#this whole series isn't very good tho

[mikavlcs]

False Meridian

Pairing: Ghostface!Tara Carpenter x reader

Summary: Another Ghostface appears out of the blue and Tara will do whatever it takes to eliminate them before they get the chance to hurt you.

Warnings: graphic violence & gore (!!!), bad decisions, bad writing, the usual shit honestly, this fic also follows scream logic (stab wounds are akin to paper cuts)

Word count: 8.2k

Notes: this was requested by a few people. read the warnings pls. i hate this.

Masterlist | Part 1 | Part 2

It had been two months since your father’s death and things were very slowly but surely improving.

You integrated into life with the Carpenter sisters well. So well that Tara honestly thought you were always meant to have a place here. Even during those first few days when you were drowning in guilt and grief, you walked the halls of her house like you belonged there, and Tara loved it.

Unsurprisingly, through the impending days and weeks, your mother never came to check on you even once and, in turn, you never asked to see her. Tara couldn’t help but think it was for the better.

Now, she and Sam were your family, and everyone involved seemed more than happy with the arrangement.

Tara could do without having Sam there, personally, but she still had her uses and you loved her for some reason. Well, not for some reason, you’d mentioned how you always wanted an older sibling a few times, but why you adored having Sam in that position was still a mystery to her.

Sam had abandoned her when she needed her most, and her being back now, five years later didn’t change that, no matter how apologetic she tried to seem.

But Tara buried those thoughts whenever they came forth. Sam, for all of her many faults, was helping you and she wouldn’t begrudge you a connection with her sister because of her own hang-ups.

Plus, there were more pressing issues at hand to worry about anyway.

Returning to school after the bruises had healed enough to be believably covered by makeup and strategic wardrobe choices was tense for both of you.

Tara knew her friends could be nosy, and the last thing either of you wanted to talk about was what happened that night.

And the questions started immediately when you sat down at the group’s picnic table before first period. The boys were practically talking over one another, but they calmed when they noticed the way you shrunk into yourself.

Mindy specifically, being the only socially conscious one, was determined to give you space about the issue, whacking Chad and Wes when they crudely tried to question you and reminding you that they would be happy to listen whenever you were ready to talk.

For that, Tara was thankful, and she made sure Mindy knew that.

Over the days, weeks, and months, you established a new normal bit by bit. Your usual liveliness began seeping back in as the blood on your hands faded with time. Dinners and family nights were riddled with your laughter, and you started going to more and more group hangouts.

You seemed freer now, without the shackles your parents placed on you, and the sight made Tara overjoyed.

So things settled once more and a peace of sorts came to rest over her.

Sure, there were the daily annoyances like boys at school who stared at you in the halls, Wes’ insistent crush, and Sam’s overprotectiveness, but none of that mattered because you were there to soothe her every time.

And now that you lived with her, she had unlimited access to you—her favorite drug, her unending addiction. It was utter bliss.

But of course, peace, however relative it may be, never lasted for Tara.

It happened on a normal night, which only made it that much worse in Tara's mind.

You all had finished eating dinner together twenty minutes ago. Sam, as usual, left for her night shift just as you and Tara began washing dishes, walking out the door chuckling at Tara’s grumblings about getting out of chores while you waved.

Per the routine that you both had been cultivating, you washed, and she dried. You’d gotten to the point where you were both automatic, not needing to look to know where the other was and what they were doing.

When you blindly handed her a dish, she was already waiting for it with an open palm. You worked in tandem efficiently, like a well-oiled machine.

The only thing that actively broke the set-in-stone routine was the ringing of the landline on the kitchen counter.

It was an odd occurrence. The number connected to it was long forgotten by Tara, so it sat silently on the counter most days, completely invisible save for the few times it got knocked over while cooking.

So the sudden sharp ringing startled you both. Tara flinched, her movement nearly imperceptible, but you literally jumped. The only thing that kept you from dropping the dish you were scrubbing was the steadying hand Tara placed on your forearm.

You shot her a bewildered glance, which she returned, but ultimately you ignored it and went on with your shared task.

But then it rang again, and again, and again.

Both of you tried to continue ignoring the sound, but it persisted for minutes on end, unrelenting.

You dried your hands off roughly with the towel by the sink. “I’m just gonna answer it.”

Tara nodded mutely, her eyes following you as you answered the phone.

She continued to dry off the last few dishes, sending you small glances as she set them on the counter. You were leaning against the island, exchanging tense small talk with what Tara assumed to be a particularly insistent telemarketer and she could tell by your tone of voice that the conversation would be over very soon.

Just as she was about to put the dishes away, you gasped, and the phone clattered loudly onto the island counter. Tara was by your side instantly.

“What happened?” she asked urgently.

You didn’t answer, too busy pressing yourself against the sink to try and put as much distance between yourself and the landline as possible.

She carefully took one of your hands and cradled it between hers, hoping to calm you enough to talk and it worked.

“He—he asked what my favorite scary movie was.”

Oh, she thought, her previous tension abating a bit.

Stupid calls like this had been happening ever since her initial killing spree. Immature teens and twenty-somethings loved pretending to be her so they could scare a stranger and get a cheap laugh. Tara adored the Stab movies, but the hardcore fans could be such disruptive assholes.

She sighed, stroking her thumb softly over your knuckles. “It’s okay, baby. It’s just a prank call. People have been getting them for months now.”

You shook your head vehemently. Only now did Tara feel the slight shaking of your hand in hers.

“No, Tara,” you whispered, fear staining every syllable. “He knew my name.”

Tara froze. Immediately, she picked up the phone and pressed it to her ear.

“Who the hell is this?”

A sardonic laugh chimed from the speaker, and even from that single noise, Tara recognized the use of the voice changer.

“I’m just somebody who knows your little family secret, Tara.”

Her heart stuttered but she didn’t miss a beat. Thinking quickly, she decided to try and bait him.

“And just who are you? A loser who needs to hide behind someone else’s identity to mess with some girls? Don’t be a coward, show yourself.”

A clumsy attempt, but the only thing she came up with on the spot. Unfortunately, he didn’t bite.

“Oh, now where would the fun in that be? One of the best parts of the Stab movies is the mystery. Revealing the killer’s identity in the opening scene would be disappointing. As a fellow fan, wouldn’t you agree, Tara?”

The way he said her name, like a taunt rather than a title, made her skin prickle. Her irritation was rising steadily, but she couldn’t lose control. Not in front of you.

Narrowing her eyes, she walked to the other side of the kitchen and dropped her voice to the most menacing whisper she could muster.

“Is that what you think this is? The opening kill scene? Because I think you have it painfully backwards.”

“And what makes you think that? I could kick down your front door and dismember you both right now. Who knows, maybe I’m already inside.”

An empty threat, she knew, but still opened her security system app, silently thanking her intuition when she all but forced Sam to install one after you moved in. As expected, it was green. No doors or windows had been opened.

With that reassurance in mind, she set her phone down and turned her back to you.

“Believe me when I tell you that if you step foot inside of this house, I won’t just kill you, I will brutalize you. I will maim you so badly that your family won’t even be able to identify your body.”

The threat did little to deter the stranger. If anything, it seemed to excite him.

“Oh? And how can you be so sure?”

Tara chuckled. “Call it personal experience.”

“Well, luckily for both of us, we’re diverging from the formula. This isn’t a kill scene; this is a warning. A message, if you would.”

Confusion swelled in her. She asked, “A message for who?”

A laugh from the other end. Then, “You, Tara. And your dear sister. And your… ‘friend,’ of course.”

Her teeth grit harshly at the mention of you, but she needed to uncover a motive of some kind if she wanted to identify this person, so she tried another tactic.

“You’re a Stab fan, but you’re changing the iconic opening sequence?” she asked. “Why? Isn’t changing the franchise formula sacrilegious? I mean, they tried that with Stab 7, and look where that got them.”

“Ah, but this is my movie, Tara. And altering the structure serves a purpose. It destabilizes audience expectations and builds tension for the impending bloodbath in the future.”

“And when exactly will this bloodbath be?”

“I’ll be back for the seminal third act soon when both family members are present to witness it. In the meantime, I’ll keep your secret safe.”

Tara went to respond but the line went dead.

You watched her intently as she turned back around, glancing between her and the phone. Cautiously, you asked, “Did he hang up?”

She nodded, placing the phone back on the receiver roughly. She hadn’t managed to ascertain a solid motive, but there were pieces. Bits of a breadcrumb trail for her to try and follow.

He mentioned that this was his movie, could that be his motive? Was this just the work of a fanatical fan that wanted a movie made from their actions?

But at the same time, this sounded far too personal to just be some random fanboy. Why target her specifically? And what exactly was he talking about when he said he knew her secre—

A sharp knock on the window resounded through the kitchen.

Both you and Tara jumped. There was a moment of stillness, both you and Tara seemingly frozen in time, but she forced her legs to move. Slowly, she crept toward the window, ignoring your frantic whispers, and pulled the curtain aside.

Standing right on the other side was someone in a Ghostface mask and a black robe. 

When he knew he had her attention, he tilted his head to the side and raised his hand, proudly showing off the knife within it.

Tara’s eyes widened. Her fingers curled instinctively, muscles tensing in preparation for a fight. But he simply waved, waggling his fingers around the hilt, then turned and walked away.

She wanted to chase him down, tear off that mask, and use that knife of his to tear out his insides. But she couldn’t leave you here alone, vulnerable to an attack from a possible accomplice. After all, there were usually two killers in the Stab movies.

So she stood with her feet planted before the window and watched as he disappeared into the night.

Behind her, she heard you speaking urgently with someone and her answer as to who it was came not even ten minutes later when her sister’s car screeched into the driveway.

There were only seconds between Sam haphazardly parking and her crashing through the door. Before she knew it, Tara was being pulled into a group hug, but her eyes remained on the window.

Distantly, she heard you recounting the events of the past half hour or so, and Sam’s repeated attempts to calm you finally pulled her from her stupor. She reached, put a consoling hand on your back and cherished the way your muscles relaxed under her touch.

A combination of Sam’s ushering and Tara’s reassurances got you to finally go upstairs and as soon as you were out of view, it became apparent that Sam was going to attempt to get Tara to follow suit.

“Hey, I know you’re probably shaken about what happened, but you need to rest,” Sam urged her kindly, but the words went largely unheard.

The only part Tara registered was the error in her statement. Because shaken wasn’t quite how she felt.

Her smoldering anger was present, burning her veins with its intensity, but more than anything she felt…dishonored. Aggrieved, even, that someone would dare don the mask and robe that she adorned months before and attempt to terrorize her in her own home. Not to mention the extended threat to you as well.

So, no, Tara was not shaken in the slightest. If anything, she was rooted more firmly in her ways than she had been in a while.

Sam approached and rubbed her shoulder gently. This time Tara looked over at her, which made the taller girl smile.

“Go get some sleep, Tar. I’ll stay up and keep watch.”

The use of the old nickname made Tara’s hand twitch. She wanted to protest, she didn’t trust her sister to bear that responsibility alone, but you were upstairs waiting for her. You needed her so she forced a nod and trudged up the steps.

As expected, you were in bed waiting for her. She climbed into bed next to you and pulled you into her, cradling your head to her chest. Neither of you spoke a word, just laid with each other in the silent reassurance that the other person was alright.

And even when your breaths eventually evened out, her gaze remained fixed on the ceiling above.

-

Tara didn’t sleep.

Her eyelids never even drooped. There was too much adrenaline, too much to think about, too many opportunities for someone to sneak in and hurt you for her to even think about sleep.

So instead, she cycled through all of the possibilities of who the imposter Ghostface could be and who their target was.

Her first instinct was to say they were after her, but that couldn’t be true. No one knew that she was behind the murders earlier that year. No one.

There were no witnesses, no clues left at the crime scenes, and no reason for anyone to suspect her.

Next would be you. But she couldn’t think of a single person who would want to hurt you. You had no enemies, at least none that she was aware of. It could theoretically be someone who knew about your father, but no one in their right mind would be seeking retribution for that waste of oxygen, so she wrote that off as well.

Lastly, there was Sam.

Sam was the biggest unknown factor for Tara. She knew next to nothing about her sister’s whereabouts in the past 5 years, besides the vague knowledge about her residing in Modesto for most of that time.

But faux Ghostface’s words kept replaying in her head.

“I’m just somebody who knows your little family secret, Tara.”

In the meantime, I’ll keep your secret safe.”

Tara thought that those comments were directed toward her, that someone had figured out what she had done. But what if they were about someone else? After all, she wasn’t the only one in the family with a dark secret.

Well, there was only one way to find out.

She was hesitant to leave you alone, even when she knew you were safe, but this was a conversation she had to have with Sam alone. So she carefully untangled herself from you and laid you against the pillow before heading downstairs.

Her sister was lying on the couch with her eyes glued to the tv, looking every bit as tired as Tara felt. She sat up as Tara entered. “You’re up early.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Tara muttered, sitting down where Sam’s legs had previously resided. She gave her sister a serious look. “I need to talk to you.”

Sam’s brows furrowed at her tone, but she nodded. “Okay.”

“I need you to be honest with me, Sam. Please.”

Another nod. “I will.”

Tara took a deep breath. “Is there anyone from your past that you think would want to hurt you?”

“You think Ghostface was here for me?” Sam asked.

“I’m thinking it could be a possibility, yes.”

“Okay, um,” Sam bit her lip, thinking. “I don’t think so. I haven’t been involved in anything…bad for years now. What makes you think he might’ve been targeting me specifically?”

“He mentioned a family secret. Twice,” Tara explained, watching her sister’s reaction closely. “I’m not trying to accuse you, I promise, but is there anyone that you told about your parentage besides me? Anyone?”

After thinking for another moment, Sam paled. She looked away for a minute then, straightening up, she said, “I have to tell you something…”

“What?” Tara asked, trying to decipher her sister’s behavior.

“There’s…this guy that I’ve been talking to online. His name is Richie,” Sam said, voice unsteady.

Tara’s stomach dropped.

“Sam…”

“It was just casual at first, I swear. I wasn’t intending on getting too close, but I was struggling, and he offered to listen,” Sam whispered. Tears were welling in her eyes as the full realization hit her, but Tara didn’t care. She couldn’t, not with what she was hearing.

“Did you tell him?” she asked, heartbeat kicking up.

There was a beat of agonizing silence. Then, “Yes.”

Tara stood abruptly, fists clenched. Sam stood with her, hands hovering around Tara’s shoulders, but the smaller girl took a step back. Her mind raced. She was trying to simultaneously work out what was happening while actively refraining from strangling her sister.

A question rose to the forefront of her mind.

“How did he know where you lived?”

Sam looked away, shame radiating off of her. “…My birthday’s coming up. He said he wanted to send me something—"

Tara spun on her heels and stormed into the kitchen. Her sister was hot on her heels, the stuttered beginnings of an apology on her lips, but Tara couldn’t hear it over the blood roaring in her ears.

“Tara—"

“I can’t believe you,” she growled. “You risked not just your own life, but the lives of everyone in this house, and for what? A man that was just trying to use you? Jesus Christ, Sam. That’s pathetic, even for you.”

That nearly made, a few tears overflowed and spilled down her cheeks, but she kept herself together long enough to get out one more coherent sentence.

“I’m sorry, Tara. I never meant for something like this to happen, I swear.”

Shaking her head violently, Tara looked away.

She didn’t want to accept it. She wanted to go even further, to stick her finger in the wound and dig even deeper. Twist the knife even further and watch Sam squirm under the pressure. But she held herself back.

There was an unpredictable man in a Ghostface costume specifically targeting them. She needed all hands on deck. This wasn’t just about her feelings, even if entirely justified. You were here now, and your safety took precedence over her personal vendettas.

So she forced her tense muscles to go slack, wiped the fury from her features, and turned to pull Sam into her arms.

She disregarded the way her sister’s pathetic cries made set her nerves alight and whispered out meaningless we’ll be okay’s until the emotion passed.

Through it all, Tara tried to ignore how badly her palms itched.

-

Time passed in an odd, infrequent manner.

It was no longer a steady, unending stream of hours, days, and weeks. It trickled by in short, uneven bursts as if it was leaking from a broken faucet. Some days were long, the eight hours spent in school feeling like an eternity, while others seemed to last for minutes.

But eventually, the days added up until three entire weeks went by in paranoid quiet.

No sign of a lurking killer. No calls on the landline. Not a single glimpse of a white mask.

It was tormenting. Every day that passed without incident made her tenser, feeding her paranoia steadily until it was impossible for Tara to get a single good night of sleep.

Sam appeared to be suffering the same fate as her, but Tara didn’t care. She had offered the illusion of forgiveness in the moment, but they were on far from good terms.

They still saw each other every day since they lived in the same house, but apart from greetings and small pleasantries, Tara was trying her best to avoid interacting with her sister. The lingering anger and bitterness were still simmering beneath the surface, and she didn’t want to risk unleashing that in your presence, so she took to avoidance.

Sam noticed and tried to bridge the gap, mostly at dinner with incentivizing questions and comments, but her attempts were brazenly ignored by Tara, leaving you to awkwardly pull on the conversation threads in her place.

Of course, because of that, you picked up on the tension between the sisters. It was hard to miss, honestly.

Tara thought you would confront her about it, but you must’ve learned that head-on confrontation accomplished little when she was set in her ways about something because, suddenly, there were far more “family movie nights” than there were previously.

