; it was weary. The kind of question that comes from needing to fill silence, not from wanting an answer.

Jimin blinked, and something flickered behind his eyes, quick, small, but unmistakable. He recovered fast, too fast. “She’s fine. Works too much. You know how she is.” The words came out smooth, almost practiced, but the rhythm was wrong.

Of course he was lying. She could hear it in the spaces between the syllables, in the way he didn’t meet her gaze. He wouldn’t tell the truth, not here, not now.

And in the quiet that followed, the old voice inside her stirred again, that familiar whisper that never really left her. It spoke in the language of dossiers and aliases, the kind of details that stick when you’ve spent too long living in shadows.

This man’s name is Marcus Bell. Suburban homeowner. Pasadena, California. Married to Dr. Loretta Bell, pediatric oncologist. Two cars. Clean mortgage. Good credit. PTA volunteer. Lavender in the yard. Kombucha brewing on the counter.

A picture-perfect life. One built to hide what he used to be.

But she knew better. Once upon a time, this man had been Jimin Park. Code name: Copperhead. And once, before the lies, before Loretta, he had been hers, not the way Yoongi was hers, but in that rare, unspoken way survivors belong to each other. They’d lived side by side in Taehyung’s compound in Mexico, bound together by blood and secrets and the constant hum of danger.

Yoongi had been her storm, her lover, her reckoning. But Jimin, Jimin had been her mirror. The one who could look at her and see everything she tried to hide. The one who carried the weight of her darkness when she couldn’t.

She remembered pushing him toward Loretta during that job in Los Angeles. Teasing him. “Go on,” she’d said, grinning, nudging his shoulder. “She’s gonna love you. Maybe you’ll finally stop sleeping with a gun under your pillow.”

He’d blushed, back then. Smiled that rare smile of his, boyish and dangerous. And he’d gone. And she’d let him. Because she cared, too much, maybe.

And now, years later, here they sat across from each other, drinking coffee in a house that wasn’t his, pretending they hadn’t both ruined each other in ways that could never be undone.

Jimin’s mug sat on the counter, a cartoon owl fading from too many washes. Y/N’s was chipped along the rim, its glaze dulled by time. They looked like relics from two different lives that had collided and broken in the same place.

The room around them wore normalcy like a costume. Ceramic frogs grinned on the windowsill, their paint chipped. The fridge hummed softly, plastered with crayon drawings and magnets shaped like fruit. A stick-figure family smiled from one page, a crooked sun shining over their heads. The kind of scene meant to make the world believe that everything was fine.

But Y/N could feel it, the rot underneath.

She set her mug down gently, her fingers still warm from the ceramic. The heat didn’t reach her chest. The air between them was thick, almost tangible. It wasn’t intimacy. It was tension, sharp and waiting. The kind that comes before something breaks.

Jimin stared into his coffee like it might offer him an escape. His reflection shimmered faintly on the dark surface, warped and small.

“Were you expecting me?” Y/N asked. Her tone was even, quiet.

Jimin leaned back in his chair, fingers drumming a soft rhythm against the table. His gaze stayed low. “Yes and no,” he said finally. “Taehyung reached out after your… incident in Korea.”

Y/N didn’t react. That was Taehyung’s way of sanitizing things. To him, she was “unstable.” “Lethal.” Words that kept people at a distance. Words that stripped the truth of its humanity. He never understood her rage or her survival. He only documented it.

She said nothing, and the silence that followed was thick enough to drown in.

Jimin exhaled through his nose, a long, heavy sound. “So I guess it’s too late for an apology, huh?”

Y/N’s eyes lifted to meet his. Her face didn’t move, but the corners of her mouth shifted just slightly. “You suppose right.”

For a second, they just looked at each other. The kitchen dissolved, replaced by another room, another time. The chapel. The betrayal. The strike that had sent her to the floor. The way he had looked at her, half sorrow, half conviction, as if hurting her had been a necessity, not a choice. That look had followed her through every night since.

“Even if I meant it?” he asked softly. There was no armor left in his voice now. Just the raw scrape of a man stripped bare.

Y/N’s lips curved, but it wasn’t kindness. It was something colder, sharper. “Oh, I’m sure you do mean it,” she said.

The words hovered between them like smoke. Then she let them fall, her tone cutting through the stillness like a blade. “Now.”

The sound of that single word broke something in him. Jimin’s jaw tightened; his composure faltered. For the first time, his voice lost the polished calm he’d been holding onto. “Look, bitch,” he snapped, his tone cracking into something raw, desperate. “I just need to know if you’re gonna start any more shit around my baby girl.”

Y/N didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Her eyes narrowed, calm and deliberate, her focus so precise it made him flinch. “You can breathe,” she said finally, her voice quiet but heavy enough to fill the room. “I’m not going to kill you in front of your daughter.”

Jimin barked out a short, broken laugh, no humor, just release. “That’s more rational than Tae made you out to be.”

Her head tilted slightly. “That’s because Taehyung doesn’t know a goddamn thing about me,” she said flatly. “Never has. Never will.”

Y/N leaned forward, the light catching in her eyes, turning them to something dark and reflective. “It’s not rationality I lack,” she said, each word deliberate, crystalline. “It’s mercy. Compassion. Forgiveness.”

The temperature in the room seemed to drop. Neither of them moved. The air between them pulsed with quiet danger, thick enough to taste. Y/N’s voice, when it came again, was soft, too soft. The kind of softness that carried more threat than a scream ever could.

“I’ll wait,” Y/N said, her tone calm but final. “For now. I’m giving you the dignity of choosing where and when we finish this. Somewhere far from Ellie. You’ll hear from me again.”

Jimin didn’t answer right away. His jaw flexed, a subtle twitch that betrayed everything he was trying to contain. The silence between them stretched, the air too thick to breathe. He was still, but she could see it, the shift in his shoulders, the faint pulse in his temple, the way his hand trembled before he forced it still. She had always been able to read him, long before he learned to hide.

The clock on the wall ticked loud and steady, slicing through the quiet like a metronome marking time until someone broke. Y/N let it count a few more seconds before she spoke again.

“I could’ve just hit you,” she said, her voice level, unhurried. “But I didn’t. I expect respect for that.”

She leaned back slightly, her hands folding neatly on the table. The motion was smooth, deliberate, elegant even. But beneath it was the weight of danger, the quiet confidence of someone who knew exactly how much power she carried just by sitting still.

“Since this isn’t a hit,” she continued, her tone sharpening into something precise, “consider it a duel. And as two former Deadly Vipers, we’ll observe Viper protocol.”

The words hung between them, heavy and sharp. A ghost from their past that neither of them had said aloud in years.

“One-on-one,” she said. Her gaze fixed on him, steady and unflinching. “No help. No buckwhacking. One weapon of choice.”

Jimin’s breath stuttered, a near-silent catch that betrayed him. His eyes dropped for a second before he forced them back up. When he finally exhaled, it came rough, like it hurt to let the air go. His face, once sharp, charming, invincible, looked older now. Softer in the wrong ways. Tired.

He whispered her name. “Y/N…”

But she cut him off before he could find the right words.

“I’m not done.”

Her voice sliced through the air, and he went still again. She leaned forward, the light catching the edge of her cheekbone, her expression unreadable.

“Failure to keep our date,” she said quietly, “or any kind of duplicity…” She paused, then leaned in closer until their faces were inches apart. Her next words came soft, almost intimate. “…will result in me putting a hollow-point into the back of your skull. From a window across the street from Ellie’s elementary school.”

The room went still. The words didn’t echo; they just sank, heavy and cold. There was no rage behind them, no fire, just precision. A statement of fact.

Then she smiled. It wasn’t warmth or cruelty, it was colder than both. It was the kind of smile that preceded violence, practiced and patient.

“XOXO,” she murmured, sweet as poison.

She leaned back again, her arms folding loosely across her chest. The stillness returned, but now it had weight. The kind of quiet that crushes everything in it. She didn’t look at him like a woman anymore. She looked at him like judgment.

Jimin swallowed hard, the sound rough and dry. He leaned forward, his forearms on the table, his face drawn and hollow. For the first time since she’d arrived, the facade was gone. What was left was a man stripped bare, regretful, cornered, exhausted.

“Look,” he said finally. His voice was hoarse, almost breaking. “I know I fucked you over. Bad. I betrayed you in a way that can’t be undone.”

He didn’t make excuses. Didn’t try to soften it. The words just fell, heavy and raw.

“I wish to God I hadn’t. But I did. And if I could go back, if I could somehow fix it, I would. I swear I would. But I can’t.”

His breath shuddered on the exhale. The strength in his voice faltered. His hand clenched into a fist and opened again, a man wrestling with his own ghosts.

“All I can tell you is…” he said quietly, “I’m not the man I was back then.”

Y/N’s face didn’t move. She didn’t flinch, didn’t blink. The only sound was the faint hum of the refrigerator. When she finally spoke, her voice was flat. “I don’t care.”

The words hit harder than anything else could have. Jimin’s eyes flickered, the pain showing before he could hide it. He blinked rapidly, and when a tear finally escaped, he wiped it away with the back of his hand, quick and angry.

“Be that as it may,” he said, his voice cracking, “I know I don’t deserve mercy. Or forgiveness.” He hesitated, then forced himself to continue. “But I’m asking anyway. Not for me. For my daughter.”

Y/N’s voice came sharp and immediate, cutting him off before he could breathe. “Bitch, you can stop right there.”

He froze. His mouth hung open, the rest of his plea dying before it reached the air.

Y/N leaned forward, elbows on the table, her posture loose but lethal. She didn’t move like someone bluffing. She moved like someone who’d already made peace with what she was capable of.