She participated half-heartedly, mostly for your sake but also because there was strength in numbers, and being together was safer than staying apart.

Tonight was one such night. It was 10 pm on a Friday, and you were practically buzzing with excitement beside her. For movie night tonight, you weren’t even watching a movie but instead finishing some Netflix show that you and Sam had gotten hooked on.

So you were snuggled into Tara’s side on the couch, pulling the show up on the tv while Sam made the popcorn (Tara’s personal favorite part of these nights, besides you).

“Ah, shit,” came Sam’s voice from the kitchen, and you both looked over to see what was going on. Sam closed the cabinet, a frown pulling the edges of her lips downward. “We’re out of popcorn.”

Your excitement tempered some, a disappointed sigh leaving your lips. You went to say something, but Sam straightened up, her frown disappearing.

“I can run to the store real quick and get some.”

Whether she was trying to dote on you to build rapport with Tara again or she just genuinely wanted to do it for you was unclear, but Tara didn’t like the idea of her going alone.

“Sam, maybe that’s not a good idea,” she reasoned. At her side, you nodded in agreement.

“Yeah,” you said, “it could wait till tomorrow.”

“There’s a convenience store a block or two away. It’s barely a trip.”

When neither of you responded, Sam pursed her lips, looking around briefly before grabbing her phone from the kitchen island and opening it. She spent a moment fiddling with it then came to kneel in front of you.

“Here,” she gestured to your phone, “accept the call, and I’ll stay on the line until I’m back.”

You hit answer, still hesitant. Tara said nothing, unease building in her gut steadily. It had been three whole weeks without a peep from Richie. And sure, the possibility of him losing his nerve and giving up was technically feasible, but was that really a risk worth taking?

“Are you sure you don’t want me or Tara to come with you?” you asked, worry tinging your tone.

Before Tara could say no, Sam shook her head. “No, you two stay here. I like knowing that you guys are safe with the security system in place. This should take no more than fifteen minutes and I’ll stay on the phone with you both the entire time, okay?”

Tara narrowed her eyes, flicking them over to you to see your response. For a moment you just sat there, looking worriedly at her sister, but you nodded slowly.

“If you hang up, I’m finishing the show without you,” you threatened with a small smile.

Sam laughed, patted your arm, and stood. Both you and Tara watched as she pulled her shoes and bomber jacket on. Tara was tempted to call her back but by the time the urge hit, Sam was shutting the door.

Throughout her journey to and inside the store, Sam kept her promise and didn’t hang up, keeping a steady flow of conversation with you even as she was being rung up by the clerk.

Tara stayed quietly by your side the whole time, trying to ease the pit in her stomach, but it didn’t go away. The dread persisted still as Sam announced that she was pulling into the driveway.

The muffled sound of a car door closing outside had you rushing over to the door. Tara smiled at your excitement, stepping up behind you as you pulled it open.

Outside, Sam was standing in the driveway, victoriously waving the popcorn in the air. “I got the last box!”

She started walking up to the open door when suddenly, a streak of black flashed across the yard, and before Tara could properly register it, her sister was being tackled to the ground. The sharp crack that accompanied her head hitting the ground barely resonated before Tara was slamming the door shut and twisting all the locks back in place.

You ran toward the door, but Tara grabbed you. “What are you doing?” she hissed.

“Sam’s out there, Tara. We have to help her.” You started toward the door again, but Tara wasn’t budging.

This is all her fault, she wanted to say but didn’t. Instead, she said, “We can’t. It’s not safe, but we’ll go back for her, okay? I promise.”

“Don’t be so sure about that, Tara.”

Tara inhaled sharply at the sound of the voice, while you dropped your phone with a gasp. But then the implications hit her just a second later and made her stomach drop to her feet.

The call was still connected. Sam’s phone was still unlocked, meaning Richie had full access to the security system app.

Seconds after Tara’s revelation, her phone dinged, and the voice notification automatically played.

Security System Disabled

A horrified gasp from her right told her that you heard it too. She tried to reenable it, but it was immediately disabled again, the green turning back to red while the mechanical voice taunted her.

Security System Disabled

There was no time. He was going to make his way in here, there was no stopping it.

Her greatest concern was making sure that you were as far away from him as possible when that happened. She grabbed your shoulders, caught your eye.

“Listen, take one of the kitchen knives and go lock yourself in my room. Hide in the closet and call 911. Tell them to bring police and paramedics, okay?”

You immediately shook your head and protested, “What? No, I am not leaving you alone with a serial killer, Tara.”

“Yes, you will. You need to.”

“Tara—"

“Please,” she begged, her voice strangled. She tightened her hold on your shoulders, thumbs digging into your soft skin. “Please, I can take care of myself. But I need to know that you’re safe. I can’t focus if you’re in danger. So please, just do as I say right now, ok?”

Reluctant, you nodded and pressed your lips to hers in a quick but firm kiss. After parting you held her gaze for another moment before running up the stairs toward the bedrooms.

Tara watched you go and once she knew you were safe, she ran into the kitchen and scoured through the cabinets until she found the large, cast-iron skillet she used for stir-fries. She tried to peer out the window, but with the curtains tightly drawn, there was no telling what was happening outside.

Tara paused, a strategy forming. She could use the lack of visibility to her advantage.

Quickly, she moved the knife block to the opposite end of the island then began to cut the lights in both the living room and the kitchen one by one.

She saved the kitchen for last, keeping her eyes on the door as she flicked the switch down and crouched behind the island near the knives to wait.

Minutes passed in eerie silence, then finally, she heard the tell-tale jingle of keys in the front door lock. The knob twisted and the door creaked as it was pushed open, soft and slow. The sound only put Tara even more on edge.

Light footsteps could just barely be heard even in the silence, and Tara’s ears perked. The sounds stopped momentarily, then started in her direction. Quiet footfalls neared at a glacial pace, giving Tara ample time to steady her grip and prepare herself.

Once the footsteps were practically next to her, she swung with all her strength to the left. She connected with the nearest leg, and the force of the blow sent shockwaves up her arms.

The pained shout that arose was distorted by the voice changer inside the mask, but the clatter of the knife he was holding falling to the floor was clear as day.

Tara stood and, as soon as she located the knife, kicked it away. She took another swing, but he seemed to hear this one coming because he jerked back, so she struck the hard counter instead. The physical shock of it made her drop the pan in surprise.

He stumbled to his feet, clearly favoring his left leg. Desperate, he swung wildly a few times. Tara backed away but in a stroke of luck, the last one connected with her cheek.

Pain exploded where his fist connected, echoing through her jaw. The familiar, addictively metallic taste of blood coated her tongue and teeth. The pain only served to ground her, focusing the smoldering fire of her rage solely on the man in front of her.

Breath heaving, he went for another blind punch, but she sidestepped and delivered a solid kick to what she hoped was his left knee. And if the groan was anything to go by, then she hit her mark.

He fell again, clutching his knee, and Tara circled him. She stood on his right shin, hooked her arms around his throat, and leaned against the counter behind her, pulling back as hard as she physically could.

Richie coughed violently. Flailing arms tried to pry her off, but she stood firm, eyes drifting to the knife holster on the island. She leaned down by his ear.

“You know, with all that talk about secrets, you really should’ve been more careful with your own.”

She squeezed her arms together tighter and braced her hands firmly on her upper forearms. The urgency in Richie’s movements increased, but he achieved nothing all the same.

“Because I know your secret too, Richie,” Tara growled, lips coiling into a malignant crimson smile.

He froze at the sound of his name and Tara took the opportunity to rip the mask off of his face.

Now that his mask of bravery was off, she was overcome with the need to turn the lights back on. Because she wanted to see it. She wanted to watch his weaselly face contort in pain, she wanted to watch those last bits of life drain from his eyes.

Violent desire coursing through her, her grip loosened, one hand reaching back to flick the light switch on. But that was all he needed.

A moment of hubris was enough to ruin the victory she had very nearly secured.

The instant the lights were on, Richie, with all his body weight behind him, lurched right, sending them both tumbling to the floor.

Because of her position, she was unable to get her arms beneath her in time, and her head hit the tile hard. She blinked against the white flash of pain, but by the time she got her bearings, Richie was already retrieving his knife.

Watching him struggle to his feet, Tara changed tactics. She backed into the living room to put some space between them so she could possibly get another weapon. But before she could assess the room, Richie rushed her with a loud cry.

He clumsily wrestled her to the ground in a mess of thrashing limbs. Because of his size, he gained the upper hand quickly and straddled her. Tara fought against him, lashing out violently with her hands, and her nails managed to catch on the side of his face.

Gasping, she dug them deeper into his skin and, with all her strength, pulled.

A yell of agony tore its way out of his throat, and Tara could feel his skin peel beneath her fingers and get stuck under her nails. But he didn’t let up. His fingers found their way around her throat and squeezed.

He had her pinned down. His fingers had a death grip around her throat and her vision was beginning to go dark around the edges.

She thought she saw a flash of something behind Richie, but she paid it no mind, keeping all of her focus and strength on punching and kicking and squirming. He pressed down on her trachea even harder, and Tara choked.

But then, Richie screamed and all at once his hands released her throat, and she could breathe again.

He careened to the side and only then did Tara notice the knife sticking from his left side. She looked back up and saw you with wide, terrified eyes. Despite the danger, she took a moment to appreciate the circumstance before her.

You had picked up his knife and stabbed him with it. She would have smiled if her throat wasn’t on fire.

Another ragged cough tore its way from Tara’s throat and that brought your attention from her attacker to her. Your eyes softened and you started toward her. But Richie wasn’t down just yet.

He wrenched the knife from his side with a grunt. With rage in his eyes, he turned to you, staggering unsteadily back to his feet with the knife tight in his grip.

“You fucking bitch!” he roared.

You froze and, without any other option, fled into the kitchen with Richie stumbling closely behind. Just as your fingers brushed the hilt of one of the knives in the block, he snagged the neckline of your shirt and yanked you back.

“Oh no you don’t.”

Richie pinned you against him, one arm steadily anchored around your ribcage and the other, the one with the bloodied knife, rising above his head. Tara tried to stand, but equilibrium was shockingly hard to regain at that moment.

She was just getting to her knees when he plunged the knife into your stomach. The pained scream that you let out would haunt Tara for the rest of her life.

Richie smirked, wide and unruly. “Payback’s a bitch, isn’t it?”

The only response you gave was a whimper. He grabbed you by the neck and slammed your head down onto the kitchen counter. Hard. A loud crack echoed off the walls and you fell in a heap on the floor, unconscious.

Words like rage, fury, and anger were far too soft to describe the feeling that overtook her when your body hit the ground.

The emotion that overcame her was rough and discordant, and primitive. It bled over her vision, tainting it dark crimson, and pushed her to her feet with a newfound balance and sick certainty.

At full speed, Tara ran and latched onto him, using all of her body weight to throw him back onto the living room carpet.

Richie tried to stand again, but Tara tackled him back down and straddled him. But Tara punched him once, hard, then again and again and again until his head lolled and his grip slackened, leaving the knife to fall onto the carpet beside him.

Seeing him lying under her, bruised and defeated, didn’t satisfy Tara, nor did the ache in her knuckles. Not after he hurt you so badly. She needed him to bleed. She needed him to suffer.

He needed to pay.

Steady fingers wrapped around the hilt of the knife at her side. As she raised it above her head, she found a certain poeticism in it—the fact that Richie was going to meet his end at the hands of the true Ghostface, with his own weapon.

With a deep breath, she allowed the savage tidal wave of emotion to wash over her, and she saw more than felt the way she slammed the knife down. Time became a blur of movement. Red clouded her vision, but she could feel everything—the hard hilt of the knife, the give of the flesh beneath it, the satisfying crunch of bone.

The image of you being stabbed playing over and over and over, fueling the raging wildfire within her.

By the time she returned to herself, there was an all-encompassing silence; the only sounds impeding it were her labored breaths.

The knife in her hand was slick with blood. A fierce ache ran from her forearms to her shoulders. Tara looked down at her victim and her brows furrowed.

What remained of Richie’s head was a mess of jutting bone fragments, scattered clumps of blood-soaked hair, and chunks of torn flesh. Amongst the soup of blood, bone, and brains, there was an eyeball rolled off to the right. Distantly, she wondered where the other one was.

Looking further down, Tara noticed the amount of blood on the ground. The carpet was drenched in red, and given how saturated it looked, she wouldn’t be surprised if it soaked all the way through to the hardwood beneath it.

Tara exhaled sharply through her nose. That carpet would definitely have to be replaced.

Her eyes moved off the ground and toward the kitchen, where your limp form entered her vision. Immediately, she dropped the knife and ran to you, dropping to her knees beside you.

She scrambled to press her fingers to your neck, and thankfully, she found a pulse. It was weaker than she would’ve liked, but it was steady. You were holding on for her, and that meant everything to Tara.

Turning her attention back to your wound, she assessed the damage. The blade was still lodged firmly inside your stomach, and she hadn’t enough medical knowledge to know whether it pierced anything important based just off its positioning alone, but she knew not to take the knife out.

So she pressed her hands down around it as hard as she could. You let out a pained breath in your unconscious state but showed no signs of rousing. She wasn’t sure if that was good or not.

All that mattered was making sure that you stayed with her until the paramedics arrived. She knew you listened to her earlier, so authorities should be on their way with medical help in tow.

But she would be lying if she said her composure didn’t begin to slip with each passing second of silence.

What got her most was the blood. Tara was accustomed to gore and had long passed the point where anything like that bothered her, much less the sight of just blood, but this was your blood, and it was everywhere.

On her hands, slipping between her fingers, pooling beneath you, staining her pants, on your face, drying just beneath your nostrils.

All Tara could see was red, red, red, and not because of her anger, but because of her inability to protect you when it mattered.

The door opened, slamming harshly against the wall, and Tara jumped, instinctively putting herself between you and whoever was approaching.

She glanced back and saw her sister standing in the doorway, leaning against it slightly as she clutched her stomach. Their eyes met and Sam visibly relaxed. “Tara—"

Her gaze wandered left, and Sam stopped short by the door; eyes glued on the mess of human flesh laying limp on the carpet. Cursing silently, Tara squeezed her eyes shut.

She rushed to find any sort of justification, but it was hard when her world was falling apart before her eyes and beneath her hands.

“He—he hurt—” Tara broke off into a sob, the blood on her hands burning nearly as much as her throat.

Sam tore her eyes away from Richie’s remains and looked back over to her younger sister. Her eyes widened and Tara assumed that she finally noticed your worrying state. Tara kept her hands firmly pressed to your wound as she watched Sam, trying to figure out what her next move would be.

Finally, she said, “It’s okay,” sounding more like she was trying to reassure herself than Tara. She nodded to herself, repeated it, “It’s okay.”

Slowly, she moved from her place by the door and approached the body, looking like she was fighting the urge to be sick the closer she edged to it.

“What are you—” Tara started, eyes wide, but Sam interrupted.

“Listen, when the police come, you’re going to tell them that I did this.”

Tara blinked, lost. “W-What?”

Sam, with a pale grimace, reached down to the mass of flesh and began doing a mixture of spreading and splattering the warm, leaking blood on her shirt, face, and arms. Then she came to kneel on the other side of you, giving you a long mournful look before she spoke to Tara.

“When they ask you what happened, you tell them that he was trying to hurt you and I did…that to him because of it. Okay?”

Nothing was making sense. She wouldn’t take the fall for Sam if it were the other way around, so the fact that Sam was so willing to do it for her was…it was rousing feelings she hadn’t felt in a long, long time.

“Why?” Tara asked, bewildered.

“Having this on your record, even if it was self-defense, will haunt you for the rest of your life. You have a bright future, Tara, and I’m protecting that.”

Traces of the affection she once felt for her sister flared up and to her surprise, Tara felt more tears well up in her eyes and spill over. Real tears accompanying the achingly real tightness in her chest. “Sam—”

Sam just shook her head. “You know how Sheriff Hicks feels about me; she’ll be more than happy to put this on my record. You’re going to be ok. Both of you will. I promise.”

Gently, she leaned her forehead against Tara’s and kept it pressed there until sirens blared in the distance. When Sam stood and went over to kneel by Richie, Tara blinked away her tears and pressed her hands down harder on your wound.

Police burst through the door, and everything blurred for Tara. The world became a cacophony of lights and sounds and movement, and she only snapped back to reality when paramedics started trying to take you away from her.

In her mind, she knew she should let them take you. That you were much safer in the hands of professionals that could properly tend to you, but the logical part of her brain was quickly overshadowed the moment someone tried to pull her away.

Because she needed to be next to you. She needed to feel your pulse, see the rise and fall of your chest with her own eyes to make sure that you were still alive.

So she fought every hold on her, twisted violently against the increasing number of hands clutching onto her, trying to separate her from you. And she nearly succeeded. She was so close, so close to making it back to your side.

A prick in her neck was the last thing she felt before the world faded to nothing, the last remnants of your name dying on her tongue.

-

A monotonous beeping in your ear was the first thing that you registered.

The second was how weird you felt. You felt heavy and weightless at the same time. You cracked your eyes open and instantly closed them against the blinding brightness you were met with. Briefly, you wondered if you died, but something told you that the afterlife didn’t smell like antiseptics.

Once more, you opened your eyes, going slower so your eyes could properly adjust, and finally took in your surroundings. You were in a hospital room and a glance to your left told you that the annoying beeping you heard was a heart monitor.

Awareness slowly crept back into your dazed mind. The moments came back one by one, flashing against the back of your eyelids as you blinked.

Ghostface attacking Sam. You going upstairs and calling 911. Running down and helping Tara.

Tara.

With a gasp, you jolted up. Your wound gave a powerful throb in response, cutting straight through the pain meds but you ignored it.

The last thing you remembered was the man—Richie? —thrusting a knife into you, then your face met the hard marble of the kitchen counter and that was it.

Was Tara ok? Did Sam make it? Was Ghostface caught and apprehended?

Those questions fueled you to sit up but you only made it halfway before strong hands were on your shoulders, pushing you back down.

“No, don’t move.”

Recognition sparked instantly. You knew that voice. Tara.

The need to know that she was alright nearly made you frantic as you looked at her, and took in her state.

She had a fading bruise on her cheek, and there was some much harsher, nearly black bruising around her neck, but otherwise, she looked fine, if a bit tired. You let out a sigh of relief.

You tried to lift your hand to her neck, but you only made it about halfway before Tara caught it and brought it to her lips to press a kiss to your knuckles.

“Looks worse than it,” she said with a small grin, but you could hear the strain. It reminded you of the ache in your throat after what your father did, the bruises he left behind.

You looked away, decided to focus on the other questions plaguing your mind.

“What happened to the man? Is Sam okay?”

Tara’s eyes flashed with something, but it was gone as soon as it appeared. “Richie’s dead.”

“The police killed him?”

She looked away then and played with your fingers. “No, Sam did.”

“Sam?” you asked in disbelief. That didn’t seem quite right, but you couldn’t pinpoint why.

You looked at Tara, saw the exhaustion in her eyes, the way she was worrying her lip between her teeth, the tension in her brow, and you decided to believe her.

It had been a long, hard night for everyone, and you heard whisperings of something deeper going on with Sam, so maybe she was capable of that. After all, weren’t you?

And either way, it was self-defense. He attacked first, unprovoked. The world was probably better without him, as much as the thought put a bitter taste in your mouth.

Plus, Tara would never lie to you.

“Is she alright?” You decided on after minutes of processing.

Tara nodded. “Yeah, she’s stable. She’s in the room across the hall. The sheriff kicked me out to take her statement.”

“Can you tell her I said hi? And thanks for making sure Richie couldn’t hurt anyone else.”

That made Tara freeze. Just for a moment before she seemed to catch herself, but you saw it nonetheless. “Yeah, of course.”

Under any other circumstances, you’d have half a mind to ask Tara about her odd behavior or at least store it away for later contemplation, but as it stood, the pain medication was already sweeping the incident away.

Silence lapsed and you both just enjoyed one another’s presence, basking in the knowledge that the other was safe and sound.

The tempting call of sleep tugged at you. You tried to stay in the moment, but you were drifting. You could tell and so could Tara, who coaxed your attention to her with a gentle stroke of her thumb across your knuckles.

“Get some rest, sweetheart. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

“Promise?” you slurred, eyes already drifting closed.

You could practically hear the smile in her voice when she said, “Of course.”

She lulled you to sleep with the promise and a final, tight squeeze of your hand, and you drifted off into a drug-induced slumber with thoughts of your gentle, loving girlfriend at the forefront of your mind.

#this fic was written while almost exclusively listening to sonic the hedgehog music #tara carpenter #tara carpenter x reader #ghostface!tara #scream #jenna ortega #i don't care how well this does #i just want it out of my face... #sorry this sucks lmao #this whole series isn't very good tho #so i guess that's the standard

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

I don't really get the whole strikes thing and what it has to do with Good Omens to be renewed, I got that Amazon has to pay writers and actors the right amount of money for their work but the thing is, if they negotiate, all is settled and they can renew the series? Or there's more? Also, rewatching the show all over again is really helpful? I'm sorry I know it's dumb for me to ask this but I'm not very educated on this matter, Good Omens is the first TV series I have watched in a long time.

Hiya! Yes, until the amazon studio is willing to negotiate and settle with the writers (and actors), the writers are on strike which means no work can be done on the script, it's like frozen in time from before the strike started (imagine Crowley snapping fingers on the script :)) (and Neil did some work on the S3 script even tho the show isn't renewed yet), when the strike ends the time gets unfrozen and Neil will be able to work on the S3 scripts again plus Amazon needs to renew it for S3. They might make the decision during the strike but maybe they will do it after strike. For the decision they will look at the statistics of Good Omens on prime (not only but it will play a big part). So:

Introduce new people to the ineffability and have them watch S1+S2, new people watching Good Omens are important.

Watch S2 on repeat (entirely to the end (you can have it playing in the background, from time to time pause so you are not confused with a bot), first month is especially important).

Write to amazon to negotiate with the strikes and make S3, AMAZON STUDIOS, 1620 26TH STREET SUITE 4000N, SANTA MONICA, 90404, United States - you can address it to Jennifer Salke who is now a head of Amazon studios,  [email protected]  (physical letter is better but to be safe let’s write both :))

Rate the season and also write a review (some trolls wrote some bigoted reviews so it's good to show that there are people who appreaciate the show and take time to write reviews)

When engaging on social media with Good Omens content use tags - twitter now uses #GoodOmens, #RenewGoodOmens, #GiveMeS3OrGiveMeDeath

#good omens #good omens 3 #gos3 #how to make s3 #renew good omens #amazon

[captain-joongz]

Abraxas; Act 1, ch. 1

Pairing: mafia boss!Min Yoongi x police officer!reader

Genre: angst, humour and some fluff, investigative, dark themes, sloooooowburn, later on a fuck ton of smut (not in this act tho :(( )

Chapter summary: As a new addition to the organized crime unit after a huge corruption scandal burnt through it, it definitely wasn't easy to seamlessly fill in and join the team. Tasked with menial shit and kept away from the actual investigation, my patience ran out after meeting the one man the unit was after, Min Yoongi, thus leading me to getting myself involved with one of the most dangerous men in the whole of Korea.

Everything is fair in love and war, isn't it? And this was war.

I would take him down, no matter what.

Word count: cca 26k

Warnings: reader is somewhat innocent and naive (in a sense that she's very idealistic), there will be brief reader x OC, but worry not, Yoongi is endgame, nothing much here, workplace sexism, some slight discussion of illegal stuff, description of the boys as criminals, reader is just a tiny bit obssesed with taking Yoongi down, some slight stalking (illegal tailing and stake out)

Series masterlist | Next Part

A/N: welcome to the first chapter of my new series! i have a ridiculously soft spot for mafia yoongi fics, so this is a child of me watching daechwita and haegeum too many times drooling over min yoongi himself, i hope that you stay with me throughout the entire ride and enjoy yourself as much as i did when writing this <3 i will attempt to update this every month, the semester is starting soon again but i'll be having less classes so i should be able to do it, take this love letter to long-haired yoongi <3

"That which is spoken by God-the-Sun is life; that which is spoken by the Devil is death; Abraxas speaketh that hallowed and accursed word, which is life and death at the same time. Abraxas begetteth truth and lying, good and evil, light and darkness in the same word and in the same act. Wherefore is Abraxas terrible."

- 3rd sermon, Seven Sermons to the Dead, Carl Jung

Winter, first year in the force

“Minjoon, for fuck’s sake! Move it!” the booming voice of Senior Inspector Park rang out through the station as the poor man in question scrambled to put on his jacket, grab his badge and gun and ran after him. When he was passing by my table, he sent me a little sympathetic smile and then hurried to catch up to our superior before he left to make the arrest without him.

I sighed heavily and then sulkily returned to filing away some old hand-written cases. It’s been 3 months since I’d been assigned to the Organised crime unit, fresh out of academy and full of hope to change the world for the better. The second I got my badge I sent in my application to SMPA, hoping to make it to violent crimes. Instead, I was pushed to this division. The official reason was because they were lacking manpower, which wasn’t exactly wrong, after what happened. But I knew what they were really trying to do – clean up after a huge scandal that broke through this unit just a few months before my joining, when several young policemen were caught tampering with evidence and reselling confiscated drugs. After a few tough rounds of investigation, three men were fired from this unit and several others from affiliated places.

That meant that when I walked through the door, all rosy cheeked and wonder eyed, excited to start my career, the reception was more than icy. Senior Inspector Park, who was in charge, barely ever spoke to me except for barking out orders, and I was almost never allowed to do any actual work, always confined to the office and left with tasks that no one else wanted to do. My colleagues were ranging from cold and reserved to actual full-blown assholes, happy to take advantage of young blood knowing I couldn’t say anything in return to my seniors. Except for Minjoon, who actually made effort to be cordial, everyone in this hellhole was insufferable. Thus, I pissed away my days filling out forms, cleaning out cabinets, cataloguing files and putting old files into the system.

I looked wistfully out of the window and just caught the sight of our team’s van leaving the parking lot of the station. It was an arrest pertaining to our current leading objective – an informant was finally able to gather enough evidence for us to be able to interview one of the higher standing members of a gang this unit was currently focusing on. They knew we most probably wouldn’t be able to keep him long, after all it wasn’t that substantial at all and his boss always found a way out of any arrests, but it was better than nothing – we’d annoy him at the very least. That’s what Park always said anyways – never let them forget you’re hot on their trail, even if it meant being a little petty.

I walked over to my computer and sat down. All I could do was wait.

It was a surprisingly short amount of time until Senior Inspector Park came barrelling through the door with three men hot on his tail dragging a tall, handcuffed man with them. Unlike what you’d expect from an arrested man, he had a serene expression on his handsome face to a point he almost looked smug, lazily walking and letting himself get pushed around by eager officers, not a hair out of place and his expensive suit looking absolutely pristine.

They briskly walked through the office space to the back hallway where the interrogation rooms were situated, not sparing a single glance to anyone still sitting by their computers. By the disinterested short glances of the present colleagues, it was obvious that this wasn’t that unusual here. I myself was a witness of similar arrests of members from this gang, but this was my first time seeing someone this high up. This wasn’t just anyone. It was Kim Namjoon.

With careful peeking around to see if anyone was looking my way, I made sure the coast was clear, and then curiously moved after them into the hallway. I walked to the very back and lingered for a moment by the door, gathering courage, before grasping the handle and confidently walking into the listening room. Park was sitting there with a senior detective by his side, watching as Minjoon and his partner prepared the computer to start their interrogation while Mr. Kim sat there looking bored. Park looked to the door and did a double take when he noticed it was me. A disapproving look etched itself onto his face and he was just about to say something when I beat him to it.

“Please, sir! I’d never been able to watch my colleagues during interrogations, I want to learn,” I pleaded with him, “I’ll be totally quiet, you won’t even know I’m here!” I clasped my hands together in a praying motion and gave him my best puppy eyes. He looked at me and it almost seemed as if he was considering my words, but then his face closed off again. My heart was beating against my chest as I waited for him to shut me down.

“Don’t you have anything to do?” he asked, and displeasure oozed out of him in suffocating waves. I shook my head. “I was just putting the files I’d been working on away when you returned.” He was just about to speak again when Minjoon in the other room suddenly cleared his throat and began talking to the eerily calm man, asking him basic questions about his personal information and occupation. That sufficiently claimed Park’s attention and he just waved at me and said “whatever, just be quiet”. I bowed to him even though his back was already turned to me but didn’t even dare to mutter a thank you in fear he’d throw me out for speaking.

When I was first assigned to this department, I was warned that this particular unit unfortunately was a sausage party – no female officers in sight. While my colleague’s distaste of me never really felt overtly sexist, I knew some of them doubted my capabilities as a female detective, and Park was definitely one of them. He didn’t shy away from speaking out about how he’d always worked only with men and male officers and how a woman in a unit full of men would only bring trouble and unnecessary drama. He never got over the fact that they pushed me on him and didn’t listen to his bullshit.

 While none of them ever asked me to make them coffee or bring them lunch, I knew that they kept me occupied with work that they viewed as “softer” and “more suited for a woman”. It infuriated me to no end, but I just needed an opportunity to showcase my skills. I didn’t need their approval; I just wanted to fully do my job and not be stuck at a desk all day.

I knew one day I’d get that. No matter what it took, I would make it happen.

I was brought out of my reverie by a shockingly deep voice that struck me to my core as I was wholly unprepared for it. Kim Namjoon, who was completely silent until now and only nodded along or hummed, had finally started talking. I didn’t catch the question and I barely made out what Mr. Kim said in answer, but my attention zeroed in on him in a second and refused to let go. I knew who he was very well, after all, his picture along with several others was hanging on our wall in the meeting room, all connected to each other with strings, intel and many, many cases we were trying to push against them. I’d see him every morning when I walked in, every time I went to the toilet or for lunch and every evening when I was leaving.

But in his picture, he looked very different – hostile and angry, with a face full of fresh bruises from a recent fight, miles away from the suave self-assured man currently occupying the room in front of us. He had a domineering aura to him and even if he was supposed to be here as a suspect, he gave off the vibe like he wanted to be here more than anywhere else. In a sick twisted way, he fascinated me to no end. I’d seen mobsters before, petty thieves and drug dealers, tatted up, with foul mouths and hands dirtied by crime, but this man was a whole different class with his sharp eyes and sneering mouth, dangerous in a way that made the hair on my arms stand up. He knew how to mask his violence and that made him even more terrifying.

“I see that you have a law degree,” said Minjoon cooly and I saw Mr. Kim subtly roll his eyes, “Is the work you do for him pertaining to that?”

“We talk about this every time we see each other,” he answered coldly, “You know I have a degree. You also know that I currently work in accounting. You have my file memorised to a point that you probably know my measurements better than I do. Let’s not waste time with pointless bullshit.”

“Accounting is a very broad concept,” Minjoon didn’t let himself be intimidated and matched his indifferent attitude, “I want to know what exactly your line of work is.” Mr. Kim looked at him and put on the fakest smile I’ve ever seen.

“I’m sorry, officer, what is my arrest pertaining to exactly? Why are these questions relevant to whatever you brought me here for?” he said in a professional voice, his eyes glinting in challenge.

I stayed there and watched their back and forth for whole two hours. The whole time Minjoon drove hard questions about the exact nature of Mr. Kim’s work while the said man played hot and cold with him, teasing him with little remarks and then returning to cold professionalism or prolonged periods of confident silence. I learnt that the intel they’d been delivered this morning was a vague allusion to certain tactics of tax evasion that were closely related to his boss’s smuggling activities. But all these were easily deconstructed by Mr. Kim in a matter of seconds.

It seemed that everyone involved (even Mr. Kim himself) already knew that though and judging by Park’s intense focus on Mr. Kim’s mannerisms and speech, this was about something completely different. As I found myself splitting my attention between the lawyer’s fascinating dance and my own superior’s complete interest, I realised that he was studying him. He was learning him. And for the first time, since this was the first time I saw him in action, I felt real respect towards the older man and his dedication to his work. This wasn’t even about being annoying, it was a purely academic endeavour. I found myself lightly laughing at the revelation.

Behind the glass Mr. Kim was running the two officers in circles, never surrendering any new information and only regurgitating bits and pieces we already knew in different context, and I could see how exhausted Minjoon was becoming.

I was stepping around by the door, alleviating a certain leg to ease the pain and discomfort of standing for such a long time, also nearing my limit, when Park leaned closer to the mic, pressed the button and said: “take a 10, let’s talk”. Hearing that, Minjoon and his partner stood up and with unfriendly smiles thanked the clever lawyer for his cooperation. They left the room and in a minute they were pushing into the listening room.

When Minjoon stepped in and saw me, he looked surprised for a split second and then gave me a kind smile, which I returned, while his partner stared rather impolitely. Park didn’t pay attention to any of that, eyes never leaving the sole man in the interrogation room, who was now leaning back on the chair and picking his nails in a bored manner.

“As expected, as a lawyer he’s skilled at this,” Park muttered, “What a talented prick, if we didn’t know it already, I bet we wouldn’t be able to get even his name out of him.” The officer sitting next to him finally spoke for the first time.

“Still,” he argued, “this is the first time we’ve managed to actually get him to the station. It means something. Min’s gonna be pissed.” At the mention of the name, Park smiled animatedly and nodded quite happily. I tried to blend into the wall while I watched the men converse and try to come up with a new strategy.

“It’s clear questioning him leads nowhere,” Minjoon added to the convo, “He doesn’t even seem bothered by it. Just look at him. He has all the patience and time in the world.” He motioned to the glass and the man sitting calmly behind it.

“I’m not surprised, he’s had years of experience dodging the police like this. Fucker’s barely thirty and yet has already spent more than a decade covering up his boss’s mess. That’s more than I’ve spent in academy and the force combined.” We all turned to look at Minjoon’s partner, officer Hwang, who was dispiritedly leaning on the doorframe. He was right, but Park didn’t seem to be put off by that.

“That’s how it works here in this unit,” he said firmly, “You sometimes spend years just to get a chance at arresting someone. We’ve been working on this for almost a year and we’re already starting to get somewhere, but this is only the beginning. We need to learn how they work and that takes time.” No matter what my personal opinion was on him, I could see that Park was truly an experienced detective when it came to organised crime. I made a mental note to myself to pay attention to what he says carefully and learn.