Her eyes locked on his, steady and cold. The silence thickened again, pulsing between them. The hum of the fridge, the ticking of the clock, it all faded until there was only the sound of their breathing.

Her next words came slow, deliberate, each one cutting clean. “Just because I decided not to kill you in front of your daughter doesn’t mean using her name is going to buy you even a second of mercy.”

Jimin’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t speak. His pulse fluttered at his throat.

Y/N leaned in closer, so close he could feel her breath against his skin.

“You and I,” she whispered, her tone a low hiss, “have unfinished business. And not a single goddamn thing you’ve done in the last five years, including knocking up your wife, is going to change that.”

Her words didn’t rise or break. They flowed, cold and controlled, every syllable heavy with truth. Rage lived in them, yes, but deeper than that, something older. Betrayal left to rot too long, finally finding its voice.

Jimin had always known this moment would come. He had seen that look in her eyes before, years ago, in the days when chaos had been their currency and violence their second language. But this time was different. There was something colder about her now, something finished. She wasn’t just dangerous anymore. She was untouchable.

He swallowed hard, the sound too loud in the stillness of the kitchen. His throat worked once, twice, fighting against words that wouldn’t come. His hands rose slowly, palms up. It wasn’t surrender. It was caution, the movement of a man who understood exactly what sat across from him. A predator who’d once shared his table, his trust, his war.

“You have every right to want to get even”

“Wrong.”

The single word cut him in half. His eyes snapped to hers, startled, but she didn’t give him a chance to breathe. Her voice came low and precise, stripped of warmth, the voice of someone who had spent years perfecting the art of restraint.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Jimin.”

She stood, slow and deliberate. Even the air seemed to bend around her as she rose. The light from the window caught her in pieces, her outline dark and sharp against the fading orange glow. The shadows stretched long behind her, like something alive.

“To get even,” she said, her tone cold and measured, “I’d have to kill you. Then I’d go into Ellie’s room, slit her throat. And when Loretta came home from the hospital, I’d kiss her on the cheek and blow her brains out with her daughter’s blood still drying on my hands.”

Her words didn’t rise or shake. They dropped like stones into still water, slow, heavy, final. There was no fury in them, only clarity. The kind that comes from living too long with ghosts.

“That,” she said softly, “would be even.”

The silence that followed was unbearable. The room itself seemed to shrink around her voice. The hum of the refrigerator faltered, the clock ticked too loudly, and the world outside the window faded to nothing.

Y/N’s eyes flicked toward the hallway where Noelle had disappeared minutes before. The doorway stood empty, a dark mouth swallowing what little innocence the house had left. When she spoke again, her tone was almost tender, but that softness was sharper than a blade.

“But no,” she murmured. “That’s not how this ends. Not for me. And not for you.”

Her voice carried grief now, grief buried so deep it sounded like steel being bent.

“My unborn daughter…”

She stopped. The air held its breath. She didn’t need to finish the sentence. The weight of what she didn’t say filled every corner of the room.

“…she’ll just have to be satisfied with your death at her mother’s hands.”

The words landed like a verdict. The kitchen went cold. Even the air conditioner seemed to hesitate, the hum of the house dying into silence. The room became a tomb, two ghosts seated across from each other, the light slicing through the blinds in fractured bars. The last breath of the sunset painted them in orange and shadow, like the aftermath of a fire that had long since burned out.

Jimin stared at her, pinned to the moment. There wasn’t fear in his eyes yet, just understanding. Recognition. This wasn’t a surprise. Somewhere deep down, he had always known it would come to this. He had made his choices long ago, built a life from them, and now he was finally standing in the rubble.

It wasn’t surrender out of fear. It was surrender out of inevitability.

The man sitting before her wasn’t Marcus Bell anymore. The careful suburban mask had slipped away, leaving behind the ghost of Copperhead, the killer she had once trusted with her life. And across from him stood Black Mamba, unflinching, cold-eyed, and patient.

“When do we do this?” Jimin asked finally. His voice was low, raw, stripped of everything but truth. He didn’t look away. He didn’t beg. There was nothing left to protect. “When do we finish it?”

Y/N didn’t move. Her eyes never left his face. When she finally spoke, her tone was quiet, almost casual. The kind of voice people use when they’ve already made peace with the outcome.

“That depends,” she said. “When do you want to die? Tomorrow? The day after?” Her lips curved slightly, not a smile, but something like it. “That’s about as long as I’ll wait.”

The words hit him hard, not because they were cruel, but because they were certain. The end had already been decided; all that was left was the scheduling.

Jimin’s chest tightened, his breath catching as if the air had thickened around him. His hands curled into fists on the table, knuckles whitening with the effort to stay calm. The muscles in his forearms trembled. His jaw locked, the vein in his temple beating slow and hard, a countdown neither of them could stop now.

Something broke inside him, a wire snapping deep in the dark, the sound of restraint giving out. His last thread of patience unraveled all at once. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and sharp, the edge of a snarl undercut by something raw and trembling.

“How about tonight, bitch?” he said.

Y/N’s mouth twitched, just enough to bare the hint of a tooth. It wasn’t a smile, not really. It was colder than that, an acknowledgment of what was already written.

“Splendid,” she murmured, her voice slow and silken, every word stretched like wire about to snap. “Where?”

There was no hesitation. He already knew. He’d known from the moment she walked in. The plan had been forming behind his eyes the whole time, the same way old habits come back when you wish they wouldn’t.

“There’s a baseball diamond,” he said, his tone too calm. “Little league field. About a mile from here. Two-thirty in the morning. We wear black. You tie your hair up. We bring knives.”

He said it the way someone orders a drink, casual and detached, his voice too steady for what he was promising. The mask of Marcus Bell had cracked completely now, Copperhead had crawled out from underneath, stretching old muscles that had never really gone soft.

“We won’t be bothered,” he added.

Y/N didn’t react. She just watched him, quiet and still, as he moved through the kitchen like a man pretending the world hadn’t just ended. The contrast was almost absurd, the hum of the fridge, the faint ticking of the clock, and him reaching for a cabinet like any husband fixing breakfast before work.

His movements were careful, automatic. Open the door. Reach in. Find the bowl. He didn’t look at her. Didn’t speak. Just lifted a small plastic cereal bowl decorated with cartoon astronauts smiling against a sea of blue. The kind of thing a father picks without thinking.

“I have to fix Ellie’s cereal,” he said.

The words landed flat, small and final. He set the bowl on the counter. The sound of it touching down was soft, but in the quiet, it felt like a door closing.

Y/N’s eyes stayed on him, unblinking. Her coffee had gone cold, a thin film darkening on the surface, forgotten like everything else between them. Her fingers brushed against her jacket, feeling the hilt of her SOG knife beneath the fabric. She didn’t draw it. Not yet.

“Tae told me once,” she said finally, her voice low but clear, “that you were one of the best he ever saw with a blade.”

Jimin’s hand froze mid-motion. The tension in the air shifted, thickened. He didn’t turn to face her. His jaw twitched. Then he reached for another cabinet, pulling open a door lined with cereal boxes, bright colors, cartoon faces, fake cheer. He grabbed one with a red background and a grinning clown plastered across it: Kaboom!

He set it down with a hard thud.

“Fuck you,” he muttered, not looking at her. “He didn’t qualify that shit, and you know it. You can kiss my motherfucking ass, Black Mamba.”

His words were sharp, but there was no strength behind them. Just exhaustion wearing the mask of defiance. He tore open the box, the cardboard ripping like a scream in the quiet.

“Black Mamba…” he repeated, almost to himself. His laugh was bitter, hollow. “I should’ve been fucking Black Mamba.”

But his hand wasn’t after cereal. He reached deeper, past the sugary loops and garish colors, fingers brushing metal instead of cardboard.

Y/N tilted her head slightly, her voice soft but edged with something knowing. “Weapon of choice?” she asked. “If you’re still hung up on that butcher knife, I won’t stop you.”

His laugh came again, short, rough, broken. “Very funny, bitch,” he said, almost fondly. “Very funny.”

Then the world detonated.

The gunshot tore through the air, deafening and close, the flash bursting from the Kaboom! box like lightning from a storm cloud. The sound was enormous, violent, final. The bullet screamed across the kitchen, shredding the quiet into pieces.

Y/N didn’t think. Her body just moved. The mug in front of her shattered as the bullet hit, splattering cold coffee and ceramic shards across her face. She was already in motion, diving sideways, hitting the ground hard but rolling through it. Her ribs screamed, her shoulder burned, but she kept going.

Another shot cracked, splintering the tile where she’d just been. The air filled with the smell of gunpowder and burnt linoleum.

Jimin’s grin split across his face, wild, feral, unhinged. The pistol was in his hand now, gleaming faintly in the fractured light. His eyes were too bright, feverish, the look of a man who’d stopped pretending to be sane.

Y/N ducked under the table, her body fluid, automatic. She kicked out hard, sending the table crashing forward. The wooden edge slammed into his chest, pinning him against the counter with a heavy crack. Magnets fell from the fridge. A drawing of a stick-figure family fluttered to the floor, the paper smudged by grease and time.

Jimin grunted, the wind knocked out of him, but the gun stayed in his grip. His breath came ragged.

Y/N’s hand shot to her belt. Her fingers curled around the handle of the SOG. One clean pull, one breath, one motion, and the blade was free.

The sound it made cutting air was quiet, but it was enough.

The knife found him. The impact was dull and wet, followed by a gasp that tore through the air like a dying engine. His body seized. His legs buckled. He hit the ground hard, the gun clattering beside him.

For a second, everything was still. Then the blood came, dark and thick, spreading across his shirt, soaking the linoleum in slow, widening pools. His breaths came shallow and wet. He tried to speak, but nothing made it past his lips. His hand twitched, not toward the gun, not toward her, just out.