They talked for a little while longer when suddenly a commotion was heard back in the office space of the station. We all looked at each other, some more surprised than others. Park got up and pushed his way out into the hallway. As he was passing me, I heard him quietly mutter “here we go” as if this was the main point of the evening. And I quickly realised why.

When I also pushed my way into the hallway and peeked over Minjoon’s shoulder, I was able to see a man confidently making his way through the station flagged by two others. Before I had a chance to gasp at the sudden appearance, he’d already stormed all the way to us.

Just like with Kim Namjoon, seeing his face on a picture on our wall every day could never prepare me for the experience that meeting Min Yoongi was. I was beginning to curse the people who chose the pictures, because they were clearly dangerously understating these men’s aura. With longer black wavy hair, sleek black jacket, black tee and ripped jeans, standing there looking both incredibly angry and incredibly bored, was one of the most dangerous men in this city and the man Kim Namjoon called master. As did half of the city’s criminals. To an ordinary person he was just a businessman, an owner of a few clubs and, recently added, a hotel in the posher area of Seoul, but to us he was a leader of a gang that rose in power and ranks so rapidly it was like witnessing a wildfire. The blink-and-half-the-forest-is-gone kind.

I’d never met him before, and judging by officer’s Hwang flabbergasted expression, I wasn’t the only one, but the man in question barely paid any of us attention. He walked up to Park as if they were old friends, cruel annoyed smile on his face.

“Here I am!” he proclaimed in a faux sweet voice and threw his hands into the air, “That what you wanted? You come into my house and steal my things when I’m not looking now?” Park returned his smile in a similar manner. He was extremely pleased at having pissed off the man to this extent.

“Mr. Kim was lawfully retained due to suspicions of illegal activity,” he answered the man, “He was arrested in one of your clubs.” Min Yoongi’s eyes minutely flitted over to me and there was a tiny spark of surprise and then interest.

“Huh, you’ve got fresh blood here?” he asked all jokes and games, “How come I’ve never met her, isn’t that like a rite of passage here? Coming to see Uncle Yoongi?” He waved at me and laughed like he was encountering a cute animal in the wild. I felt the anger coursing through me, but I knew this wasn’t the situation to lose my cool, so I just scoffed and turned away from him. He fake pouted and then put his attention back on my senior, suddenly turning all serious again. Watching his moods swing was like trying to keep up with a bouncy ball in an empty room.

“Whatever, just release my man,” he said firmly, “You know that anything you came up with to get him here is bogus, so just let him go and I’ll let this slide.”

“How gracious of you,” Park gritted through his teeth. Tensions were beginning to brew between them, and the more annoyed Min Yoongi was, the more teeth showed in his wolfish grin. Just when I thought the whole building was just going to combust, Minjoon stepped in.

“We are legally allowed to keep him here for eight hours at the minimum,” he said calmly, “It’s only been two and a half.” The man’s whole attention shifted to my colleague and, standing behind him, I saw how all-consuming it was to be at the centre of Min Yoongi’s focus. His intense stare and dangerous smile only deepened having noticed just how much he was throwing me off balance. I knew he was getting off on intimidating people and I tried to not give him the satisfaction, but suddenly coming face to face with him, I wasn’t prepared to withstand it, especially since he was so intimately familiar with our entire force that a new face stuck out to him like a sore thumb.

“I know that,” he retorted sharply, “But he wasn’t brought here to be questioned. He was brought here because he-“ Yoongi pointed in Park’s direction “-wanted to know how long before I showed up to bail him out. So, here I am. Release him.” Minjoon looked at our superior with questioning eyes, but he only nodded.

“Let Mr. Kim go, we got everything we needed from him,” he smiled pleasantly in Min Yoongi’s direction, “Have a nice day Mr. Min.” With that he moved back into the office. Mr. Min’s attention once again shifted to me and Minjoon, watching with rapt interest as he moved towards the interrogation room, and I followed him like a loyal shadow. The moment the door opened, Mr. Kim was already hallway outside, coming to his boss and giving him a half hug. Neither of them said anything, they just shared an amused smile at our expense and then turned around to leave with cheeky smiles. As Min Yoongi was rounding the corner, he winked my way. Absolutely flabbergasted by his behaviour, I couldn’t get the encounter out of my head for the entire rest of the day.

While much of Min Yoongi’s childhood was a mystery to us, we had a pretty good idea of what his life was like since around he was 16. So, a good decade of criminal life. As a young teen, he started an apprenticeship as an underling of one of the former ruling gang’s top men, and basically was brought up by him into the man he was today. While the old royalty was torn apart in succession wars after the old master died and his four sons all decided they should be the sole heir, Min Yoongi started up with his own few loyal followers, all who today are his most trusted closest subordinates. With cruelty, tenacity and violence, he took the city by the storm and before they knew it, he was ruling most of it. Too caught up in trying to kill each other, neither of them reacted fast enough to stop young Yoongi’s rise to power. Today, with the original gang wiped out, his was undoubtedly the one at the top of the food chain.

He started with one club and now he owned several of the most prestigious clubs in the city, making enough money to buy him a hotel and finally catapult him into the sphere of honest business. In hindsight, it was pretty stupid of me to show up to one of them to “scope it out”.

Peeved by our last (and first) interaction and driven by the need to prove myself to my unit, I’d decided that the way to go was start right on his turf and dig around. I’d believed that with how much business he had to take care of, both legal and not, there’s no way I’d show up at the right club at the right time to actually meet him there. How foolish. They did always say that he stayed at the top by working endlessly, stupid of me to not actually take that into account.

I didn’t even know how I managed to actually get into the club, considering the long waiting list and lines outside, it was a miracle one Friday evening I found myself sitting inside Dynamite, one of his clubs, watching everything go on like a hawk.

I knew this was something that was rarely accomplished by the people in our unit. Maybe a few months ago they had the liberty to sneak onto his territory, but currently he knew very well about our interest in him, and everyone associated with our unit quickly got blacklisted from half the establishments around the area, owned by Yoongi or not.

I knew that anything pertaining to illegal activity would definitely be taking place in the VIP zone with private booths and waiters, so getting there was the actual challenge. Somewhat foolishly I decided to just try my luck and think of the plan as it went. Little did I know just how easily I’d manage to get invited in.

I was just sitting there minding my own business when I felt a presence next to me. At first, I thought nothing of it, thinking they’re probably just trying to catch the barman’s attention, but suddenly I felt them press into my personal space. I sighed, annoyed, turning around to send whatever sleazy flirt that was trying to get into my pants to hell, when my breath caught in my throat. Sitting next to me, leaning on the bar with a million-watt smile was none other than the owner himself. I cursed every god in existence and three generations of their ancestors and steeled myself for what was coming.

“Didn’t expect to see a police officer letting loose in one of my clubs,” he drawled out playfully, “They all know which ones to avoid. I suppose you’re either stupid or up to no good.” I rolled my eyes to him and turned back to look onto the dancefloor.

“My friend insisted we go here,” the lied slipped through my lips easily, but by Yoongi’s smirk I knew he didn’t believe me one bit. “Oh, and where does this friend happen to be right now? As far as I could see, you’ve been just sitting here glaring,” he laughed at me lightly, as if we were just two friends teasing each other.

“Do you have a habit of watching partygoers like a creep?” I bit back at him, annoyed at being sniffed out so quickly. What are even the chances of him being at this exact club the night I decided to snoop? Something not of God was on this man’s side to arrange a coincidence like that.

“No,” Yoongi answered with a teasing lilt, “But I do happen to remember faces very well. Two weeks ago, you’d slip right by me, but now I know you’re an officer.” I cursed under my breath, and he laughed again. Then he stood up and turned to me. Suddenly a hand was offered to me.

“Come on,” he said, this time a little more serious, “Let’s talk.” I ignored his hand but stood up to follow him. He snickered and started in the direction of the VIP zone. We were currently on the ground floor, which was the general area with a dance floor dominating the centre of the room. The VIP zone was situated on a little gallery overlooking the ground floor.

The flashing lights, bass boosted music and mass of moving sweaty bodies made it difficult to orientate myself in the space, but I kept my eyes on the back of Yoongi’s head as he leisurely made his way through the crowd like he had no worry in the world. He led me to stairs that were cordoned off by red velvet rope, with two very big and very angry men standing on each side. When they saw Yoongi coming near, they both put on professional smiles and bowed wordlessly. He didn’t react to them in any way, just waited till they let him through patiently. As I walked in behind him, they both stared me down as if I was about to jump on Yoongi and stab him right in front of them.

I knew this was probably my only and last chance to get a look around this place, since after being found out I’d definitely get blacklisted just like all the other police officers, so I hungrily scanned the VIP zone and tried to take in all the details. It was very dark there; some booths were out in the open while some had curtains and it was surprisingly packed with people. Waiters were busily buzzing around, serving drinks and appetizers, hum of conversations and laughter carried through the space comfortably. At first glance, you couldn’t see anything wrong or illegal going on, just young people having fun, but I knew better than to trust that.

I followed Yoongi through the area all the way to the back, where one corner was similarly cordoned off. The couches and tables were situated in a way that allowed a little more privacy and separated the space a little from the rest of the people. This must have been his personal lounge.

He made himself comfortable smack in the middle of one of the couches and I timidly sat on an armchair right across him, with a small table between us. Immediately waiters descended onto the space, bringing in plates of appetizers, most probably assuming all kinds of crazy shit since Yoongi brought a woman to his personal zone. The man in question was nonchalantly asking for some cocktail and acting as if this was a completely normal situation and I wasn’t the police. I declined his offer for alcohol and just uncomfortably sat there, watching him settle in.

He gestured to the food and said: “Do you mind if I dig in? I haven’t eaten the whole day.” I gave him a polite smile and told him to go ahead. Yoongi started filling his plate, sharp eyes watching my every move while offering me various food items with annoying courteousness, smirk in place on his lips cause he knew just how much he was pissing me off. It was absolutely crazy – here I was, small-talking with a man I was trying to get behind bars.

Then I had to sit there while he enjoyed himself with his appetizers. When the silence stretched enough to become awkward, I started losing my patience.

“Have you brought me here to watch you eat?” I barked out annoyed, crossing my arms in front of my chest and leaning back into the chair. He looked up from his plate with a little amused smirk. Then he finally put it down.

“Why exactly are you here, officer?” he got straight to the point, “What are you hoping to accomplish?” He mirrored me and leaned back into the couch, his form slouching comfortably with hands laying on his thighs.

“Isn’t that obvious?” I answered, sudden insecurity taking a hold of me. Why was I supposed to explain myself to this guy? He smiled and this time it wasn’t as ferocious.

“I fail to see how this helps in your divine plan to put me under.”

Truth is, I didn’t know either. I was angry and frustrated that nobody was taking me seriously, the encounter with him last week only serving to push me further over the edge. I didn’t know how this was supposed to help, I just knew I needed to do something. Anything. It was better than just endlessly sitting behind a computer typing away. I had to do something that would put me on the radar in my unit and if it involved humbling Min Yoongi a little bit, I was all in.

Truth was, no matter how much I didn’t want to admit it, I was shaken by him. Seeing in flesh this fabled monster, having him stare and smirk at me while he shamelessly strutted around a police station as if he was untouchable, it took everything in me to hold up under his scrutiny. But now, sitting across from him and returning him the favour, I felt some control slowly trickling back into my hands and it calmed me.

He was watching me contemplate with rapt attention and suddenly I was reminded of the prickly feeling of having his eyes trained solely on you. They were dark, so much darker than in the bright daylight in the middle of a police station, and all-consuming in a way I’d never encountered before. It felt as if he was reaching straight into the centre of my being and pulling, pulling something out of me. I shook my head subtly and looked away.

When I failed to answer him or defend myself, he sighed.

“Look, I’m saying this, because you seem like a really naïve genuine person,” he started, “Take this advice to heart – don’t bite off more than you can chew just to stick it to some old guy. This is a dangerous place for people like you, don’t get pulled under.” Now that made me angry. Somewhere deep down I realised that my stubbornness actually was putting me in danger and that I was stupidly jumping headfirst into things that could be my end, but I was so done with getting treated as a fragile little thing.

“Whatever do you mean by that?” I answered him prickly and sat more defensively. Yoongi looked at me and for a moment I could see a glint of something almost melancholic there, but then he was all wild grins and suave demeanour again.

“Let me speak frankly for a moment,” he said and winked conspiratorially, “You decided to single-handedly take down a whole gang, allegedly, that controls half the city, allegedly, because your superior is a sexist pig, that doesn’t seem like biting off more than you can chew to you?” Every time he said the word “allegedly” he smirked a little and I could see he was having fun playing around with me like this. I smirked right back at him and leaned forward until I had my elbows resting on my knees.

“Who said anything about single-handedly? That’s what teams are for,” I whispered teasingly, “Why do you even assume it has anything to do with Senior Inspector Park?” I tried to mask the genuine emotion, but he still must have realised that one was actually spot-on.

“I’ve known Park for quite some time,” he explained and leaned forward as well, “Heard about him a long time ago, been seeing him here and there for years and then been in personal contact with him for about a year now. He’s an excellent policeman, no doubt about it, but even I know he’s a shit person. He lives for his work, but in personal life he’s a jerk.”

“He’s a jerk at work too,” I couldn’t help myself and muttered. To that Yoongi laughed lightly, eyes gleaming at me. “Should I be asking how you even know about his behaviour outside of work?” I quipped in quickly.

“I’d be stupid if I didn’t run some basic checks on people that are hell-bent on making my life difficult,” he answered me with a dangerous glint in his eyes, but quickly relaxed again. I found myself tensing up and relaxing alongside with him. The realisation that talking with him was like constantly walking on ice and hoping that even though you hear cracks you won’t fall in, hit me square in the face and put me off balance again. He kept effortlessly flip-flopping between joking and being serious and I was starting to get whiplash from it. I decided to leave this subject behind.

“So, what is your advice exactly?” I returned to the previous topic, “To just let you go and leave you to your little crime syndicate? Live happily ever after knowing you’re out there?” He snickered at that.

“No, you can do whatever you want,” he said, “I’m just warning you to be careful. This, this space right here, it has its own rules. It’s very easy to end up badly.” It didn’t feel like a threat even though it may have been worded like one, imagine my shock when I recognised actual genuine emotion behind his words. Instead of shying away from it, I bored my eyes into him just as intensely as he did to me.

“Rules or no rules, no one is above the law, not even you, Mr. Min,” I told him prickly. He smiled at me sardonically and then sighed again, but this time it was more amused.

“Since you’re someone that spent most of their life studying the law, I’m surprised you still haven’t realised that it’s quite useless,” he laughed and I could see the switch in him, becoming meaner and smiling cruelly, “The only thing that law does is fuck over those who are already in a bad place and benefit those who are already in a good spot.” He laughed mirthlessly and continued. “No one is above the law? Oh, my dear, many people are above the law. All you need is money and power and not even God can touch you on this mortal plane.” I took full offense to his words, feeling the anger overpower my instinct trying to tell me this man could potentially be extremely dangerous.

“Spoken like a true criminal,” I spit out venomously, “That’s a load of bull.” Yoongi’s eyes flashed minutely and then he relaxed into the couch again with a lazy smirk full of sharp edge. His hand suddenly pointed somewhere behind me. “You see that guy? That one in the striped shirt?” he asked.

For a moment I debated whether I should turn my back to him or not, but my curiosity overpowered me. Steeling myself for potentially getting attacked from behind, I turned and searched in the crowd of people. There, a little to my left, was sitting a group of young men. Each of them had a girl or two by their side, they drank and laughed and looked exactly like the kind of company I’d never want to find myself in. One of them, sitting on the far edge of the couch facing me, was wearing a horrible unfashionable striped shirt. I turned back to Yoongi with a queasy stomach.

“Yeah, I think I see him,” I told him suddenly quietly, unsure of where the conversation was going. Yoongi leaned forward to me again as if he was about to tell me a great secret.

“He could walk over here, steal your gun, then walk outside and shoot someone straight between their eyes in front of a street full of people, and you wouldn’t be able to charge him with anything. You wanna know why? His father sits in the parliament. Before you knew it, he’d be skiing in the Alps while you faced losing your badge because you crossed a politician.” Yoongi smiled at me triumphantly and my stomach swooped again.

“This kid comes here four times a week, each night breaking at least five different laws at a time,” Yoongi continued meanly, “and the most trouble he’s ever gotten into with the law was a parking ticket his father took care of for him.” He waited for a moment to see whether I’d react, but when I stayed silent, he went on. “Go ahead and arrest him, officer. Go over there and pull out your badge and bring him into the station with you. If you test him now, you’ll probably find every drug that’s available on the street in his system. But I guarantee you, you won’t be able to keep him there longer than two hours before you’ll be steam-rolled by his family’s lawyers.” He threw his arms into the air in a pompous gesture.

“Look around here. This place, it doesn’t work because I came here and brought crime with me, no. I sprung up here, because they needed a space to do rank shit in. You could bring me out back, shoot me in the head execution style, and tomorrow you’d be sitting back in that chair talking to the same clown in different clothes. The way this goes is that you find a spot that works, and you grab onto it, and you hold on for dear life until someone either kills you or puts you away. I’m like mold, darling, wherever there’s a place damp, cold and dark enough, there I will grow. I’m a product of the people. Not the other way around.” I felt bile in my mouth as I looked around the area and saw the little evidence of illegal activities. Girls too scantily clad and flirty to not be working, powdery smudges on the tables, prints of guns under jackets. Behind me, Yoongi kept going on in his spiel.