Y/N stepped closer, her movements measured, her face unreadable. Her pulse hammered, but her breath was steady. There was no triumph in her expression. No relief. Just quiet.

She crouched beside him, her knees bending with slow control, her shadow falling over his face. The knife dripped in her hand, the sound soft as rain.

Their eyes met, and for a single heartbeat the years between them disappeared. The world around them, the blood, the wreckage, the ghosts, fell away. They weren’t Black Mamba and Copperhead anymore. Not killers. Not enemies. Just two people who had once shared the same sky, the same dust, the same scars. She could almost see it again, the heat of the Mexican sun, the quiet evenings when they sat side by side, passing a bottle between them, trading laughter that never reached their eyes.

Now, staring down at him, Y/N could still see traces of the man he’d been, the one who had pulled her out of the dirt, who had made her laugh when she thought she never would again. It was all still there, just buried under time, lies, and the choices that had ruined them both.

Jimin’s lips moved, his eyes glassy, searching for her face. His breath came shallow and uneven, a wet rattle that made each word a struggle. “Sorry…” he rasped, blood bubbling at the corners of his mouth. “’Bout the bushwhack.”

His hand twitched, fingers scraping weakly against the tile. It wasn’t clear if it was an apology or surrender, or if he even knew the difference anymore.

“Please don’t…” His voice cracked. “Don’t…”

Y/N didn’t pull away. She reached down, taking his hand. Her grip was steady, firm, not gentle but not cruel either, just real. The kind of touch that existed when there was nothing left to say.

Her voice came low, almost a whisper, but weighted with grief. “Do to your daughter what you did to mine.”

Her fingers tightened once, final and sure. “I won’t.”

His chest rose once, then again. Then it stopped.

The stillness that followed was deafening. Jimin’s eyes stayed open, his face slackening into something almost peaceful. The man she’d known was gone, leaving behind only a hollow shape, a body cooling on the kitchen floor, surrounded by the fragments of the life he had built to hide from what he was. Copperhead was dead.

She stood over him, breathing slow, steady. It didn’t feel like victory. It didn’t even feel like closure. Just the quiet ache that came after too many goodbyes. He had mattered, and that made it worse.

The refrigerator hummed in the corner, oblivious. Its steady mechanical whir was the only sound, filling the silence with something too normal for the moment. The absurdity of it almost made her laugh. A machine humming along in a room that had just turned into a tomb.

Jimin’s death hadn’t come with the violence she’d expected, no cinematic final stand, no blaze of glory. It was a whisper. A slow, inevitable unraveling. The kind of death that didn’t burn but settled deep, dull and heavy.

He had been so many things to her once, comrade, shield, friend. The man who made her laugh when laughter was dangerous. The one who held her together when the rest of the world had fallen apart. And now he was just another ghost. Another body on the long road she’d been walking for years.

Y/N straightened. The leather of her coat creaked softly as she moved. Her fingers brushed the handle of her SOG knife, still slick with blood. She pulled it free, the sound of steel sliding from its sheath low and wet. It was the sound of endings.

She didn’t look away as she wiped the blade clean with the old white handkerchief she kept tucked inside her coat. The stitched initials, T.A.E., were faded now, the corner forever stained a dark brown. She dragged the cloth along the edge of the knife until it gleamed silver again, streaked faintly red in the weak kitchen light.

Grief stirred in her chest. Not the burning kind that had consumed her when Yoongi died, but something deeper, quieter, an ache that settled and stayed. The silence pressed down until it almost hurt. Then came the faint sound of porcelain shifting on tile, followed by a small creak.

Y/N turned, every muscle tightening.

In the doorway stood Noelle. Barefoot. Small. Wearing mismatched socks. She held a stuffed rabbit in her arms, its fur worn thin and patchy from years of love. Her eyes, dark, wide, and much too old, fixed on Y/N. She didn’t cry. Didn’t scream. She didn’t even look at her father’s body. Her gaze stayed locked on the woman standing over it.

Y/N’s chest constricted. She reached into her coat, pulling out the same handkerchief she’d just used. Her hands moved on instinct, slow and deliberate, wiping the last traces of blood from the blade.

Her voice, when it came, was rough and low. “It wasn’t my intention to do this in front of you.” She paused, her throat tight. “For that, I’m sorry.”

The knife slid back into its sheath with a click that echoed too loud in the quiet.

“But take my word for it,” she said, her tone flat and final. “Your father had it coming.”

Y/N stepped forward. The soles of her boots crushed ceramic and spilled cereal beneath them, the sounds small but sharp. Her shadow stretched across the floor and over the child, long and thin under the cold kitchen light.

Noelle didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Y/N stopped in front of her and knelt, the stiffness in her knees matching the weight in her chest. Up close, the girl’s face was heartbreakingly young. But her eyes, those eyes, belonged to someone who already knew too much about loss.

“When you grow up,” Y/N said softly, “if you still feel raw about it…” She held her gaze, steady and unflinching. “I’ll be waiting.”

Y/N stood again. Her legs felt heavier than before, her breath thick in her chest. She turned toward the side door, her hand closing around the handle. The metal was cold against her skin.

When she opened the door, the world outside hit her all at once. The air was too clean, too bright, as if it hadn’t just absorbed what had happened inside. The sky stretched wide and blue, perfectly untouched. Birds sang from somewhere unseen, their small voices cutting through the stillness like nothing in the world had changed. A sprinkler ticked down the block, its rhythm steady, mechanical, almost mocking. The scent of jasmine drifted on the breeze, sweet and alive, a cruel reminder that life went on, even here.

Y/N stepped out, boots landing heavy against the driveway, leaving faint smudges of blood in the dirt. Each step was slow, deliberate, as if she were testing the ground beneath her feet, making sure it still existed. She walked past a tricycle tipped on its side, one wheel bent, past a sun-bleached plastic dinosaur half-buried in the lawn. Ghosts of a normal life. A family. A home that had never really been hers.

Her truck sat where she’d left it, unapologetic, ridiculous, the same bright yellow beast she’d driven across deserts and through hell. Pussy Wagon blazed across the tailgate in garish pink cursive, still loud, still defiant. It was absurd and out of place in this quiet Pasadena street, yet it fit her perfectly. The sight of it stirred something bitter and familiar. She almost smiled. Almost.

Instead, she climbed into the cab. The heat inside wrapped around her immediately, pressing close, clinging to her skin. It smelled like sweat and leather, old smoke and oil, home, in its own way. She shut the door, the solid thunk echoing in the silence like a punctuation mark.

Her gaze dropped to the glove box. She reached out, opened it, and pulled out the battered spiral notebook resting inside. The edges were bent and worn soft from years of use. She didn’t need to look at the cover; she knew what it said.

DEATH LIST FIVE.

She flipped it open. The first few pages were filled with names. Some crossed out in thick black lines, others still waiting. She touched the first one, tracing the letters out of habit. She didn’t need to read it to remember. Snow, silence, Yoongi. The ache of his name lived somewhere deep, a wound that had never healed. She looked down the page.

Jimin Park – Copperhead.

Her chest tightened. For a moment, she just stared. The name looked harmless now, just ink on paper, but it carried the weight of an entire lifetime. The laughter they’d shared, the battles they’d fought, the betrayal that had broken them. He’d been a friend once. Then an enemy. And now, nothing. Just another line on a page.

She uncapped the black marker, the smell sharp and chemical. Her hand didn’t shake. The line she drew through his name was dark and final, slicing through years of history with a single stroke.

2. Jimin Park – Copperhead.

She sat there for a moment, staring at it. The silence inside the truck was thick, the only sound her own breathing and the faint tick of the cooling engine. Then she turned the key.

The engine roared to life, loud and alive, rattling the frame around her. It filled the emptiness with sound, vibrating through her chest like a heartbeat. She gripped the wheel, shifted into gear, and pressed the accelerator.

The truck rolled down the street, its tires scraping the pavement, engine growling in protest. The suburban world around her stayed eerily calm, rows of sleeping houses, neatly trimmed lawns, the faint flicker of TV light behind closed curtains. Pasadena slept peacefully, unaware that death had just passed through.

The last of the sun had bled away, leaving behind a bruised orange glow that lingered along the horizon. It painted the rooftops in fading warmth, a dying light over a perfect world. Sprinklers hissed, their arcs cutting silver lines through the air. She passed by manicured lawns, potted plants, fences wrapped in fairy lights, small illusions of safety that had nothing to do with the truth.

A child’s toy lay overturned in a driveway. A pink flamingo stood crooked in a patch of grass, its paint faded to a pale ghost of what it once was. Y/N’s jaw tightened. This world had no idea how fragile it was, how easily it could break.

Tomorrow, these people would wake up to their routines. They’d sip coffee, walk their dogs, wave to their neighbors. None of them would know what had happened a few doors down. None of them would ever know.

She passed the park, the one where the Little League diamond sat in its perfect square of green. For a heartbeat, she almost looked. Then she didn’t.

Somewhere behind her, an ice cream truck rolled through the neighborhood, its jingle light and cheerful, the kind of sound that used to mean summer. Children’s laughter drifted faintly through the open windows of her truck, carrying a note of innocence so pure it made her chest ache.

The Pussy Wagon thundered past, its ridiculous pink lettering glowing under the streetlights like a taunt. It was loud, crass, impossible to ignore, like her. The sound of it cutting through the quiet felt obscene, but it was real, and it was hers.

She glanced in the rearview mirror. The street behind her blurred into distance, the houses, the ice cream truck, the laughter. All of it fading, swallowed by the dark.

She pressed her foot down harder, the truck surging forward, engine rumbling deep and steady beneath her. The houses gave way to open road. Streetlights thinned until there were none. Pasadena fell away behind her, shrinking into the kind of memory she’d learned not to look back on.