“You put me behind bars, and tomorrow there’s going to be the same guy doing the same shit in the same place. The people will keep coming here and they will keep doing their thing here, it doesn’t matter to them who runs it, as long as they can fuck and get high in here.”

I turned back to him, and he was just sitting there like a king of the underworld, sardonic grin on his face while he looked over his hard work. He was beautiful and terrifying at the same time and there was something demonic about him in this dark lightning with shadows dancing over his face and cruel lips curved around sharp teeth. I felt my throat close up as panic seized me, shaking hands gripping onto the armchair to attempt and get some stability. My stomach was protesting, and I feared I might throw up if I stayed there a second longer.

“You’re disgusting,” I whispered. He smirked.

“And you’re naïve.”

I got up, turned around and left without looking back. Still, I felt his eyes burning into me all the way home.

I was soullessly staring into the computer, hopelessly trying to focus on my work, but instead I kept coming up short. My mind was elsewhere, unable to comprehend anything that was written in front of me. The fateful meeting with Yoongi had already happened a few days ago, but I still haven’t shaken off the effect of it.

His words, as cruel and self-righteous as they were, I knew there was truth to them. And I knew I had to do something about it. I had to do something about Min fucking Yoongi and his empire. So, as shaken as I was by the encounter, it also served to make me more determined. I’d help to bring him down, no matter what.

I stood up from my table and made my way across the office to the meeting room. I wouldn’t be able to do any work anyway, not right now when I was too pumped with adrenaline to focus on anything. I walked in and bee-lined for the back wall, which was covered in pictures and papers. Dominating in the centre was a picture of Yoongi. He was younger there, with short, bleached hair and face still a little plump from adolescence, but I could already see the signature smirk forming on his lips. Under him there were six more pictures, one of them Kim Namjoon which I had met for the first time a little over a week ago. Those were those closest to him, his friends who each monitored a different part of the gang’s activites.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much information on them beyond a few years back. Yoongi himself emerged out of nowhere when he was 16 and made a dent out for himself. At that time, he already knew Namjoon, God knows how. Together they quickly climbed the ranks of the Song gang, which was ruling over Seoul at that time. Back then, they were already notoriously known for their violence and determination, which made them favourites of the gang’s higher ups. They were also quite liked by the underdogs and quickly a group started forming around them. They were Yoongi’s loyalists and this… this was most likely the moment he realised he can soar even higher.

When the Song gang was falling apart, just like war strategy dictates, it was a matter of knowing whose side to take. Between four sons, two were on par, one knew he could only survive by hugging the thigh of the strongest and one was barely hanging on. If Yoongi chose his loyalties correctly, he could gain a lot. If he chose poorly…

But he didn’t. He took Namjoon and their dogs and together they stormed an “enemy” club – it was recently acquired by one of the brothers. He won the fight of course, and then brought the keys to Song Hwan, the weaker of the two winning brothers. He wormed his way in – offered his intel, his expertise and whispered poison in his ear. Every win he got for Hwan was actually a win for Yoongi himself and through Hwan he started laying base for his own road to power. Long before Hwan fell, most of the gang was already following Yoongi’s lead.

When the war ended and Song Hwan stood victorious, Yoongi murdered him and stole his throne. He went on a bloody rampage against everyone that didn’t support him and from the blood and fire emerged a new gang, a stronger gang, and at its centre – the devil himself with his six. That was seven years ago.

It wasn’t all sunshine and roses at the beginning though. His territory was contended often – others saw it as an opportunity to steal turf right from under his nose, and it took a long time before his gang was respected in the scene. They thought him to be a child that won by pure luck and love for killing, that he’d be easily taken down, either by one of them or one of his own. But he stood his ground and time and time again he proved himself, until there wasn’t a single person in this city that didn’t know he owned it. These were Min Yoongi’s streets, painted with blood, sweat and tears.

That’s when he started coming up on this unit’s radar until he gradually became the sole focus, the main purpose, the goal.

I stared intently at the mess of strings all connecting together people, events, news and crimes. Missing persons, corruption, arrests, murders, intel, dirt. It was all there, black on white. I reread the headers of the articles, the names of files and the accusations until I was dizzy and could barely make any sense of it.

After what felt like hours, I was brought out of my reverie by the sound of the door opening. I jumped a little and turned around quickly, an excuse hot on my tongue, but relaxed once I realised it was Minjoon.

“What’s up? Jae said you’ve been standing here just staring at the wall for whole 40 minutes,” he said in lieu of greeting and I blushed with embarrassment. So they saw me, I thought nobody here was paying attention to me. I peeked over my shoulder where some of our colleagues were curiously glancing our way. I frowned. Should have closed the blinds, I thought to myself.

“Just… catching up, refreshing the information,” I explained lamely and sat down at the table, still with a perfect view of the cursed wall. He hummed and leaned his back on the table. For a moment we just quietly existed there, side by side studying it.

“What’s with the sudden interest?” he asked a little hesitantly, “Not that I want to discourage you.” I sighed.

“It’s not sudden,” I muttered a little petulantly, “I’ve been coming here from time to time, I just mostly did it when no one else could see. Felt like I wasn’t really allowed to look at it.” He smiled a little at my attitude and went around the table to sit at my side.

“Why not? I think it’s great you’re outwardly showing interest.”

“Just- You know, it doesn’t feel like I’m welcomed here, I didn’t want to overstep.” He hummed again, but kept his eyes trained in front of us.

“So, what’s changed now?” he asked the question of the hour, fingers drumming a pattern into the table.

“I’m done with that,” I said firmly, glancing his way, “I am part of this unit, I’m staying and I’m solving this fucking mystery. I’m taking Min Yoongi down and I’m gonna be looking straight in his eyes the entire time I’ll be tearing his life apart.” Minjoon next to me chuckled, amused by the sudden turn of attitude.

“That’s quite charming,” he hummed again and finally turned to look at me. We both grinned at each other.

“You know… I understand,” he started hesitantly after a moment of silence. We both focused back on the wall and Yoongi’s picture in the centre of it was like a magnet – no matter what you did, you found yourself drawn to it. With slight reluctance I tore my eyes away from it to look at Minjoon questioningly.

“I mean… this, I understand this,” he stated more firmly and gestured between me and the wall, “I was also quite distraught the first time I met him face to face. He has a way of messing with you. It’s a mix of everything, I mean, you go months hearing about the atrocities of this one man, and then suddenly he’s there, right in front of you. And he just stares and stares and stares while talking calmly, too calmly for the crimes that he’s being investigated for. It’s unnerving. So, I understand.”

I knew exactly what he meant. It was the same feeling I had with Namjoon too – you know what they’re capable of, you’ve heard of their crimes and when you see them, you can almost feel the danger in the air, but the violence is hidden just beneath the surface. Sometimes you see it peek out momentarily in flashes of sharp teeth and slanting eyes, but then they reign it in and just play with you again.

“Well, yeah, meeting him was jarring,” I conveniently omitted having met him just a few days ago too, “but it’s not just about that. I just don’t want to be underestimated anymore.” He smiled at me, a real genuine smile, and it warmed me knowing at least someone here was on my side.

“But you joined the team before the whole Yoongi thing, no?” I asked suddenly. For a moment he was confused where this question came from, but then brightened up.

“Just barely,” he answered earnestly, “You joined like three months ago? In early September, right? For me, a one-year anniversary is actually coming up, I joined in December last year. It was just as all the shit was going down. They were investigating mainly this mid-size gang in Incheon that was wreaking havoc in the harbours and steadily rising in power. There was a lot of corruption in that area, and they managed to snatch control over some ports. The unit had been working on it for about two years and were super close to an arrest, but it went bust. The guy fled, a question about the corruption in the force rose and an investigation into our guys started. That’s when I joined.” I hummed in sympathy. That must have been extra rough. I told him as much and he gave me a thankful smile.

“It wasn’t easy. When I asked to be transferred, I thought everything in this department was okay, then I walk in and suddenly I’m in the middle of a botched two-year operation, forever lost suspect and a lawsuit waiting to happen,” Minjoon kept talking, “Within few weeks, the three guys had been suspended and a more in-depth investigation was promised. The case was lost, the boss had managed to flee somewhere south, most likely Malaysia, so it was put on a backburner and instead an open case that was sitting on someone’s table, slowly piling up more evidence, was brought forth. That was the Min gang. Two teams had already been tasked with looking into it and when it was confirmed that the previous case was dead, they made it a priority.”

I jumped in quickly to ask more questions. I’d never asked Minjoon about his time in the force before and till today I didn’t even know he was here only a year. He was always Park’s first choice to everything concerning Min Yoongi and he relied on Minjoon and his partner Hwang a lot, so I assumed he must be one of the more experienced members of this unit.

“Where were you stationed before?” I asked curiously and put my attention on him instead of messing with the wall.

“I was part of the drug prevention team,” Minjoon clarified and gave me a grin, “I was one of those fools they dress up nicely and send into schools to warn kids. It’s still a part of the force, but it’s a dead-end spot and you don’t actually do much, at most you here and there deal with some petty criminals selling weed on the street. It’s usually where older policemen go when they want to have some peace and quiet before retirement, it’s not the best place to start your career. But thanks to that I was able to make it here, cause my expertise on illicit substances was a big plus.”

“I see,” I laughed, “You’re right, that is pretty much a dead end. I didn’t even know they assigned youngsters there.”

“Well, they try to, because kids are nicer to them and they take it easier from someone closer to their age,” he explained, “Some graduates actually do ask for the position, but I was trying to get here and didn’t make the cut.” He was still smiling kindly and occupied himself by playing with the string on his hoodie.

“I was actually trying for the violent crimes unit,” I confessed quietly. I’d never told that to anyone here. Besides the fact that they absolutely weren’t interested in such information, I was also kind of scared they’d be acting even more hostile since I “clearly didn’t even want to be here”. “I got sent here because of understaffing problem,” I continued.

He looked at me and didn’t react in any way, just leaned back and said: “Oh yeah, we do work with them quite often. Can’t have organised crime without violent crime. If you survive it here for some time and make a little name for yourself, I’m sure it would be easier for you to transfer. But a lot of people strive for violent crimes, so it’s kinda cutthroat to get there.” I relaxed at his words and finally smiled back fully.

“Yeah, maybe I could make it there if I help with Yoongi,” I muttered and focused back on the wall, “I’m sure, considering his reputation, that violent crimes have their hands full with him.” Minjoon stood up and walked over to it. He raised his hand softly tapped on a poster of a missing man.

“Actually, unfortunately it’s more about missing people,” he said, “He has a great clean-up team, it’s super messed up.” His hand moved downwards and this time he tapped on a picture of two men. “You know these guys?” he asked absentmindedly.

On the photo, there were two incredibly familiar faces. One man a bit taller, with wide shoulders, dressed in a nice suit, his perfectly sculpted face in a neutral expression and framed by light brown hair. By his side there was the second man – a bit shorter but with much fiercer displeased expression. His hair was cut into a mullet and the hair just about touched his shoulders; he was clad in a fitted black turtleneck that gave away his strong lean muscles.

Of course I knew them. In this whole building there most probably wasn’t anyone who didn’t know them. Actually, I’d argue that in this entire city only a few people had the pleasure of not knowing.

“I’d be an embarrassment of a police officer if I didn’t,” I joked at him, “It’s Kim Seokjin and Jung Hoseok, they’re part of Min’s six.” Minjoon smiled approvingly.

“Tell me everything you know about them,” he challenged, teasing, “Shoot.” I gave him a wolfish grin as excitement coursed through me. He was giving me a chance to show I’d really been studying this case. I sat on the table and made myself comfortable.

“Kim Seokjin studied medicine and has a degree. He poses as the main seven’s personal physician, but the assumption is that he most probably deals with all wounds of anyone from the gang that were sustained during any illegal activities that cannot be taken into hospital. He owns a house up in Gangnam, just a few streets from Yoongi himself, and has a clinic there. He’s the second son of a pretty wealthy family, his record’s completely clear and it’s unknown how exactly he came to know Yoongi or became involved with crime.” I looked at Minjoon from the corner of my eye and he was just humming, but there was a pleased smile on his face. That gave me courage to continue.

“Jung Hoseok on the other hand, has been arrested several times for assault or causing bodily harm while getting into fights, but never prosecuted. Then he went off radar only to reappear a few years later as a part of illegal fighting rings. He quickly rose through the ranks and was a champion for three years straight. But that also means he most probably killed a lot of people, since these fights only end when one of the two fighters drops dead. It’s presumed that’s where he met Yoongi and became familiar with him.”

Minjoon nodded along and patted my shoulder. “Good job, newbie, you really did spend ungodly amount of time here,” he joked, but I felt the praise anyways. My cheeks heated up and I couldn’t help but feel intense satisfaction.

“It’s mainly Hoseok that’s in charge of clean-up, but Jungkook also participates. They do both clean-up of unwanted people and clean-up of unwanted evidence. Sometimes those two cross over. In other words, they both murder and get rid of it,” Minjoon spoke, his face serious, “I mean, that’s our theory anyways. If we were able to catch them murdering and disposing of a body, they’d already be rotting in jail. But the point stands – there’s a huge number of missing persons tied to this, mostly petty criminals or people known to be associated with enemy gangs. No bodies though.”

My eyes flitted to the picture of the mentioned younger man. Jungkook’s picture, for me, was really hard to look at, because unlike all the others, he was just a kid in his. It was an old photo, most likely taken from a yearbook, with his serious face still round and cheeks full of baby fat, dark hair cut short and styled neutral, but it still hit too hard. Especially when my eyes slid lower to a more recent photo, which depicted Jungkook standing on a balcony smoking, all hard edges on his emotionless face, long hair blowing around and blurring out his tatted-up fingers holding a cigarette and black shirt bulging with muscles. He was the youngest and it was also a mystery about how he became involved with Yoongi, the most we knew about him was that he came from a lower middle-class family and led an unproblematic school life as one of the top students. Where he met Yoongi, or even how he started to involve himself in illegal activities, no one except for them knew.

“The rest of them, as I’m sure you’re already well familiar with,” Minjoon continued talking, “are trying to look more legit. Kim Taehyung and Park Jimin oversee some of his clubs and help him with the hotel and restaurants too. They try to seem like stand-up men with no ties to the underground to grant him an air of an honest man. And Namjoon, well, you’ve already met him. He’s in charge of the finances and that’s exactly where most of the crime is the most visible.” I nodded at him and gestured for him to continue.

“Yoongi’s smuggling in insane amounts of goods, everything from luxury items and artifacts to alcohol, exotic foods and ingredients, to drugs. He sells it to himself, supplies it to his own clubs and restaurants for dirt cheap and then makes crazy money on selling it to clients. If you ask for VIP treatment, you get it deluxe – you don’t have to lift a single finger, Yoongi supplies everything. You want a unicorn? He finds a way to smuggle it in. You ask, he delivers. Namjoon’s job is to make all this look legit, so that he can’t be busted.”

It was so much to take in, but I was finally starting to make sense in it all. Even though I’d been reading the files and trying to catch up on the happenings, there were things I was confused about, things that were lost in context or just lightly referenced without more information, and I had no way of fully understanding it until someone properly explained it to me and filled me in. I was waiting for it to happen in the first few weeks, even asked about it once, but I was shut down and quickly realised that no one was planning on talking to me about it. They rather kept me busy with petty stuff and didn’t let me get in on the operation. I was eternally grateful to Minjoon for taking the time to properly explain what they’ve been doing the past year.

“So that’s why you’re currently breathing down Namjoon’s neck,” I mused out loud, “You want in on whatever magic he’s working to make Yoongi appear as an honest businessman.” Minjoon nodded and added: “And that’s why Yoongi appeared immediately when we brought him in. Park wanted to get a feel of the man. See how he’d behave when interrogated and to test out how strong of a bond they have.” I hummed.

“They’re tight,” I stated, “And Namjoon’s impenetrable.”

We both sat there for a moment, taking in everything that’s been said. I was wracking my brain for a game plan. There had to be something I could do.

“Are you doing stake out missions?” I wondered. He looked at me a little surprised which quickly turned into embarrassment. “I’m sorry, I had no idea you were this much out of the loop,” he said quietly and rubbed the back of his neck. Now it was me who got embarrassed. I was about to stutter out some excuse or an apology, but he started talking again.

“Not currently no, there used to be some in the early stages, before Yoongi caught wind of the efforts. Now that he knows us and knows that we’re interested in him, it’s practically impossible to do stake out missions, unless you just want to annoy him and show him we're there. Not to mention it takes a lot of manpower which we do not have. We’re trying to crack down on the lower levels of the organisation. You know, take in some common mobsters selling substances, threaten them with a sentence and then try to get intel off of them. Some do agree to talk, but somehow Yoongi always manages to sniff them out and they don’t tend to end well. He has a tight hold on everything, despite the size of his empire. Mainly what we gathered is that he is an incredibly paranoid man, he most probably does very frequent inspections and doesn’t hesitate to get rid of anyone just slightly suspicious.”

“Well, in some way, it’s to be expected,” I pondered out loud, “A man that has accomplished this much, it doesn’t surprise me that he’s basically become omniscient.” Minjoon hummed in agreement and flicked some of the pictures around absent-mindedly.