The highway stretched ahead, long and empty. Somewhere down that road waited Hawthorne. Then Texas. Then Namjoon.

The night swallowed everything but the hum of the engine and the steady rhythm of her breath. The road ahead shimmered faintly in the heat, endless and open. She didn’t know what she’d find at the end of it. She only knew she had to keep driving.

Loretta sat alone in the small interview room, its walls a dull gray that seemed to close in the longer she stayed. The faint hum of the fluorescent lights overhead filled the silence, mixing with the sharp, sterile scent of disinfectant that clung to everything. She could still smell it, Mark’s blood. It was dried into the fabric of her blouse, dark and stiff against her skin. She hadn’t changed. She couldn’t. The idea of washing it off felt like erasing him completely, as if letting go of the last trace of him that still existed on her.

Her hands rested in her lap, trembling so badly she pressed them together to make it stop. It didn’t. Her fingers felt foreign, her body hollowed out, as though she were watching all this from somewhere far away.

When she finally spoke, her voice came out thin and brittle, scraping against the quiet. “He must have been attacked,” she said. “Someone broke in. Someone who knew him. Or thought they did.” She swallowed hard, forcing the words through the dryness in her throat. “Mark must’ve tried to fight back. I didn’t even know he had a gun. He never told me. We didn’t keep one in the house, not with Noelle around. He wouldn’t.”

The detective across from her didn’t say anything, just watched her over folded hands. The silence pressed against her chest.

Loretta kept going, her thoughts tumbling faster now, trying to make sense of what refused to make sense. “He must’ve known something was wrong. Maybe he saw someone outside, or maybe he let them in, God, why would he let them in?” Her voice cracked on the last word, and she bit her lip to keep from breaking down again.

She covered her face with her hands for a moment, trying to steady herself. When she looked up again, her eyes were red, her skin pale and waxy under the harsh light. “Noelle said it was a man,” she whispered, her voice barely more than a breath. “A tall man with a beard. She said he looked like he knew Mark, but she didn’t remember his name. Or his voice. Just that he looked… disappointed. Angry, but not like a stranger.”

The detective nodded slightly, jotting something down in his notebook. The scratching of his pen filled the silence.

“She said Mark told her to go upstairs. Told her I was coming home soon. That he needed to talk to the man.” Loretta’s words came slower now, careful, fragile. “She said she heard a gunshot. And when she came back down…” Her voice faltered. She took a long, shaky breath. “He was already on the floor. And the man was gone.”

The words hung in the air like smoke, thick and suffocating.

“She told them all of that,” Loretta went on softly. “They showed her pictures, everyone we know. Friends, coworkers, neighbors. Even the delivery drivers. She didn’t recognize any of them.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “None of them were the man she saw.”

She leaned back in the metal chair, her body sinking under the weight of exhaustion. Her gaze fixed on the cold surface of the table, the scratches in the steel forming lines that led nowhere. “I don’t understand,” she said finally. “Mark was good. He was kind. He’d give his coat to a stranger if they needed it. Who could hate him enough to do this? Who could walk into our home and…” She stopped herself, her voice breaking apart before the words could finish.

The detective’s pen stilled. He closed the notebook slowly, setting it aside. The sound of it hitting the table was small, but Loretta flinched.

The room felt smaller now, the air heavier. Every question felt like a blade turning in her chest.

Days blurred after that, endless interviews, police cars outside the house, neighbors whispering through fences. She barely ate. She barely slept. At night, she sat awake in Noelle’s room, her daughter’s small body curled up in bed beside her, trembling through restless dreams. Sometimes Noelle woke screaming, crying about the man with the beard, the man who looked at her father “like he was sad.”

Loretta would hold her until the sobs faded, brushing hair from her damp forehead, whispering, “It’s okay, baby. You’re safe now.” But she wasn’t sure she believed it.

And every time the girl spoke, something inside Loretta twisted. The details never changed, the tall man, the beard, the voice that sounded almost familiar, but deep down, Loretta knew. There was something off about the way Noelle told it, the way her eyes darted when she said his name.

Loretta never said it aloud, not even when the police pressed her. But the truth lingered in the back of her mind, cold and undeniable.

Her daughter was lying about who had really been in that house.

The air in the room felt thick, almost alive, like it had decided to stop breathing. Incense burned slow in the corner, the scent of green tea curling through the air, soft and calm, trying and failing to hide the darker undertone beneath it. Gun oil, steel, and something sharp enough to cut through the quiet. Outside, thunder rolled far off over the city, the kind of distant rumble that promised a storm was coming. Inside, the silence was heavier than any sound could be. Shadows flickered across the walls from the candlelight, stretching and twisting, never sitting still, as if the room itself was restless.

Taehyung sat in the center of it all, surrounded by weapons laid out with almost obsessive precision. Pistols. Blades. A rifle, half-cleaned. Every piece gleamed under the low light, their metal reflecting back his face in warped fragments. He worked with slow, steady hands, wiping down the slide of a pistol like he was handling something sacred. It wasn’t just maintenance. It was ritual. A kind of prayer for men like him, the only one that ever seemed to matter. The smell of sandalwood mixed with the metallic tang of oil and metal. Holy and profane, both at once.

Light filtered through the half-closed blinds, slicing across the room in narrow stripes. The shadows landed across Taehyung’s face like bars on a cell. He looked carved out of the dimness, calm, unreadable, the faintest flicker of movement in his eyes the only thing betraying thought.

“If Yoongi was the first,” he said quietly in Korean, his voice low and even, “then unless she’s playing games, Park Jimin is second.”

It wasn’t a guess. It was certainty, cold and absolute. The way he said it left no room for argument.

Across from him, Jungkook leaned against the wall, a dark shape half-swallowed by shadow. His arms were crossed, muscles tense beneath his shirt, the faint rhythm of his jaw moving as he chewed a piece of gum. Every snap of it broke the silence like a warning. He wasn’t fidgeting; it was control, tight deliberate control.

Taehyung kept talking, voice smooth, detached, almost thoughtful. “She and Yoongi were close. Closest. That’s why she started with him. Or maybe because he would’ve seen her coming. And if he had…” His voice trailed off, unfinished, but the implication hung heavy in the air.

He looked up then, eyes meeting Jungkook’s. They were calm, but not soft. Deep, black, unblinking. Eyes that had seen too much and didn’t bother pretending otherwise. “You don’t just walk into Yoongi’s territory and make it out alive,” he said finally. “Unless you’re willing to die for it.”

Jungkook didn’t move. Didn’t blink. The gum popped once between his teeth, a sharp, dry sound in the stillness. “Where is Park Jimin?” His voice was low, flat, stripped of anything human.

Taehyung tapped the butt of his knife against his knee twice, the sound a soft, steady rhythm that filled the space where words didn’t. He smiled faintly, a thin, dangerous thing that never reached his eyes. “Los Angeles,” he said. “Pasadena. But she won’t stay there. She never does. If she’s smart, and she is, she’ll be holed up near the airport. Somewhere cheap. Somewhere quiet. Hawthorne.”

The silence that followed stretched long enough to make the air hum. Even the storm outside seemed to hesitate, holding its breath.

Then, pop.

The gum snapped between Jungkook’s teeth, loud and clean, like the breaking of a bone. He grinned, slow and crooked, the kind of grin that didn’t reach his eyes. It was amusement, but it wasn’t joy. It was the thrill of something inevitable. “California, huh?” he said, the words lazy but his tone sharp enough to cut. “Guess it’s time to pay a visit.”

The grin lingered for a second, then faded. What replaced it was colder. Focused. Dangerous. He pushed off from the wall, his movements fluid, almost graceful, like a predator shifting from rest to motion. The floor creaked once under his boot, a quiet protest, and then he was gone. The door clicked shut behind him with a soft, final sound.

Taehyung didn’t move. The incense burned lower, the smoke curling in lazy spirals. Somewhere outside, thunder rolled again.

The night air wrapped around Jungkook as he stepped out onto the street, heavy with the weight of rain that hadn’t yet fallen. The city was still awake; distant traffic murmured somewhere beyond the alleys, lights flickered against the damp pavement, but it all felt far away, muffled, as if the world was holding its breath. He pulled his phone from his pocket, the glow from the screen washing his face in cold blue light. One name stared back at him, Kiko.

He pressed call.

The line barely rang before her voice slid through, smooth and low, with a hint of static cutting through it. “Still breathing, huh?” she teased, her tone somewhere between affection and challenge.

Jungkook’s mouth curved into a slow smile, sharp at the edges. “You know me,” he said, his voice steady but roughened by something darker. “Got a job to finish.”

Kiko laughed softly, a sound like silk tearing. “You’re a monster, Kookie,” she purred, the nickname curling off her tongue like smoke. “But you’re my monster.” There was a pause, a flicker of silence that felt heavier than words. “What’s the plan?”

Jungkook’s eyes narrowed as he stared down the empty street, neon bleeding into puddles at his feet. “I’m heading to California,” he said. “She’s been running too long. This time, she won’t make it far.”

He didn’t have to say her name. Kiko already knew who he meant. His voice dropped, quieter now, raw at the edges. “She killed my brother, Kiko.” He swallowed hard, the ache in his throat barely contained. “He took care of me when no one else did. He’s the reason I’m still breathing. And now…” His breath caught, the sentence hanging unfinished. The silence after said everything.

Kiko’s voice returned, dark and velvety. “You know how I feel about revenge,” she murmured, her tone laced with pleasure. “You don’t need to ask twice. I’m in. Let’s make her disappear.”

Her words hit him like a spark thrown onto gasoline. That familiar rush, rage, grief, anticipation, pulsed through his veins, igniting something feral. Kiko was the only person who could match him, the only one who didn’t flinch when things got ugly. Together, they didn’t just survive the fire. They became it.

Jungkook exhaled slowly, his grin widening, sharp and wolfish. “Good,” he said, his voice low. “Book the flight. I’ll handle the rest.”

“I already am,” she replied, that dangerous playfulness threading through every syllable. He could hear her moving on the other end, the soft clatter of a keyboard, the click of a lighter. “You’ll have your seat by midnight.”

He stopped at the corner, watching headlights sweep past. His pulse thudded hard in his chest, a steady drumbeat of purpose. “Don’t take too long,” he warned. “She’s already moving. And I don’t plan on chasing her forever.”

Kiko chuckled, soft and dangerous. “Relax, my love. I wouldn’t keep you waiting.”

The line went dead.

Jungkook slid the phone back into his pocket and raised a hand to hail a cab. The city felt smaller now, shrinking around him as the first drops of rain began to fall. When the taxi pulled up, he climbed in without a word.

“Gimhae International,” he said. His voice was flat, unfeeling. The driver nodded, and the cab rolled away from the curb.

As the lights of the city blurred past the window, Jungkook leaned back, his reflection staring back at him in the glass, tired eyes, clenched jaw, the faint smirk of a man already halfway to war. This wasn’t a mission. It was something personal.

By the time he reached the airport, Kiko had already worked her magic. The ticket was waiting for him, a single seat on a midnight flight. No crowds. No questions. Just silence and distance.

He passed through the terminal like a ghost, the world around him a blur of polished tile and fluorescent light. The smell of disinfectant and fast food hung in the air. He grabbed something to eat, a burger, a handful of fries, but the taste didn’t land. He chewed out of habit, not hunger. His mind was already somewhere else, tracing old memories that hurt to touch.

When his phone buzzed again, Jungkook didn’t need to check the name. He lifted it to his ear, already knowing who it was. “Still with me?” Kiko’s voice was soft, teasing, the kind of tone that could disarm you if you weren’t careful.

“Always,” he murmured.

They talked for hours while he waited to board, their words flowing easily, aimlessly. Music. Old movies. Stupid memories from nights that blurred together in smoke and laughter. She made him laugh once, really laugh, an unguarded sound that startled him as much as it seemed to please her. It felt foreign, that kind of warmth, like something borrowed from another lifetime. Kiko never asked about his brother, or Yoongi, or the crew. She didn’t need to. She understood that some silences weren’t meant to be filled.

Their bond wasn’t born out of comfort. It was built in the wreckage, two people who knew what it meant to lose everything and still stand there, bleeding, daring the world to take more. They didn’t fix each other. They just didn’t flinch at what the other had become.

Kiko had seen him at his worst. She’d seen him drunk, furious, reckless. She’d cleaned the blood off the floor when things got out of hand, patched up his knuckles when he split them open against someone’s face. She’d watched him fall apart and hadn’t tried to stop him. She didn’t want to save him; she wanted to witness the fire. And maybe that was what made her dangerous. She didn’t see his destruction as a flaw. She saw it as art.

But this time was different. There wouldn’t be blood on their floor or broken glass in the sink. This wasn’t another night gone wrong. This was purpose. A hunt. And Kiko, in her own twisted way, loved him most when he had purpose. Revenge, after all, had always been her favorite kind of love story.

As the clock ticked closer to boarding time, neither of them mentioned it. The airport hummed around him, voices over loudspeakers, the shuffle of people, the clatter of rolling suitcases, but in his world, there was only her voice. The calm before everything went to hell.

When his boarding group was finally called, Kiko’s voice softened, a smile hidden somewhere in the words. “Bring me a souvenir, Kookie.”

He smirked faintly, sliding his phone into his jacket. “She’d like some pictures.”

He stood, adjusted his coat, and started toward the gate. Outside, the storm that had been threatening all night finally broke, rain streaking down the glass in long, slow lines. The engines of the waiting plane rumbled like distant thunder. Jungkook moved with quiet certainty, carrying nothing but ghosts and a promise that would not go unfulfilled.

In first class, he sat back, legs stretched, his posture loose in a way that suggested control rather than comfort. He didn’t belong to any particular class, not the polished elite or the lost souls in the back. He existed somewhere in between, in that strange gray place where rules blurred and morality didn’t apply. His clothes reflected it too: a layered polo that pretended at respectability, a soft gray V-neck that whispered of luxury but not pride. Faded jeans that clung like old regrets. And the white Converse, battered, frayed, stained in ways that couldn’t be explained without telling too much truth. Those shoes had been places that left marks deeper than the leather could show.

He looked like a man born into privilege who had decided one day to spit it out, to choke on the taste of it and trade it for something real. A man who’d seen his future paved and shining, and chose instead to burn it down just to see the smoke. The rebellion suited him. It clung to him like the faint scent of cologne on his skin, expensive, reckless, unrepentant.

When the plane touched down at LAX, the morning light hit him like a slap. California sunlight was different, too bright, too alive, like it was trying to burn away the night. Everything outside the window was drenched in gold, but not the kind that felt warm. It was harsh, raw, almost sickly, as if the world had turned up its brightness just to blind him.

Jungkook didn’t rush off the plane. He never rushed. His movements were slow, measured, like each step was choreographed. The crowd seemed to part around him without realizing it, pulled aside by something they couldn’t name. He didn’t glance around for directions or check his phone; he didn’t need to. He moved like a man who already knew the ending.

The air outside hit him thick and dry, the city already sweating under the sun. He found his way to the car lot in Van Nuys, a graveyard of forgotten machines baking in the heat. The asphalt cracked beneath his shoes, the air humming with the metallic scent of rust and gasoline. A salesman appeared, too tan and too eager, all grin and desperation. He started talking fast, torque, horsepower, fuel economy, but Jungkook wasn’t listening. His eyes were already locked on what he wanted.

Convertible. Red. The kind of red that didn’t ask for attention; it demanded it. It was bright, violent, unapologetic. The salesman followed his gaze, words faltering. Jungkook didn’t say a word. He just nodded once. That was enough.

Minutes later, the engine roared to life. The car fit him like it had been waiting, like it knew it was being chosen for something more than just a drive. He tore through the Hollywood Hills, the wind screaming past him, the sky cracking open with light. His laughter cut through it all, sharp, wild, untamed. It wasn’t happiness. It was release. The kind of sound that made the world pause for a moment to listen.

By the time he reached the city, his pulse was still racing. The adrenaline clung to him like sweat, thrumming in his veins. He wasn’t running from anything anymore. He was chasing. And for the first time in a long time, he felt alive.

Somewhere across the city, Kiko would be watching. Tracking flights, checking names, waiting for his signal. They were getting closer. Closer to her. The woman who had started it all. The one who had taken everything.

Jungkook didn’t rush to the hotel. There was no need. The day was still young, the air warm and restless, buzzing with that unmistakable Los Angeles energy, the kind that made everything feel just a little too alive. The city pulsed around him, loud and chaotic, but not in a way that bothered him. He had time to spare, and for once, nothing to chase. Not yet. There would be time for revenge later, but right now, he was content to just exist, to breathe the same air as strangers and let the city move him wherever it wanted.

The hotel was sleek and modern, all glass and chrome, sunlight flashing off the windows like knives. Inside, it smelled faintly of perfume and polished floors. He checked in without paying much attention to the lobby or the smiling receptionist. His thoughts were already outside, with the noise and motion waiting for him beyond the doors.

Upstairs, he dropped his bag on the bed and left it untouched. He wasn’t here to settle in. The room was just a place to leave things behind. He grabbed his Polaroid camera, an old, beat-up thing that hung comfortably from his shoulder, the strap worn smooth from years of use. He liked the immediacy of it, the way it captured moments without pretense. No filters, no edits. Just truth, frozen in time. Kiko would love that. She liked things raw, unpolished. The real kind of beautiful, the kind you couldn’t fake.

The thought of her made him smile, faintly, almost without realizing it. She’d laugh at the pictures he’d take, he knew that. She’d pin them to the wall or tuck them into a drawer, keeping pieces of him close in the way only she could. Maybe it would stop her from worrying so much. Maybe it would stop him from drinking so damn much when he got back.

Outside, the sunlight hit him hard. The city looked different up close, less glamorous than the postcards, more alive. Everything shimmered under the heat, a mix of glass and grit, the kind of beauty that came from being a little broken. The air tasted like smog and coffee and something sweet from a food truck down the block. He breathed it in and kept walking, no direction in mind.

He let the streets take him where they wanted. Past the billboards, the palm trees swaying too lazily for how fast the traffic moved, the endless lines of tourists craning their necks for something worth remembering. Jungkook didn’t bother with the usual sights. He aimed his camera at what most people ignored: graffiti tucked into alleyways, a cracked bus stop with someone’s story scribbled across it, an old man feeding pigeons beside a trash can. Click. The photos slid from the camera warm and faintly chemical, curling in the sunlight as they came to life.

He wandered farther, down Sunset, the light shifting as the day started to fold into evening. The sun had turned everything gold, that kind of burnished glow that made the world look softer than it really was. He stopped for a moment, leaning against a railing, camera in hand. He framed the skyline through the lens, the sprawl of buildings and power lines, the halo of sunlight just before it gave up to dusk. Click. Another snapshot, another quiet moment trapped in time.

For a second, he let himself forget. Forget why he was here. Forget what was coming. The city around him hummed with life, and he felt, strangely, at peace. But peace never lasted long. Not for him. The memory of Kiko’s voice, the plan that waited beyond this small pause, crept back in like smoke curling under a door.

He snapped one last photo of the sunset bleeding into the horizon, then slung the camera back over his shoulder. His fingers lingered on it for a moment, gripping the worn leather strap like it was an anchor.