“There was even an attempt to infiltrate,” he said quietly, “We did manage to get in, but it went bust pretty quickly.” I could feel it was definitely a sensitive subject and I didn’t want to pry, but the implication here was absolutely devastating.

“Did he…?” I couldn’t even bring myself to finish the question, but thankfully Minjoon understood. He smiled sadly, shook his head and said: “Thankfully not, but he did end up in a hospital for like two months. They messed him up. He didn’t even return to the force, wouldn’t be able to anyway due to some injuries. When I went with Park to confront Yoongi, he just straight up laughed in our face and told us we’d better feel grateful that he wasn’t interested in becoming a cop killer, because rats in his organisation usually end up much worse. It was the most we’d ever heard him admit out loud, but we didn’t even manage to record it or anything, we were too upset to think straight and missed an opportunity.” He sighed again. I was just glad that the officer ended up okay. At least Yoongi was aware that if he’d killed a cop, he’d become the most wanted man in the eyes of the entire force. There wouldn’t be a moment of rest for him.

Somewhere deep down I felt a little bit of shame though, because I did the same mistake just a few days ago. Yoongi didn’t end up saying anything even remotely that damning, but he still talked to me pretty openly.

I was just about to open my mouth to try and dispel the awkward silence that took over, but Park chose that moment to burst into the room loudly. He didn’t even spare us a glance, too focused on a folder in his hands. I’d jumped off the table in panic and straightened up, but he barely paid attention to anything else. Slowly our colleagues started filing in and taking seats. When after a while no one said anything about my presence, I sat down next to Minjoon, who gave me a reassuring smile.

Park closed the file and slammed in onto the table, then made his way over to the most interesting part of the room – the wall.

“Alright, emergency meeting,” he started, “we just got new info from violent crimes about the disappearance from two weeks ago.”

As I sat there and half listened to the information presented, a plan was starting to hatch in my head. Although Yoongi knew about me, could even pick me out from the crowd, I had to figure out a way to tail him. And when I did, I had to find out more about what Hoseok did. And where. And how. While my unit focused on Namjoon and worked from the bottom, I had to learn about the most criminal aspects of this gang to cover all the grounds. I had to catch a killer.

I’d never been on a stake out mission before. That was one of the few things they didn’t teach at the academy, and I had to figure it out all on my own, while trying to tail a man that probably knew even how many pieces of ham I put on my toast that morning (it’s always two).

Once I pulled information about Min Yoongi’s probable whereabouts, all I had to do was jump in my car and go find him, which was easier said than done. I’d decided to do this in my free time, since asking for the permission to tail him would most definitely not be met with much excitement in the department, especially since they themselves have given up on it.

Now, here I was, sitting in my car at 4 am on a Friday, intently watching a posh house in the middle of Gangnam, hoping that Yoongi is either already in there or soon to return. Since through my snooping I was left with several addresses all ranging from clubs, restaurants and a hotel through factories and warehouses to offices, I figured my best shot would be to catch him while leaving his house rather than running through half of the establishments in Seoul. I also pulled information on the other six, but quickly found out that we had working addresses only for like four of them, so no luck staking out Hoseok’s house or anything.

I was desperately trying to keep myself from falling asleep, the fact that I only slept 3 hours catching up to me, my head drooping and my eyes barely staying open. The house was dark, and I figured at this time he either had to be getting up soon or coming home to rest.

The next three hours were absolute hell. I was so tired, fighting sleep and frustration, I had gotten extremely hungry because I ate through my snacks in boredom, and I was losing my mind. Nothing was happening. Not even a shadow moved on his property. The fact that Yoongi was now probably sleeping happily in his bed, not a care in the world, was pissing me off beyond belief. And another thing – I was freezing my ass off. Duly noted – tailing for dummies: don’t do it in winter.

I had just begun losing hope that Yoongi’s even home, when suddenly a light came on somewhere in the house. My heart jumped with excitement, and I was so happy I could cry actual tears. It seemed that he started his day around 7 am. I wrote it down into my journal and ignored the rising feeling of being a total creep, keeping records on someone like this. This was a professional endeavour. I was doing it for the greater good.

I watched as the lights slowly moved downstairs to the ground level where Yoongi must have been messing around in the kitchen. At 8 o'clock the door opened, and a lady walked out, turning around presumably to say goodbye only to be narrowly missed by Yoongi immediately slamming the door shut behind her. She started shouting something and banged on the door for a little bit, screaming expletives and other interesting comments, before calling it a day and sulkily walking away. I took a look at her as she was walking by and winced. Damn, I definitely didn’t envy her the walk home in those heels. Godspeed, sister.

When the clock hit 8.30 am, a car rolled to a stop in front of the house and Yoongi himself walked out in all his glory. This time he was wearing a classic black three-piece suit with a white shirt, hair slicked back behind his ears, phone in one hand and a to-go cup of coffee in the other. He didn’t look around at all, just sped all the way to the car, got in and in a second, they were on their way god knows where.

I took a moment to check my own reflection. Compared to the sleek mafia boss, my hair was messy since I barely even brushed it that morning, my face puffy and unkept and I had an old, stained hoodie on. I was almost embarrassed. Almost. After a moment I’d decided I gave them enough space and pulled out of my spot.

I had the list of potential addresses sitting out on my passenger seat and as we began weaving through the city, I was trying to guess where they could be going. My mind was constantly on keeping enough of a distance to not look suspicious but be close enough to not lose them in the morning traffic. With my heart beating out of my chest and damp clammy hands tense on the steering wheel, I managed to follow the car up to one of the clubs.

The car had just stopped when Yoongi briskly jumped out and jogged to the entrance. He disappeared inside for about 20 minutes and then he emerged again, a briefcase in hand and a smile on his face. I jotted it down into my journal and then we were on our way again.

I spent my day like that. Yoongi had always rolled up to a club, for a moment went inside, then came out again, sometimes holding something and sometimes empty-handed. Once I even managed to catch a glimpse of one of his six seeing him off. Based on the head full of soft blond curls, it must have been Park Jimin.

Gradually as I went after them, I relaxed, setting into my new role. My journal was getting packed with information, mostly useless things about where we stopped for now. I would be able to put it to more use once I had more stable and reliable info about his routine.

Around 2 pm he went into one of his offices and stayed until 9 o'clock, after that he went back to the club where he met Jimin. I was all cramped up from sitting in my car the whole day, my back absolutely killing me. I was hungry out of my damn mind, and I’d run out of water an hour ago. I just wanted him to go the fuck home and stay there, but he stayed until midnight. When I finally saw him walk back into his house, 1 o’clock in the morning, I was done and tired, but regretting nothing.

That’s how my life went on for a few days. I’d spent full three days tailing him, showing up at his house at around 5 am (I’d given myself an extra hour, but I didn’t want to risk missing him leave) and then drove around the city jotting down all the places he went to and all the things he did. Currently my journal contained everything from the various items he carried around his clubs to his order in Starbucks (which I wrote down very reluctantly, but I figured since I’m already there, I shouldn’t half-ass it). When it was time to go back to work, I’d taken the journal with me and discreetly wrote down any kind of new information that my team brought in.

It was my fifth day of stake out when it all crashed down. I was feeling good about myself, thinking maybe I’ve managed to actually dodge his attention, but I also realised I knew nothing about the kind of scoping out his bodyguards did. When Yoongi moved about, he either had some stone-faced strangers I’d never seen before with him or there was Jungkook by his side, and I quickly came to the conclusion that his job must have also entailed keeping Yoongi safe. It seemed that I never actually popped up on their radar, I’d never noticed any suspicious glances around, no one from Yoongi’s squad had ever even looked in my general direction, so I thought I was good. I wasn’t.

I was sitting in my car, leisurely eating a subway sandwich. It was 4 pm, which meant Yoongi was going to be in his office for another few hours at the very least (that’s how it’s been for the past four days). My car was parked a little off to the side some distance from the main entrance, monitoring who came in and who came out, while the car in which he came few hours earlier was still parked in the same spot and some of the guys were standing around, smoking and talking. Jungkook was with Yoongi today and they went in together, so they most probably had some free time until Yoongi needed to go somewhere again. It had begun snowing a little while ago and everything felt quiet and peaceful.

Then suddenly my passenger door opened, and a person filed in, settling on the seat with a loud exclamation of “god, it’s so cold outside, isn’t it?”. In a split second my hand went for my gun, but I ended up grabbing empty air – I wasn’t on duty, I didn’t have a gun currently. Panicking I turned to the side, prepared to fight, only to come face to face with a smugly grinning Yoongi. The fear immediately all drained out and instead frustration burst through me like a grenade.

“Fuck!” I screamed and hit the steering wheel. I managed to get the horn and in the distance I saw Yoongi’s bodyguards perk up at the sound, immediately checking their surroundings with hands on what one could only assume were their concealed guns. Out of the corner of my eye I also saw a face peek in through the passenger door window to check on the situation, and realised Jungkook must be standing outside the car. Yoongi was just sitting there, completely unfazed, watching me with amusement.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I growled and glared at him.

“I could be asking you the same thing,” he drawled out, playing with his fingers unbothered, “Though I do have to praise you, we didn’t know about you for full two days. Guess we’re not used to having to worry about that anymore.” I closed my eyes and attempted to calm myself down. I didn’t need to embarrass myself further by throwing a full tantrum in front of them.

“How did you find out about me?” I gritted through my teeth and willed myself to relax more into the seat, stubbornly keeping my eyes in front of me and not looking over at Yoongi.

“You’ve been tailing me for days, of course we’re going to notice,” Yoongi replied cheekily. Then he gave me a once over. “No gun and no badge,” he hummed, “not on official business, then? Am I so charming that you just have to see me all the time?” He smirked at me playfully when he saw me peeking over, now starting to play with my little journal. It was closed, but I was still tensely watching him whether he’d decide to open it. By his smug expression, I had a feeling he knew what he was holding in his hands, and when he decided to put the journal down with a little playful wink, it was very pointed.

I cleared my throat. “It is official business,” I said, and really, I wasn’t even lying.

“Oh, is it?” he hummed noncommittally, “Because right now you just seem like a crazy stalker.” I looked over at him annoyed and he seemed to be very amused. A disembodied hand knocked on the window. Yoongi looked over and suddenly became more serious. It only lasted a second though, and then he was smirking at me again.

“All I can say is, I’m quite impressed, Y/N,” he winked at me, “Good job. Try a bit harder next time, though.” With one last amused smile he opened the door and clambered out. One hand leaning on the open door, he bent down at the waist to look in and contemplated for a moment what to say. Behind him I could see a hulking black mass as Jungkook immediately moved closer to safeguard Yoongi.

“See you around, officer,” Yoongi settled on in the end and then finally moved away from the door to slam it shut. I was left in there alone with all that cold air he let in and an unsettled feeling. I watched him cross the street to his own car, watched him as he turned around one last time and waved to me, then got in and sped away.

Only when I was left staring at an empty curb, I realised he’d called me by my name.

So… a change of tactic it is. Even though he didn’t say much, I didn’t think Yoongi had gotten into my car to threaten me. Quite the opposite, he seemed almost suspiciously encouraging. He most likely wanted to know whether I’d been assigned on this task or not.

Well, I learnt a few things at the very least. First, tailing everyday with the same car when you don’t want to be discovered is a big no-no (honestly kind of stupid on my part not to have realised that). Second – Jungkook was like Yoongi’s shadow and Yoongi’s bodyguards were all most likely under him too. He must be doing some intense scans of the surroundings, given the fact that after two days they realised a car was tailing them. After that they most probably just entertained me to see what I was doing and took the time to run a background check on me.

So, I had to find a way to be more inconspicuous. I was on their radar now; they would look out for me, and they knew more about me. Renting cars would get too expensive too quickly, it would also make me look very suspicious. My car was out of the question since they already knew it.

Honestly, I was surprised they let me tail them for that long when they already knew about me, but this might be the one time someone underestimating me would actually play into my cards. Because my goal wasn’t to aimlessly shadow Yoongi. It was to get closer to information about Hoseok. And I got a little tiny snippet.

When I sat at my computer at work the next day and stared mindlessly into the wall, I was wracking my brain on how to recuperate from this fumble. The previous night I had been going through my journal for hours, trying to come up with a way to keep a surveillance on Yoongi without letting him know I was following him, when I realised it.

Through the five days, I’d been catching glimpses of the other six. Of course, I saw Jungkook the most, but here and there I’d see Kim Taehyung’s shoulder as he was chatting with Yoongi outside of a club, Namjoon calling someone and smoking in front of the office building, Kim Seokjin coming out of Yoongi’s house, Park Jimin’s profile in the darkness of an alleyway by Yoongi’s car. They were all extremely close to each other and their lives were intertwined rather finely.

And I’d seen Hoseok too. It was for a split second, just a flash of the man’s face through a crack in a warehouse door, but I’d seen him. I had written it down, just mindlessly jotted down “door might have been opened by Hoseok”, and that was my chance. All I had to do now was start investigating that warehouse and move from there. Tonight, I had to go there and scope out the surroundings to see whether there was a place I could comfortably watch the area from.

The door to Park’s office suddenly slammed opened and I jumped in my seat, heart almost lurching out of my chest. I glared at my superior’s back and cursed his habit of storming into rooms as loudly as possible. He walked over to Minjoon’s table and started quietly telling him something. My curiosity won over and I couldn’t help glancing their way. Minjoon caught my eye for a moment and smiled, but mostly kept his attention trained on Park.

After a while of mumbling and several hushed okays, Park briskly walked through the station out to the parking lot and Minjoon and his partner both stood up and started gathering their things to follow him. I mournfully watched them get ready and grumbled behind my computer, but as I was about to petulantly grab some files and put them back into the cabinets, Minjoon came over to me and asked: “You wanna come with?” I stared at him for a moment, completely flabbergasted. He waited patiently until I got my wits about me again and then smiled when I started very enthusiastically nodding. The others in the station were also surprised, but I wasn’t about to give them my attention as I also grabbed my badge and a jacket and followed Minjoon out.

“It’s 7 pm on a Saturday, which means Yoongi’s at the Pied Piper,” he explained while leading me to the service car. Pied Piper was Yoongi’s most successful club, one that sat smack dab in the middle of Itaewon and drew attention with its fancy exterior and sleek interior. It was a hotspot for both locals and foreigners, and young trust fund kids often bragged about being on the VIP list, having the privilege to just come and walk in instead of having to wait endlessly in the line. “That also means that Namjoon’s currently sitting alone in the office. Park’s been tirelessly working on obtaining some insider info and he wants to go have a chat with the lawyer while he’s on his home turf.” I nodded along as we filed into the car and started on the journey.

I was a little nervous around the mysterious calm man. I could handle Yoongi’s endless banter, but Namjoon unnerved me with his silence and sharp eyes. It was as if he was slowly uncovering every little dirty secret you had deep within you just by looking into your eyes, he didn’t even need to say a word and you just wanted to spill all your sins. He was a dangerous man, an intelligent one that knew how to use it to intimidate others.

“Our job,” Minjoon suddenly spoke up after focusing on the road, “is to go to Pied Piper and annoy and distract Yoongi, so Park can have a peaceful uninterrupted moment with Namjoon. He doesn’t want Yoongi to even text him anything, so we have to put on a proper show.”

“I see…” I replied finally, the reality of the task setting in. I was a little relieved I didn’t have to confront Yoongi’s right-hand man, but unexpectedly I felt embarrassment flood me. I’d been having some truly awkward encounters with the man, and he seemed quite fond of teasing me. I was a little afraid he might blab about what I’d been doing in my free time and put a mark on my back within my own unit. I knew he definitely wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to put me in a difficult position.

The whole ride over I was preparing myself for dealing with the jokester again and potentially having to stop him from spilling some secrets. So, when we walked up confidently to the bouncer and Minjoon showed him his badge, I was full on panicking, nervously picking on my scarf with shaking hands. While we waited for the bodyguard to relay to Yoongi the police were here, Minjoon must have misunderstood my nervousness as fear of facing the mafia boss again.

“Actually, this is why I wanted to bring you with me,” he said quietly so nobody could overhear, “I wanted you to get over the first meeting, so you could continue with this task. Once you meet him a few times, the novelty wears off and he’s just an annoying dude that commits crime in his free time.”

No, yeah, I already knew that. I could cry inside, that wasn’t why I was nervous at all. But it was better he thought that than knowing I’d actually met Yoongi twice more already and he seemed to be getting quite interested in making my life difficult back. So, I just nodded and smiled at him gratefully, thanking him for bringing me along.

“Alright,” the bouncer suddenly came back to us, “right this way.” With that he turned around and made his way inside the club. I scrambled to follow after him through the crowded area, wading through partying youngsters. I could barely hear anything over the pumping bass of the music and with the flashing lights and crowds I couldn’t even really see what the inside looked like. I saw some dark grey walls, some mirrors and flashy patches of silver met with dark stone, but the rest was covered up with smoke and dancing bodies.

Similarly to the club I’d been to some week and a half ago, we were led to a staircase and up onto a gallery overlooking the ground floor, but it seemed that Pied Piper offered completely private rooms that were in a corridor off to the right, while left side was occupied by a bar. Surprisingly, it seemed that the VIP area also served as a sort of a restaurant, as I saw several couples and groups enjoying a dinner. The sound of the music wasn’t as overbearing up here and it created sort of a constant hum in the background, lending the space some added privacy from eavesdropping.