By the time he turned toward the street again, the city had changed. The heat of the day had given way to something cooler, but no less alive. Streetlights flickered on, the smell of food and exhaust filling the air. He passed a small market, the sound of sizzling oil and laughter spilling out from behind open stalls. He caught the scent of roasting meat, the sweetness of grilled onions, the spice of something fried and heavy. It hit him all at once, the hunger, the noise, the motion. This city was a living thing, all pulse and rhythm, and for once, he didn’t mind being swallowed by it.

He lifted the camera again, snapping a picture of a street vendor laughing with a customer, of a couple walking close together, their fingers brushing, of a stray dog weaving through the crowd. The couple’s photo developed in his hand, the colors blooming slowly. The girl’s head was tilted back mid-laugh, the guy looking at her like the rest of the world had gone quiet. Jungkook stared at it for a moment longer than he should have.

Maybe it was jealousy. Maybe it was nostalgia. Or maybe it was just the quiet recognition that moments like that, real and fleeting, didn’t last in cities like this.

He slipped the photo into his pocket and kept walking, disappearing into the crowd as the last light of day gave way to night.

Jungkook’s pace slowed as he weaved through the crowd, watching people move around him like a living current. Everyone was chasing something here, fame, love, redemption, maybe just survival. The air itself seemed charged with want, thick with dreams both dying and newly born. It was the kind of city that promised everything and delivered only to a few. He wondered, absently, how many of these people would still be here in a year. How many would disappear without anyone noticing.

His hand brushed the worn leather of his jacket, grounding him. A reminder of where he came from, of what he’d left behind. The scent of grilled corn and roasted peanuts caught his attention, rich and smoky. He stopped at a street vendor, handed over a few bills, and bit into the corn, its sweetness cutting through the heat of the day. Around him, Los Angeles moved with a rhythm that felt almost alive, car horns, laughter, music bleeding from open windows. Tourists wandered by with cameras and wide eyes; locals passed them with practiced indifference. And above it all, rising from the hills like a mirage, the Hollywood sign watched over them.

Even from this distance, it was impossible to ignore. The sun hit it just right, making the white letters gleam like something divine. To most, it was a symbol of arrival. Of success. But to Jungkook, it looked more like a warning, something bright and hollow that stood too high above everything else. He felt it tug at him anyway, that strange pull of curiosity or defiance. Maybe both. The thought came without meaning to: Come see for yourself. See what it’s really made of.

He hadn’t planned to go, but plans had never meant much to him. So he started walking.

The further he got from the city center, the thinner the crowds became. The noise softened, fading into the hum of distant traffic and the steady sound of his boots on pavement. The air shifted too, cooler, sharper as he climbed. Buildings gave way to winding roads and low hills, the asphalt bending in long, lazy curves that seemed to lead nowhere and everywhere at once. For a moment, it almost felt cinematic, the way the late afternoon sun painted everything gold.

He caught himself smiling at the thought. Visiting the Hollywood sign, it was cliché. Almost laughably so. But there was something right about it. Like closing a loop he didn’t realize had been open. He wanted to stand there, to look out over the city and know he had seen it with his own eyes. Not as a tourist, not as an outsider, but as someone who had earned the right to be here.

The road stretched on, the sun dipping lower, shadows growing longer across the hills. He lifted his camera, snapping a photo of the narrow trail ahead. The picture whirred softly, sliding out into his hand, the colors slowly bleeding to life as he kept walking. The rhythm of his steps settled into something meditative, the climb pulling him into a quiet trance.

Each step closer to the sign felt heavier, as if he was moving through layers of meaning, ambition, failure, decay. The city’s noise had fallen away entirely now, replaced by the whisper of wind and the faint rustle of dry grass. The letters loomed ahead, bright and pale against the darkening sky. From a distance, they had seemed flawless. Up close, they were anything but. The paint was chipped, the metal rusted in places. Time had left its mark.

Jungkook stopped a few feet from the base of the first letter, tilting his head back to take it all in. The sign was massive, almost absurdly so. A monument to everything people chased and everything they lost in the process. He snapped a photo, the camera clicking in the quiet like a heartbeat. The film developed slowly in his hands, the image ghostly at first, then clearer, a perfect symbol of what the city really was: beautiful, broken, and trying too hard to stay relevant.

The closer he looked, the more he saw it for what it was, a relic. Not of hope, but of the cost of wanting too much. To most, the sign was a promise. To him, it looked like a tombstone. A grave marker for dreams that had burned too bright and died too fast. He could almost hear them, those echoes of ambition and desperation that lingered in the dry wind.

He stood there for a long moment, hand stuffed in his pocket, eyes tracing the jagged edges of the letters. His mouth curved, not a smile, exactly, but something close to it. A smirk, maybe. The kind that carried more understanding than amusement. For the tourists below, snapping selfies and pretending they were close enough to touch it, this place was sacred. But for Jungkook, it was proof of everything he already knew: that fame rots, beauty fades, and every light eventually burns out.

The sun slipped lower, the sky turning the color of blood and smoke. He lifted his camera one last time, framing the sign against the dying light, and pressed the shutter. The click echoed softly in the stillness. He didn’t watch the photo develop. He just slipped it into his pocket, where it joined the others.

That one wasn’t for him. It was for Kiko.

Jungkook stood outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre with an oversized cowboy hat balanced crookedly on his head, the brim too wide, the crown slouched like it had given up halfway through the day. It looked ridiculous on him, but he wore it like it mattered, like it was armor instead of cheap felt bought off a street vendor. Maybe it was. He’d bargained for it, flashed that easy grin of his until the vendor dropped the price, and now it was his. A souvenir. A joke. A small claim on a city that didn’t belong to anyone.

He crouched beside the faded handprints of Roy Rogers, spreading his fingers wide over the old cement, pretending to measure the space like it was something worth comparing. Someone nearby laughed and raised a phone, and Jungkook turned toward them, grinning for the picture, tossing up two finger guns in a playful, exaggerated pose. For a heartbeat, he looked like he belonged there, just another tourist chasing ghosts down Hollywood Boulevard. But the glint in his eyes said otherwise.

The tourists loved it. They always did. The swagger, the grin, the effortlessness that came from years of knowing exactly what people wanted to see. They didn’t know him, didn’t recognize the edge under the smile, and that was fine. He wasn’t performing for them. Not really. But it was amusing, watching them believe in the version of him they wanted to photograph.

He made his rounds like he was following a script. Posing for another picture beside a forgotten actor whose glory days were long behind them. The man’s smile was strained, the kind of expression polished by years of trying too hard. Jungkook slung an arm around his shoulder anyway, laughing like they were old friends, two veterans swapping stories about battles fought under brighter lights. The cameras flashed. Jungkook tilted his chin just slightly, eyes half-lidded, all practiced ease and subtle detachment. To anyone watching, it looked spontaneous. To him, it was precision. Every movement, every smirk, a calculated note in the larger composition he was writing.

When he drifted behind the velvet ropes at a movie premiere, he blended in without effort but somehow still drew the eye. His suit wasn’t the sharpest, but it didn’t need to be. He carried himself like he owned the space, or like he was there to steal it. The red carpet shimmered under the flash of cameras, all those perfect smiles and gleaming faces. Jungkook’s smile cut through them, quieter but more dangerous. The photographers didn’t know who he was, but they snapped his picture anyway, pulled by that spark that couldn’t be faked. It didn’t matter that no one asked for his name. They would, eventually.

The night bled into chaos, lights, noise, music that felt too loud and too empty. Somehow, between it all, he ended up strapped into a roller coaster, metal bars locking him in place as the machine lurched forward. He didn’t remember buying a ticket. Maybe he hadn’t. The climb was slow, the city sprawling below him in a sea of neon and smog. When the drop came, he threw his hands into the air, not in joy but defiance. The wind tore at his face, but he grinned through it, teeth flashing like a dare. The camera caught him mid-fall, laughing, unflinching, the perfect image of someone who didn’t care if the ground ever came.

Disneyland came after, bright and hollow, the smell of sugar and nostalgia thick in the air. A plastic dream made real, polished to perfection. Jungkook knelt beside Captain Hook for a photo, one knee bent, the camera dangling from his wrist. His eyes moved constantly, over the crowd, the exits, the angles. He didn’t believe in magic anymore. The rides, the music, the forced smiles, they were all part of the same illusion. He smiled for another picture, this time with Chip and Dale, his arms draped across their oversized costumes. The grin on his face looked convincing enough, but his eyes were ice. Empty. Detached. It wasn’t joy he felt, it was observation.

He watched people move, studied them without really meaning to. Parents wrangling kids, couples holding hands, teenagers pretending not to care. Every one of them caught up in the show, and none of them seeing what was underneath it. Jungkook saw it all, the cracks in the paint, the exhaustion behind the laughter, the desperation in the way people clung to happiness. He wasn’t here for the spectacle. He was here for the pattern. For the architecture of it all.

If someone asked, they’d call it sightseeing. He could even play along, pose for a few pictures, wear the wristbands, buy the shirts. But beneath the surface, he was taking notes. Each flash of the camera, each practiced smile, each place he lingered, they weren’t souvenirs. They were coordinates. Markers. The city was a puzzle, and he was mapping it piece by piece.

By the time he got back to his hotel, the day’s weight sat heavy in his chest. The room was dim, the neon outside spilling in through the window. He tossed the cowboy hat onto the bed, watching it land upside down like a punchline. For a moment, it almost made him laugh. Almost.

He sank onto the edge of the bed, kicked off his shoes, and pulled out his phone, a battered old Nokia, scratched and unremarkable, but reliable. The screen blinked to life, and there it was: Kiko’s name. One new message.

BM otw 2 LA.