I expected getting led to a cordoned off little corner somewhere like before, but instead we walked through the entire area all the way to the back, and then up another, albeit a little smaller, staircase to a sort of a half balcony hanging over both the ground floor and the VIP area.

There on a velvet red couch, was sat Yoongi, greeting us with an amused smile. His pitch-black shirt and dress pants were popping with contrast to the vibrant red, just as his pale skin and long black hair was. For a moment I was so consumed by the vision that was Yoongi, that I didn’t even realise there were two other men present.

On a couch to our left, Kim Taehyung sat in all black suit, all spread out with legs wide open and arms resting on top of the couch, wavy dark hair framing his curious face, mischievous expression slowly taking over as he watched us grow more and more restless. And finally, leaning on a wall behind us, was Jungkook. He was expressionless as always and almost blended into the wall with his also pitch-black t-shirt and cargo pants. What was visible of his arms was heavily tattooed and definitely served as make-shift camouflage in this dark space.

I snickered and before I could stop myself, I was speaking. “Did we crash a funeral or what? What’s with the fits?” I glanced at all three of them amusedly. Taehyung started giggling while Yoongi full-on laughed. His face was coloured by surprise at my words and once again, I’d managed to catch his full attention. The nerves I felt combined with my annoyance at the man helped me put up a more confident front than I was feeling and I needed to take full advantage of that.

“Well, personally I think I do look quite ravishing in black, darling,” Taehyung drawled out seductively, righting his posture to lean closer to me, “Don’t you agree?” Minjoon looked between us confusedly and I made a mental note to make some excuse about why I wasn’t a complete wreck in the face of the three men.

I ignored Taehyung’s words and instead sat down on a chair straight across from Yoongi and Minjoon, who finally came out of his stupor, sat down next to me.

“So, tell me, officer,” Yoongi asked noncommittally, “What are you here for this time?” Even though he aimed the question at Minjoon, he was looking at me the whole time and I knew he was also experiencing the same déjà vu as me.

“You know, just checking that everything’s fine here,” Minjoon replied cheekily, watching me out of the corner of his eye, “Weekends can get pretty rough. We wouldn’t want a fight to break out.” Yoongi just scoffed and gestured to the general area.

“You don’t have to worry that head of yours, Mr. Jang,” he replied with a snark that I’d never caught from him before, “We have quite the few very strong and very professional bodyguards and bouncers around here. People know not to mess with them.” He looked back at me and then added: “Would you like something to drink or eat? I must say the appetizers are absolutely stellar today.” With a swipe of his arm, he gestured to the table between us that was decked with food. From my left, Taehyung giggled and leaned in to grab a few grapes.

To be honest, it felt like we were two stupid little lambs that wandered straight into the wolf’s den. And the fact that they were all around us didn’t help. It was finally starting to catch up with me and I nervously rubbed the top of my thighs with my clammy hands. I gulped and looked at Minjoon, expecting him to lead the conversation. I wondered how Park was fairing at the office and whether he’d already met Namjoon.

“Well, it’s our duty to look out anyway,” Minjoon shot back, “Serve the public and all that. Just making sure nothing naughty is going on. People tend to get a little crazy on Saturdays after all.” He was rewarded with a toothy wild smirk, all sharp edges and dangerous glints.

“Yes, they do tend to do that. If I see anyone being naughty, you’ll be the first one I’ll tell,” Yoongi laughed and gestured at the bodyguard at the stairs. He immediately turned around and left. I was on high alert, trying to track him from the balcony and see where he was going. The conversation between the men continued as they traded thinly veiled insults and passive aggressive remarks, while I was frantically searching the crowd.

I only relaxed when he returned to the balcony – a tray of drinks in hand. Each of the men took one – to my horror even Minjoon accepted a glass that was clearly meant for him and took a tiny sip. I gave him a pointed stare. He was the one that drove us here, for fuck’s sake! Not to mention there should be a golden rule about not eating or drinking anything given to you by a gangster in a club he owned.

The bouncer made his rounds, and the last glass was suddenly thrust in front of my face. It was a sex on the beach. It was the single cocktail I ordered and sipped on not to look too suspicious at Dynamite the other week. I shot the man in question a half surprised half horrified look. He was watching me from behind the rim of his own whiskey glass, eyes dark and curious for my reaction.

In the end, I took it because I’d started to feel awkward with the bouncer just standing there with his arm outstretched, but I immediately sat it down on the table, intent on not drinking it. I shot Minjoon another look, trying to signal to him he should do the same, but he was cooly sipping on his and only subtly shook his head at me. I pointedly ignored Yoongi’s gaze hungry for attention. I would not give him the rise he so wanted to get out of me.

“You see, right now I’m only trying to figure out in what club is your partner currently wreaking havoc, to have you here distracting,” Kim Taehyung suddenly joined the conversation, his silky deep voice catching me off guard every time. I jolted, but Minjoon kept his cool.

“You guys know us too well, this is getting a bit repetitive, isn’t it?” he joked back and drained his whiskey glass in a single big gulp, “Guess you’ll have to find out yourself. But entertain me here for a moment, otherwise you’ll just embarrass me in front of my boss and the newbie.”

Suddenly, four pairs of eyes were on me, and a wave of goosebumps ran through my entire being. I met Yoongi’s black eyes again and this time didn’t divert the eye contact. He leant forward, until he was leaning on his knees, and even though there was an entire table between us, it still felt dangerously close.

“You have been quite uncharacteristically quiet, officer,” he said and drawled out the nickname with a deep voice. I was afraid of what else might come out of his mouth, so I quickly butted in.

“What do you mean? You don’t know me at all,” it was both a warning to shut up and warning that we’d just begun, and he really did not know what I was capable of. My eyes were throwing daggers at him, but I tried to keep on a fake polite smile.

“Well, for someone who waltzed in here calling it a funeral and dissing our clothes, I was expecting some more smart comments out of you,” Yoongi explained, and I was relieved he was entertaining my threat to keep our previous conversations secret. He was looking thoroughly amused though.

“You’d have to be saying something smart, for me to have smart remarks.”

Kim Taehyung laughed out of surprise and pointed at Yoongi, who was fighting back his own grin. “She got you, hyung, you’ve gotta admit that,” he teased him good-naturedly and it was almost surprisingly wholesome to see them interacting as friends.

“There’s rarely anything smart said when talking to cops,” Yoongi retorted and it was more of a dig towards Minjoon than me, who stiffened next to me. It must have been a sore subject coming from Yoongi, which I understood with how hard he was making everything for us. Unfortunately, as a cop you sometimes did feel like the criminals outsmarted you… and then hearing them tease you about it, I’d be mad too.

“Okay, okay, we can sit here and call each other dumb the whole evening,” I mediated the situation before it went sideways, “Tell me then, Yoongi, what smart things do you want to talk about?” I spit out his name as if it was a curse, but I saw his entire being perk up at hearing it, a smug smirk tugging at his lips. I ignored it and waited for him to answer.

“Oh, I’ve got many things to talk about, one more interesting than the other,” he said dangerously, and I quickly realised we were nearing a no-go zone again. I suddenly understood why he was so interested in this, in letting me so near and never reprimanding me, playing with me like a cat does when it’s hunting for mice. He was getting off on knowing there was something I desperately needed him to stay silent about. At that moment, he was holding something over my head, something that could get me in a lot of trouble with colleagues that already didn’t like me, and if he threatened to press charges for harassment and stalking, he could most likely even boot me out of the force. But to him, it wasn’t about destroying my life. It was about amusing himself knowing I’m depending on him for something so important when I’m hellbent on taking him down. That way, he still remained in control of all of our meetings.

But I didn’t think he had the intention to truly rat me out. It was too much fun for him, and he seemed the type to let things play out. Ultimately, he must have believed once I became bothersome, he could shoot me down no problem, so why not amuse himself while the opportunity was there? So, I took a gamble. He wanted a challenge, maybe I’d give it to him. Maybe that’s why he encouraged me to do better and chase after him more.

“Yeah?” I said and trained all my attention to him, just as he always did to everyone around him, “I’m all ears.” He looked me straight in the eyes and I fought myself not to flinch away. The longer we stared, the more prominent the amused smirk grew on his face. He tested me, how long it would take me to break the eye contact and back down, but I steeled myself, squeezing the armrests with my nervous shaking hands, keeping the fear at bay by attempting to look as fierce as possible while falling apart with panic on the inside. Finally, it was him who looked away, but it didn’t feel like he ceded. It felt like we both won.

I released a breath I didn’t realise I was holding in and slumped a little into my chair, the tension suddenly draining out of my body in one fell swoop, leaving me almost boneless. Only now I started noticing the tense awkward silence the whole space sunk into, the other three men watching us with very different expressions. Jungkook as stoic as ever but with a hint of something in his eyes, Taehyung hungrily taking in the exchange with open curiosity and a playful grin, watching me as if I successfully tackled some kind of a challenge, and finally Minjoon, his face both confused and alarmed. I really had to think of some good excuse on the way back home.

Yoongi’s phone was buzzing on the table, but he barely paid it any attention. Instead, he gulped down his whiskey and gestured for the bodyguard to get him more, before turning to Minjoon once again.

“I’m sorry, but you seem kind of boring compared to the balls on this lady,” he mocked him, “this is the most fun I’ve had dealing with you guys.”

“I’m not here to amuse you,” I growled through gritted teeth. He flashed me a smile and said: “Oh, of course not, I know that. You’re here on a super secret, super important mission. But I am having fun, which normally doesn’t happen with these guys.” Minjoon snickered next to me, and his next words somehow felt like a punch in the face.

“I should have known that a pig like you would get off more on having a female detective grill you,” he muttered, fully aiming to insult Yoongi, but I stiffened next to him. I couldn’t figure out why, but his remark really didn’t sit well with me, putting me out of my comfort zone way more than anything the three gangsters did the whole evening, and Kim Taehyung’s first words to me were shameless flirting.

“Only a pig like you would only see the fact that she’s a woman and not that she’s just more interesting than you,” Yoongi retorted almost instantly, spitting out the whole sentence in a single breath, leaving Minjoon speechless with the quick comeback. Then he rolled his eyes, trying to stay as calm as he was when he came in.

“That’s not what I said, stop trying to spin this on me,” he said, clearly annoyed with the turn of the conversation, “We’re talking about you here.” I stayed silent and for the first time that evening yearned for taking a swig out of the now melting cocktail still standing on the table in front of me.

“Right,” Yoongi drawled out, running out of patience dealing with the officer, “And I’m a pig why exactly? Last time I checked that’s what people called the police. Not me. And especially not after I’ve just-“

“Shut up, both of you,” I jumped in, annoyed and not interested in whatever Yoongi wanted to say, “You can measure each other’s cocks when I’m not around. Act like adults.” Taehyung off to the side giggled again, thoroughly enjoying himself watching this all go down. I chanced a glance at Jungkook, who was attempting to hide an amused smirk by looking out of the balcony. I didn’t want to look at either of the men I had just reprimanded, but my attention was drawn to Yoongi when he cleared his throat and said: “Of course, I let myself get carried away. Sorry ‘bout that.”

I had been afraid he’d take it badly, but he was laughing when I looked at him. Minjoon looked angry, but stayed silent, instead he petulantly looked to the right, away from all of us. I guess I’d be reaping the consequences of that later.

The awkward silence was broken by the man I was least expecting to speak up. “They’re with Namjoon hyung at the office,” Jungkook briskly informed Yoongi from behind us. When I turned around, he was just putting his phone to his ear walking out of the space.

“Well, I guess the cat’s out the bag now,” my attention turned back onto Yoongi, who still wasn’t checking his periodically buzzing phone. I also pulled out mine to check the time. 7:43 pm. We’d been there for a little longer than half an hour, but it felt barely like ten minutes to my shock.

I looked at Minjoon again, seeking his advice on how to tie up this situation. He finally shook out of his embarrassed silence and was more or less back to his previous self.

“Well, thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Min,” Minjoon said, still a little strained and refusing to look at him for too long, “It was truly a fruitful evening.” Yoongi chuckled.

“Right, I feel like we all learnt a lot of things about each other,” he retorted mysteriously, giving me a grin and then turning to Taehyung, “It seems we both lost the bet. I said it would be The Rose and you betted on the hotel.” The Rose, another one of Yoongi’s clubs, was currently managed mainly by Park Jimin and situated on the other side of the city centre. It was another one of his high-profile entertainments, but most of the time it hosted the filthy rich and honed in on the feeling of privilege and prestige. That was definitely a club you couldn’t just get into from the street, no, you had to be invited in or taken by a member, that’s why the police were so interested in it.

“You were betting on us?” I asked surprised. Minjoon looked at me and grinned. “They do that quite often, actually. We do our best to try and keep them on their toes.”

I glanced at Yoongi, who as the entire time, was watching me closely. I hummed and pretended to think about it for a moment, and finally said: “Honestly, The Rose is a pretty good guess. Keep ‘em coming, I’m sure with an intuition like that, you’ll get it right once.” He laughed heartily and leaned in.

“I know it’s a good guess,” he whispered, “I get them right most of the time. I know you people, more than you think.” I shuddered and pulled away, hitting the back of the chair. With a slight flush of embarrassment at my earlier comment, I scrambled to get up and go on our merry way. That had made him even more amused, and I cursed both him and myself. I should really learn to keep my mouth shut sometimes.

Yoongi didn’t bother standing up as we were leaving, he didn’t even bother to check his phone, that had gone suspiciously silent. He just stared at me from across the room as the bouncer started leading the way back out and Taehyung waved at us with a little wink, looking annoyingly pleased and relaxed. I rolled my eyes at him one last time and then disappeared down the stairs. If I strained my ears, I could almost hear him laughing loudly at my antics.

Outside of the club, back by our car, Minjoon suddenly stopped in the middle of the empty quiet parking lot. I staggered to a stop as well, looking at him confused and slightly worried something happened. What if Park hadn’t managed to have that talk with Namjoon and was waiting for us mad at the station? Panic flashed through me, but I was surprised when Minjoon looked at me with worried sad eyes and started apologising.

“Hey, I���m really sorry about before,” he said and I could finally see the full extent of his embarrassment, “You’re right, we were bickering like a couple of little boys. It’s just- He always gets such a rise out of me. I try and not react, but he always does or says something that just pisses me off.” I softened a little at his genuine shame and a little awkwardly patted his shoulder.

“It’s okay, I understand,” I replied quietly, “He got a rise out of me too. Don’t worry about it.” He smiled at me, a little lighter and less sad, and I returned it. When we returned to the station, Park didn’t say anything about us or our mission and just launched right into his spiel about Namjoon’s behaviour at the office. I considered that a win.

Later that night, sitting in the empty meeting room, Minjoon turned to me and said: “I didn’t get a chance to say it earlier, but you fared surprisingly well tonight. I wasn’t expecting you to be like… that. It was amazing.” I blushed both from his words and his gentle embarrassed gaze and played with the edge of my sleeve to escape his eyes.

“Thank you… When I get nervous, I just start blabbing out the first thing that comes to mind,” I replied with a half-truth half-lie. He didn’t need to know I’d been getting some practice with dealing with the infuriating man in my free time. That would stay between me, Yoongi and the devil.

The next time I saw Yoongi was actually a few weeks later – in January of the new year. As I promised to myself, I took the time to scope out that one warehouse where I caught a glimpse of Hoseok. I had been staking it out carefully for almost a week, losing my mind with boredom just watching harbour workers milling about, when I came to the conclusion that he actually wasn’t there. The one time I’d seen him there clearly must have been a fluke, because he didn’t come at all the entire week. It was a pretty easy to scope out location, and when I continuously didn’t notice any evidence of Hoseok’s presence, I had to face the reality that this just wasn’t one of his spots.

So, that sent me back to following Yoongi around. And I had to figure out how to outsmart the literal king of snakes.

One day, when I was walking through the station, it hit me in a form of a single simple leaflet pinned to a noticeboard. I stopped so fast I almost tripped over my own feet and then hobbled back to the board to take in the huge bold FREE MOTORCYCLE TRAINING FOR OFFICERS FROM THIS PRECINCT. I had to stop myself from laughing maniacally right in the middle of the station and immediately saved the contact information into my phone. It was time to learn some new skills.

While I started taking lessons to be able to get a license for a motorcycle, I had to hold off from tailing Yoongi. Rolling up to his house in a car he already knew would be just embarrassing to me and explaining to someone else why I needed to borrow their car to drive around Seoul for 24 hours straight would be too difficult and, not to mention, extremely weird. There aren’t enough excuses in this world to borrow a different car every night and I didn’t even know enough people to achieve that.

Sometimes I would snoop around his office building or clubs when I knew he either was there or wasn’t, depending on what I was trying to achieve. I also still periodically dropped to the warehouse, just to chance whether maybe Hoseok showed up that time. But no luck. It was like he got swallowed by the earth itself. It did make sense for Yoongi to keep him in the shadows, considering what we suspected he did in the organisation, but I didn’t expect for him to be this hard to spot.

Here and there I would go through the other buildings Yoongi owned and tried to figure out where he could be spending most of his time, but there were just too many. Thus, one night I ended up buying a huge and very detailed map of Seoul that took up almost all of my bedroom wall and got to work on that. First, I marked all of Yoongi’s properties including his house in red, then I added properties that were known to be in possession of his six each with their own colours, and then marked with different colours who I spotted where. Finally, I added post it notes with details of when I spotted them or when Yoongi went there.