He stared at the words for a long moment, the letters settling in his gut like stones. It wasn’t a surprise; he’d known it was coming, but reading it made the air in the room shift. The game was moving forward now. He typed back two quick words:

Thx <3

Then he set the phone down beside him and leaned back, staring at the ceiling as the city’s hum pressed against the windows. Somewhere out there, people were still chasing stars. Laughing, drinking, believing in something that didn’t exist. He could hear it faintly, the echo of their dreams.

But Jungkook wasn’t chasing anymore. The time for pretending was over. The city wasn’t a playground. It was a stage.

And soon enough, Black Mamba would walk right into the spotlight.

You spotted the scuffle down in the alley, five or six of the trained assassin’s sent by Ra’s were failing. Blood spurting under blades and soft groans of pain filling the silent night. You sighed, “So much for experienced assassins.”

As the last black-clad fighter fell to his knees you jumped. Landing on silent feet behind the caped crusader you brought out your sword. A beautiful thing, really. Layers upon layers of hand-forged steel weaving into a fine Damascus, the silk Ito dressed the sword creating diamonds along the handle. Your katana. A gift from him. Not that he’d recognise it now.

No one else would’ve heard you land. Your feet soft as snow when it falls to the ground, particle by particle…except to him. Your teacher, your peer…your best friend. Ex-best friend.

Enemy.

He bristled, muscles tightening but he didn’t turn toward you. Right…he doesn’t know who you are. Good, it’s been too long anyways. He wouldn’t remember.

Silently, you stalked him as a leopard stalks her prey, sword glinting in the moonlight.

You moved swiftly, blade coming down in a cascade. Blocked by his. Steel against steel. Sparks flying from each hit. Just as before…only a few differences.

Then a mistake. A kick, taught by him. It was unique, and he knew it. He stopped, chest heaving and sword held up, on guard. “Who are you?” You didn’t reply, instead striking harder, aiming for more vulnerable places on his body. “You…how did you know…where did you learn that kick?”

Damnit. At least he doesn’t know who I am yet.

“I know you” He threatened, voice hot and hissing. You stilled, glaring at him through the slits in your mask.

Two statues on a rooftop, warrior’s statues with blades raised as taught. He blinked, eyes glowing in recognition.

“(Y/n)” he breathed finally, shoulders relaxing a tad. “Prince.” you spoke. A whisper so harsh it could’ve shattered his sword.

“What are you doing here? Why are you fighting me?” He demanded, fury on his tongue yet his eyes were gentle and soft. “Orders” Your sharp response was rewarded with a “tt” from him.

Sword forgotten in his hilt, he approached carefully. A shepherd approaching a lamb so as not to scare it. You faltered as his blade vanished, confused. “What are you doing?” You hissed. “Face me with your blade or I’ll kill you where you stand”

His hands outstretched, palms to the sky. “I won’t fight you (Y/n). I know who you are. Come back to me.”

“Funny. You never came back to me.” You spat, the words poison on your tongue. He froze, eyes closing with guilt. “I know.”

“You forgot me. Forgot what they put us through. Everyday the same: wake, eat, train, sleep. And then I had to do it all alone. Without you.” You hissed the last two words, they hurt the most.

“I didn’t. I thought of you everyday.”

“Well you didn’t think hard enough to come back did you? Enough chatter. Fight me Damian.”

“No. Come with me now. I’m sorry I left you there… Father wouldn’t have allowed me back. But you can come now… please.”

“Your Father won’t be very impressed.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’ll make him see.”

Your heart stuttered… was he offering what you thought he was? A life… away from the shadows and guilt, from blood stained hands and echoing screams. Too good to be true. But it was him. Damian Al Ghul never lies…

“Come with me. I can give you what you’ve wanted since we were young. Freedom, choice. Home and not just a house.”

Your forced loyalty to the Demon Head bristled. Seems like he still knew you.

A small nod made its way through your body, blade slowly moving back to its hilt. Damian moved closer, a breath of relief left his lips. “Come. Follow.”

He jumped from rooftop to rooftop, cape fluttering behind him and a few seconds later so did you.

The cave was cold, condensation causing droplets to fall from the stalactites. His gaze wasn’t cold per se…no Bruce looked at you like an object. Eyes scrutinised how useful you’d be, how reckless, how dangerous.

“Fine. But she’s to stay in the manor at all times until further notice.” “Fine father” Damian muttered back, sensing you were about to fight against Bruce’s conditions.

“So much for freedom and choice.” “It’s only temporary. You can leave with an escort…” “That wasn’t mentioned” He didn’t answer, only dragged you to the kitchen where Alfred had set up Damian’s usual snack after patrol.

“Eat.” You stood in the doorframe. Food had never been comfort. Never been given freely. It was a necessity, a reward. And yet, a simple command, eat.

So you sat, back stiff as a board and watched as Damian ate. He was obviously hungry, obviously used to this treatment. You didn’t eat until he slid a plate of food in front of you seeing as you wouldn’t grab any yourself. Slowly, as if scared someone would snatch it away as soon as you touched the food, you ate. Alfred watched from the sidelines, a small smile appearing discretely at Damian’s unusual kindness.

The next few days, you’d met Tim. He was absent most of the time. In his room, in his mind. You didn’t mind. Jason was louder… crude, called you Damian’s girlfriend and stopped only once you’d taken out your katana. Dick was interesting. He’d hugged Damian as he saw him though the latter boy stayed stiff other than a hand patting Dick’s back. He’d attempted to hug you too but backed away once you’d kicked his knee. Bruce let you be mostly, calling you down to the cave every once in a while to see you fight against his training bots. You always won.

Things were becoming normal. Except Damian was becoming stranger.

His hand lingering in yours once you’d pulled him off the training mat after defeating him. You ignored his brother’s gaping at that feat. His eyes found yours everyday after school. It was treacherous, you knew everything they attempted to teach. His body leaned closer when you spoke and he always seemed to move closer and closer with each passing day.

It was quite simple to Dick, Jason and Tim. Damian Wayne had a crush. On an assassin he rescued, no less. And the Damian Wayne was too shy to do anything about it.

With this job, you can also make a reasonable guess as to who your client is. Your target: the elusive owner of a major hotel chain—which will remain unnamed due to the writer’s lack of creativity—who goes only by the name Nulla. To hold such a successful business, it’s only inevitable that you will cross the wrong person, or piss someone off in one way or another. And especially considering how ‘beloved’, or ‘beloathed’—however you want to put it—Mr.Nulla is in high class circles, his name, you figure, would’ve inevitably ended up on your list. It still shocks you that it didn’t happen sooner, all things considered. And as of late, Nulla has been a major thorn in Mayor Septem’s side. Of course, to the general public, they’re amicable, and friendly. The mayor is always seen hanging around the hotel, be it for conferences, or for another high profile party. Word is: the mayor has a taste for vintage Brunello di Montalcino. If anyone dares to put a hit out on him, you can always go for cyanide, considering the low sugar content… But that is irrelevant. The point is that the public believes Nulla and Septem to be on good terms; yet, most everyone whose worth is not truly reflected within their tax return can tell you that the two of them do not stand each other. The only reason why they’re seen next to one another is just to watch the other’s every move. And well, considering that your contract currently has Mr.Nulla’s name on it, the mayor grows sick of this little cat-and-mouse game they seem to be playing. But if anyone asks, you are none the wiser. 

Or you would be, if you weren’t tied to a chair with your head covered with some old sack. That is where you find yourself after being knocked out for who-knows-how-long, following you attempting to enter an employee-only area. You pride yourself on your skill, but even you sometimes make mistakes. It’s just that, in your field of work, mistakes can cost a tad more than a simple reprimand. In this case, you failed to notice someone’s pair of eyes on you whilst sneaking around the hotel. Alas, dwelling on your mistake is pretty useless when you ought to be focused on figuring out how to get out of your rather worrisome position. It isn’t like it’s the first time you were caught, but most of them were quickly mitigated by your irresistible charm. You figure that this time isn’t going to be any different. Once you raise your head, indicating that you are awake, you will instantly begin to beg and cry. Putting up a front of an innocent little lamb who accidentally stumbled upon the room they were never meant to enter. These people love to see others groveling, that one was sure. And with enough conviction in your puppydog eyes, they’ll surely have a hard time believing you to be one of the best assassins around. Who could ever imagine such a cute face to be this deadly.

Alright, you can’t take too long gathering your thoughts. Time is money, after all. And being dead would lose you both. 

You sharply inhale, frantically moving your head around, trying to get yourself out of the tight ropes. The harsh threads rub painfully against your skin. You want to instinctively hiss, but you suppress it in favor of a more pathetic cry. You have to play the part of a hurt doe. You flail for a little longer. Not hearing a response, you stop, as if tired out, and let out a weak ‘Hello?’. Play the part. Pretend. Even if there’s no one here, you need to keep it up for when someone will inevitably come to check on you. Or well, if more than about four hours pass according to your internal clock, you’ll figure out how to get yourself out of these ropes. They didn’t seem that hard to get out of, especially with the knife in your… Shoes… You realize that they feel a lot lighter than they should be. Okay… No need to panic just yet, you always have multiple weapons on your person. Perhaps you were careless enough to forget them. You are never careless. But maybe this time you acted uncharacteristically rash. You thrash some more, trying to feel if you have any other weapons you are supposed to hide on your person. Nothing behind your belt, neither on your garters. Oh, this is definitely not your mistake. They know who you are. You clench your jaw, preparing for the worst. If there was anyone with you in the room, they haven’t shown themselves yet. Not like you can check with this beg over your head. No matter. You can finesse your way out of any situation, even if it involves tearing the rope through only teeth and friction. You seize the aimless thrashing, and begin to move with a purpose. The chair is rough, and even if the rope and wood will rip your skin, you will be free to go and finish your mission. The contract is still on, after all. If you are alive to collect it, you will have to finish it. Otherwise, you’ll land yourself as another target. So, you either die from the hands of your target, or your employer will make you the target if you dare skip town upon incomplete assignment. You are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Or between a rope and a wooden chair, in your case. When you just begin to believe that you’re making some progress, feeling the heat beyond your torn skin.

But having an infinite amount of time to work yourself out of your binds is too good to be true. You hear the sound of a metal door opening, and you confirm your suspicions that you must be in some sort of a warehouse. Metallic echo from the walls work to confirm it. You stop thrashing, raising your head up at the source of the noise. You might not be able to see, but you are smart enough to acknowledge the presence. The person doesn’t speak. They simply slowly walk towards you. The steps sound like they are wearing shoes with a small heel—probably men dress shoes, and probably expensive, considering the poise and confidence within each step. You don’t make a sound as the person walks around you and stops right behind. They rip the bag off your skin, allowing air’s arid chill to reach your face. You inhale deeply, finally able to breathe freely. With that breath, you attempt to turn your head around to look at your captor, but a loud cocking of a gun right by the crown of your head makes you immediately stop. You chuckle nervously, letting out a soft ‘Let’s not be rash now…’ through another torn sigh. You swallow, mentally preparing to meet your maker with any wrong move. Heavy silence follows. You don’t dare break it, your entire body tense. Perhaps if your captor is the one to break the ice, your chance of survival will go up just enough for you to seize it.

A low, mellifluous laugh resonates throughout your body, making you shiver. Whether in fear, or in a perverse excitement behind the danger, you aren’t sure. Perhaps your blasé attitude towards life and death made you rather excitable towards the prospect of being on the receiving end of your professional scope. You choose to believe that it is the fear, and the realization of just whose laugh you just heard. Nulla himself decided to pay his prospective killer a visit. And alone, at that. He is either really confident that you are incapable of doing anything to him in this state, he has a death wish, or he is just plain stupid. Well, you suppose, it is reasonable to be confident that you aren’t much of a danger disarmed, with a gun to your head. Even if you were able to tear the rope within such a short amount of time since you woke up, you wouldn’t try to pull any risky maneuver to disarm Mr.Nulla. Not only does he, most definitely, have a finger on the trigger, you’ve also done your homework. Trying to research anything on the hotel owner’s life before his business grew disproportionately, yields you nothing. No past relationships, no business partners, no education information. Nothing at all. It’s odd. When it’s this odd, you have to assume the worst. And asking too many questions in this business is bad for your health. 

“It is a pleasant surprise that, out of all people who could’ve been sent here, it is you,” you can hear a smile within Nulla’s words. Not only that, he sounds just like he’s chatting up one of his high-class clientele. You are confused by the words. A ‘pleasant surprise’? That you came here to kill him? Maybe your guess that he is a loon isn’t too far-fetched. But you’ll have to play along if that means he doesn’t pull the trigger. 

He slowly steps around you, keeping about a meter distance between the two of you. Clever. It is close enough to be considered ‘intimate’ in a situation like this one, but is also far enough that you can’t lunge at him with your limbs tied to the chair. Infuriating, but clever. You hate to see this shrewdness, but you have to commend him for it, as well. Unfortunately, it does solidify your suspicions of his shady origins. But it’s better that he keeps talking. The longer he speaks, the longer you get to live. 

“I’ve heard really good things about you, you know?” You finally get to look at him from up close. A handsome gentleman, maybe in his late twenties, early thirties. He’s dressed sharply in a perfectly tailored burgundy suit, his raven black hair is slicked back, and his eyes are piercing obsidian shards, shimmering mischievously as he watches your expression shift between exasperation and confusion. You remain silent. You can’t really be the boastful kind with your occupation. You can’t chat about your accomplishments in the same manner as the regular office plankton can. How can you even bring up that last week you killed a man by putting a highly potent poison on the key of his prized grand piano during the cooler talk? Or that you had to drop a crystal chandelier on a business rival of yet another rich prick with more money than humanity within? Not that you can boast about your humanity, either. After all, you did take that job. But it appears that Mr.Nulla in front of you seems to have some sort of professional—or so you think—infatuation. He hasn’t said that, of course, but his eyes have a certain glint of recognition within them that you can’t place. The two of you never met before. 

“So many whisper about you like some sort of a boogeyman. Yet, everyone prays you’ll deem their offer good enough,” he lowers the gun, a wide smile still ever prevalent on his face. 

“So, imagine how ecstatic I was to learn that you’ve accepted my contract, cariño.”

What.

Huh?

Excusez-moi?

Прошу прощения?

You have a good poker face. You had a good poker face. Right now, you are looking at the man in front of you, mouth agape, blinking slowly. He isn’t just a ‘loon’. He is INSANE. If you are understanding him correctly, Nulla reached out to you through a third-party and paid you a frankly absurd amount of money to contract an assassination on himself? What for? You are frantically looking into his eyes for a hint of… Anything! For what purpose would ANYONE order you to kill THEM? Is he suicidal, and wanted an interesting way to go? Then why would he stop you? Did he want to check how tight his security is? That’s placing entirely too much trust in people who can be easily paid off. Which you, in fact, did. A couple of them, to be more precise. Or did he want the satisfaction of catching you whether to gloat about how he thwarted a professional assassin, or to destroy your reputation, to kill you? You scoff, you cough, and then you shake your head, trying to center yourself. How are you supposed to react to this confession? He still has a gun, so you can’t exactly be too snarky. But you also don’t know the purpose of this, for the lack of a better word, clownery. 

“I don’t think I understand…” The only thing you can reasonably muster. You aren’t lying, either. You cannot comprehend what’s going on through that head of his that made him think of this idea. You’ve encountered quite a few peculiar individuals, especially as an assassin for hire. But this is a new one for you. Are you lucky, or unlucky right now? This situation is entirely too unpredictable for you. 

“It’s quite alright. I don’t imagine you would remember,” his voice is oddly resigned, yet the smile on his face makes his words sound more playful. 

“We’ve met before. I know you frequent my hotels. Of course, you would. After all, you have to study your targets. But while you wait, you blend in so effortlessly… You do love to chat up bartenders, don’t you?” Nulla winks, and you attempt to recall every time you spoke to a bartender before, if any of them looked like the man before you. You can’t parse through your memory as he stares at you with trepidation. You can’t remember any of their faces. 

“I do love to sometimes chat with the patrons, and our conversations—even if brief—are always a delight, the highlight of my week.” You remember a bartender with a dashing smile, and a pair of hungry, onyx eyes. Surely, you weren’t unknowingly chatting up the owner of the hotel, then. If that is the case, you’ll have to rethink your entire career because you aren’t supposed to miss these details. It’s impossible for you to miss these details. 

“Oh, don’t be so hard on yourself, mi vida. I love to play a little dress-up, if you will. No one would blame you for missing it.” You will blame yourself. You should have known. You are better than this. Your eyes reflect confusion once more, finally registering the nickname Nulla gave you. It is way too intimate for just simple chatter than the two of you allegedly shared. Pointedly, you also were not aware of these meetings. You definitely haven’t earned the title of ‘mi vida’. Not yet. Not that you are planning on that, either. But Nulla seems to have his own plans, way beyond what you can ever come up with.

“I’ll ask you to forgive me for such a dramatic meeting, but I grow tired of our rare, brief encounters. But you are rather hard to come in contact with in a more casual setting. I appreciate how guarded you are. Can’t be too careful…” 

You interrupt him with indignation, having a hard time taking this seriously. He has to be punking you.

“You paid three hundred thousand for us to have a conversation?” 

You make him laugh. Its sound: soothing, velvety. You can see how he can charm his way anywhere. 

“Always straight to the point. I like it. But no. I paid to open a conversation about a partnership. Of course, I would love to have you by my side, but that can come later…” He sighs wistfully. “I want you to be on my payroll, and at my professional disposal. Someone of your skill is hard to come by, so I’d like to have you for myself. And you do know that I pay well.”

You close your eyes, processing the information, seriously considering his words. The contract’s terms do offer an absurdly high payout. You might be one of the best, but the total amount, upon completion, stipulated over half a million. And Mr.Nulla paid half of it upfront, no questions asked, check cleared. Having him as a form of constant, ridiculous income doesn’t sound half bad. Too good to be true. 

“Forgive my bluntness, but it can’t be all there is to it. You want to pay me exorbitant amounts of money to have me occasionally get rid of people you dislike, and to have a chat with me sometimes? What’s the catch?”

“No catch,” he raises his hands, feigning innocence. “I suppose, the only other stipulation would be that I want you by my side. Physically, during public events, of course. The other can come later.” 

“And if I say no?” you speak slowly. He might seem calm, but you can never be too sure with people who would do something like this.

“You are free to go,” he snickers. “Well, I would ask you to still have these passing conversations we have. But you can leave.” 

You don’t like the way he says ‘ask’. He isn’t asking. You know definitively that he isn’t just asking. You ponder for a moment. The terms are sweet. And it’s not like you have particular moral aversion to working as an assassin on a payroll, instead of for-hire. An odd equivalent to an office job, but you might like it that way. Not only that, you can definitely tolerate chatting with Nulla. You may not know him, but for an insane person, he is rather agreeable. You can also always terminate the contract. In any way you can read that phrase. You aren’t going to think too long, and wait for him to grow impatient. 

“Yes,” you break the brief silence, seeing the man’s face light up. “We can negotiate the terms. I agree with the general description, but I’d like to take the time to review the duties and expectations.”

“I’m so glad to hear it, cariño!” Nulla stretches his arm out for a handshake. 

You stare at him blankly.