As I stood in my bedroom, proud of my hard work, a realisation of what I was doing hit me. There was no going back now, and whoever entered my house and found his way into my bedroom would be positively creeped out. I myself had to admit that sleeping next to a huge map detailing the whereabouts of a certain individual that I acquired through illegal means wasn’t ideal, but I had to do what I had to do to help catch him.

And like that, Christmas came and went and suddenly New Year was here, and I found myself sitting in the meeting room, first thing in January, going over new findings and strategies. I was barely holding my attention to what was said, itching to supervise Yoongi again and trying to come up with ways to check on what he’s doing.

“We’ve made contact with a new informant,” Park said suddenly, “He’s willing to pass info to us, he’s fairly confident that he can dodge the safety checks since he’s seen people fail them quite often. He knows very well the consequences he faces if he gets caught and agreed to help anyway.”

“Which faction does he belong to?” one of the officers present asked him. Faction, that meant under which member of the six he worked. Since they all had such different areas of coverage, a lot of the time the personnel under them was directly employed to them and not necessarily to Yoongi himself, though he owned the umbrella corporation. These groups of employees directly belonging to a certain member of the gang we called factions or squads.

“He works around the clubs and the hotel, so he’s Taehyung’s, but he mostly gets into contact with Jungkook,” Park answered readily, “But, and that’s most important, he gets his fare share of time with Namjoon. He runs a lot of errands for him and Taehyung when they’re together. Which is often.”

Suddenly Minjoon leaned closer to me and whispered: “Namjoon spends most of his time at the office building, but he does go to the clubs and checks on their offices and bookkeeping periodically. Taehyung’s and Jimin’s responsibility is making sure that everything is ready there for him.” I nodded at him and gave him a grateful smile. I thought back to the five days I spent sitting mostly in front of the office space and I did see him a lot. He seemed to be an avid smoker and spent a lot of time standing by the side of the building smoking and shouting something into his phone. Maybe he was like Yoongi and went to the clubs in the morning and then spent the afternoons there.

I leaned to him and whispered back: “It’s almost unfair how much information we have on them and still can’t legally even give them a parking ticket.” Minjoon smiled sympathetically and patted my shoulder.

The meeting droned on and as I sat there, I decided that parking tickets actually didn’t sound half bad. Next time I went out after him, I should take some just in case. I vowed myself to be the most annoying menace he’s ever come across and I fully intended to hold up to that.

About a week later I was once again sitting at my table punching some useless information into the national police database, trying to stay awake as I’d been spending the nights crawling around the industrial parts of Seoul checking out warehouses and the surveillance around them, when Park, as was his habit, stormed into the room letting his door bang loudly into the wall. I’d stopped flinching at this point, no one in the room was even fazed, all of us have heard it so many times it wasn’t even surprising anymore.

As usual when something happened with Yoongi, he went straight to Minjoon and Hwang, his partner, gesturing for them to grab their things and follow him out. I tried to catch Minjoon’s eye, hoping he’d take me with them again, but he just shook his head at me gently. When both of the other men left, he made a stop at my table and in a hushed voice explained: “I’m sorry, not today. Something happened at a warehouse that’s on Yoongi’s turf, probably some kind of fight with a rival gang or something. The police officers from the area are already there, but they’re waiting on us to see. It’s a pretty ugly and bloody scene.” With that he ran out of the door, barely managing to wave goodbye as he rushed to the scene.

I looked at his retreating back in disappointment, not understanding his reasoning behind leaving me out of it. What was he worried about? That I’d be upset if I saw a little blood? That I shouldn’t witness violence? Determination rose in me as I got angry at the perceived discrimination. I checked the clock. 4 PM, Wednesday. I scrambled out of my chair and quickly grabbed my badge and jacket and ran out as well.

As I gripped my steering wheel like an insane person and drove through the centre, I was hoping that his schedule was as solid as I assumed, even though I didn’t follow him for long. In a few minutes, I was parking in front of his office building and charging my way inside like a storm. There was a lady sitting at the reception and when she first saw me walk in, she attempted to talk to me, but quickly gave up and lost interest when I just brushed past her.

I’d never been inside but I hoped that all the movies and series didn’t lie, and his office would be on the top floor, so I flagged down an elevator and pushed the highest button. Now finally standing here, I started getting nervous. I once again acted before I thought about it and standing in an elevator taking me to Yoongi’s office, I didn’t even know what I’d say to him. If he even was here. I had nothing to talk to him about except for inquiring about the disturbance at a warehouse, but I doubt he’d ever tell me anything about it, not that I even had any closer information to ask about. This was reckless and stupid.

The elevator slowly rolled to a stop and the door opened. I self-consciously walked out and took a look around. It was a nicely furnished hallway lined with dark wood and deep scarlet details. At the end a huge vase with white lilies stood, right next to an abandoned desk of who I assumed must be Yoongi’s secretary. To my left, straight in the middle, was a black double door, no doubt leading to the man of the hour.

I loitered outside for a while, gathering courage and thinking about how I should explain my sudden appearance. Right as I moved to the door, it opened and a black-clad figure backed out, both of us colliding between the open doors. With surprisingly quick reflexes he turned around and grabbed onto my elbow, stabilising me before I embarrassed myself in front of Yoongi again.

“Oh! Sorry about that!” a cheerful high voice rung out through the corridor, “I gotta watch the road more.” He ended it with a melodic laugh and his other hand grabbed onto my shoulder, finally shaking me out of my stupor. I looked up to thank him, the cheerful personality putting me at ease a little more, but as soon as I laid eyes on him, the words died in my throat on an embarrassing half choked sound. I froze up and just stared at him for a moment, until I could see confusion paint his face.

It was Jung Hoseok. Hoseok was standing in front of me. Laughing and joking around, hands still holding me upright.

“Hey, you okay?” he asked, suddenly a little more serious, watching me with concern.

“She’s fine,” a voice from the inside supplied, “Maybe she’s just stunned with your beauty, with finally meeting you in person after staring at your picture for months.” All confusion and concern disappeared from the man and he started laughing again.

“Oh, so you’re the police officer,” he announced with a smirk and something a little more teasing crept into his voice. He finally released his hold on me and watched me with amused eyes as I stumbled away from him with red burning cheeks. So much for not embarrassing myself. It didn’t help that he most definitely was beautiful, almost unfairly so for someone who was allegedly a stone-cold killer. Damn these men to hell, what was it about being a mobster that attracted the good-looking guys.

“Thank you for catching me,” I gritted through my teeth, already staring daggers into Yoongi, who was leisurely sitting behind a huge dark desk in the room behind us, watching us with a lazy smirk.

“Don’t mention it,” Hoseok replied almost instantly and winked, “Well, I gotta get on my merry way. Have fun you two! Bye bye~” He waved at me cheerily and walked out. Then he backed into the room again and pointed at Yoongi in a teasingly reprimanding manner and added: “Not too much fun though.” With that, he was gone.

I walked into the room, completely flabbergasted by his surprising character. Yoongi watched me like a wolf, waiting for me to sit down on a chair on the other side of his table, as was our tradition by now. I could see the anticipation rolling off of him in waves, so I took the time to properly soak in the room. There was a lot of dark wood and grey tones with splash of colour here and there, but the darkness was offset by a huge three-piece window in the wall behind Yoongi. Right now, I could see the beginnings of what would soon turn into a sunset.

I knew I couldn’t win in a battle of will against him, so once I dragged it out enough, finally I moved over to the table to take a seat. Immediately, Yoongi had a cordial smile on his face, as if he was greeting an old friend and not a police officer. Speaking of that, I remembered something – I took the time to bring it for the sake of our second meeting.

Yoongi wordlessly watched me rummage in my pockets until I finally found what I was looking for. A second later, my hand slapped my badge on the table between us. I nodded towards it and muttered: “That official enough for you?” He looked at it shocked for a split second and then he was laughing.

When calm enough to speak to me, he said: “I see that whatever I joke about with you, you’ll take it to your heart. I’ll have to think about my words a bit more carefully from now on.” He stared at the badge for a moment and then thoughtfully hummed.

“Now, that reminds me, I should probably check whether you’re recording this talk,” he joked with me, “I won’t stop you of course, just watch my mouth.” Annoyed, I reached into my other pocket and this time I slapped my phone on the table. I went the extra mile of showing him it wasn’t calling anyone or recording anything, and then glared at him in challenge, all under his amused gaze.

“So, can we talk?” I bluffed, pretending like I showed up here for something specific. He made himself comfortable in his chair across from me and motioned for me to start. I took a moment to think about how to start. With no idea what I wanted to achieve here, it was hard to just start up a conversation. But it seemed I was worrying for nothing.

“Actually, I don’t need you to start,” he stated matter-of-factly, “I know why you’re here. With your colleagues currently running around in the docks, it doesn't take a genius to put two and two together. But it’s not their usual MO, they’ve never sent here someone while they were investigating.” I stuttered under his piercing eyes, and he smirked. “So… not that official, is it.”

“It still is, though, I’m here during work hours regarding an on-going police investigation,” I defended myself somewhat petulantly, following his figure with my eyes when he suddenly got up and moved to a small bar in the corner behind me. With his back to me, mixing up cocktails, I realised I’ve never seen him from this angle, always had to face him head on and fight for everything I was and everything I did. This felt as if we were supposed to be relaxed in each other’s company and I didn’t like it.

He hummed again and turned around, whiskey in one hand and pink gin and tonic in other. He motioned for me to move and sit at a small green sofa in the other corner of the room, and I mindlessly listened to him. To my surprise, he situated me on the sofa and pushed the gin into my hand, while he himself made himself comfortable on the fluffy carpet, leaning on the table. The sofa wasn’t super high, but I still found myself looking at him from above for the first time ever. It was putting me off – he had to be planning something. Why else would he behave this way?

I put the glass on the table and gave him a reprimanding glare. “I told you, I’m on duty and I drove here.” He scoffed and sipped on his own drink, ignoring my words.

“And the things you’ll learn here, you’ll share them with your colleagues? You’ll go back to the station and divulge your findings?” he asked seemingly innocently, but there was a dark glint in his eyes. It was the most serious I’ve ever seen him. I didn’t know whether I should lie to him or not. I knew I wouldn’t share it, at least not until a little later, when there was an opportunity for me to showcase my knowledge in the most impactful way. And it seemed that he was aware of that as well. And the longer I took to answer him, the more obvious the answer was. So I chose to be honest.

“When the time comes for it, yes,” I said, and the words felt like ash on my tongue. I could barely look at him in that moment. I was doing something wrong, I was aware of that, I was putting my career on the line and bartering the information for my own gain and putting it out into the universe somehow felt like a curse. But Yoongi didn’t seem to care. He nodded and took a sip again, humming. I regarded him with suspicion.

“Is that why you came here to find out the information your own colleagues wouldn’t tell you?”

His question hung heavy in the air, and I froze completely. I was embarrassed that I couldn’t even disprove it, even though I didn’t think that’s why I came there. They really didn’t tell me anything. I would find out eventually when it was important for me to know. Or if I was lucky, I’d pull it out of Minjoon when he’d come in tomorrow. But I was angry and frustrated. I spent a lot of time studying Yoongi’s warehouses trying to find Hoseok, and he didn’t even give me a chance to tell him and ran. Didn’t even tell me a reason why exactly I wasn’t supposed to be there. So, I went and did something foolish.

But I still had to play my cards right.

For some reason, Yoongi seemed to be suspiciously eager to let me in on some of his dealings, from speaking to me openly that one time in Dynamite, to letting me tail him and even entertaining my clumsy attempts at distracting him or getting information out of him. Whether it was because he didn’t see me as a threat or because he was trying to play a game of his own with me, I had to use this to my advantage. As long as he was this willing, I had to try and milk this situation.

“Just trying to get all the points of view,” I answered cooly and tried to put up a strong front. I hoped that Yoongi had enough decency not to point out my obvious frustration and would take my words at face value. Which, thankfully, he seemed to do. He flashed me a smile and said: “Ah, I see. Just being a good cop.”

He looked at me for a moment and then suddenly got up. I was about to also get up, but he gestured for me to stay seated. He walked over to the table and leaned on it with his hip.

“I can’t tell you much more than what you’ll eventually find out about it,” he said, and it felt both like a ceding and a challenge, “But whatever happened there, we had nothing to do with it. A petty criminal allegedly affiliated with a group attacked another petty criminal allegedly affiliated with another group and it didn’t go as well as he hoped.” I wished I knew more about the situation to ask additional questions, but I knew this would be all I’d be getting out of him either way.

“Well, that’s not much,” I couldn’t help the dig and he scoffed. “Don’t complain when I’m being this gracious,” he retorted jokingly and pointed a finger at me much in the same manner as Hoseok did to him earlier.

I was about to retort too, when the door flew open. For a moment I almost thought it’s Park and my heart jumped into my throat, but the panic disappeared as quickly when I recognised the man as none other than Kim Taehyung. He waltzed in straight to me, paying Yoongi no mind and sitting down on the sofa next to me.

When I moved to stand up, he quickly caught my hand and gave it a swift kiss. “We haven’t been formally introduced yet,” was the first thing that came out of his mouth, “My name is Taehyung, but feel free to call me Tae.” I raised my eyebrow at him as he gave me a million-watt smile and slowly settled back into the couch.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Kim,” I replied, deadpan, and pulled my hand free. Somewhere in the room Yoongi laughed, but before I could turn to look at him, Taehyung spoke to me again.

“How mean,” he fake pouted and slumped into the sofa, only to spring up again immediately, hands going for the pink gin and tonic, “Is this free?”

“Yeah, knock yourself out,” I replied, stunned. I could have stayed silent though, as the glass was already halfway to his lips and there was no stopping him. He gulped down half the glass in one go and then offered me to take a swig too. I was so surprised by his erratic behaviour that I subconsciously grabbed the drink thrust into my personal space and froze.

“Come on, just one little sip,” he goaded me, seemingly all in good spirits, but I knew listening to whatever gibberish he had to offer me was a one-way ticket to hell. I pushed the glass back into his hands and said: “I’m sure you’ll enjoy it much more than me.”

Taehyung suddenly leaned into my personal space and seductively whispered: “If that was right, then I would be doing it wrong.” With his suggestive words hanging between us, obviously no longer talking about alcohol, I blushed so aggressively I might have combusted on the spot and pushed him away until he was squished into the other corner of the sofa.

Alarmed at his words I instinctively searched for Yoongi, holding out hope that he would sort out his friend and school him on how to act in front of a detective and a woman, but I found him half sitting on the armrest of the chair I previously sat on, attentively watching us with a light amused smirk.

“Sorry about that,” he muttered cocky, “He still hasn’t been house trained.” There was a whiny “hyuuuung” coming from somewhere behind me, but I was done with this conversation. I had just had enough of interacting with these lunatics, so I got up and started getting ready to leave.

“Oh, don’t be embarrassed,” Taehyung teased, “I’m just joking around, I always try this on new people to see how they react.” I huffed, slightly angry but more humiliated. “You mean new women.”

“Actually, he doesn’t care about that at all,” Yoongi answered for him, “You should have seen him when he first met your boss and the other cop, Jang. He almost got arrested for public indecency cause he made them so angry.” I turned to look at Taehyung to gauge the truth to this statement, only to find him properly embarrassed and almost as red as me. The image of Taehyung shamelessly flirting with a seething mad Park while Minjoon watched completely horrified entered my mind. I snickered at him and relaxed again.

“I should have known that cops have no sense of humour,” he muttered for himself, but then quickly shot me a wink and added: “No offense.”

“Don’t worry,” I replied, “That’s the least offensive thing you’ve said to me today.” Taehyung only smiled at me sweetly, as if he was the picture of sainthood and not whispering naughty words to people he barely knew on the regular.

I went to check the time and with a start realised I’d left my phone and badge just laying on the table when I earlier moved to the sofa. After quickly grabbing them, I walked over to the door and turned around. Both men in the room were looking at me curiously. I gave them my own wolfish grin and said: “Thank you for your cooperation.” With that I was gone.

So, that wasn’t the most fruitful thing I’ve ever done. I found myself even more confused about the strange behaviour of a man with such a reputation as Min Yoongi. For a moment teasing, for a moment dangerous, for a moment honest and genuine? I had no idea what he was doing, what he was trying to do and why was he letting me get away with so much, but everything about him and every one of our encounters was extremely suspicious.

Well. Even though it disappointed me a little, I knew that it was most likely because he kept underestimating me. So, I had to change that.

A week later I’d finally gotten a license for a bike. I was spending so much time there that I even became somewhat of a running joke between the lectors, but I couldn’t explain to them I was in a time press because I had a gang to dismantle and a mafia boss to humble. That would have made things real awkward real fast.

But now, with a license and slightly used black bike, I was virtually unstoppable. At least in my mind. From there I slowly got back into my routine of tailing Yoongi. During the month and a half I was out, I had been spending a lot of time staring at a map of Seoul and embarrassingly enough, I’d started to remember the streets to a point I could have become a cabbie. Maybe one day when I’ve inevitably lost my badge because Yoongi snitched on my unprofessional misconduct, I’d give it a shot.

I was absolutely sure to him I was just some cute little animal that sometimes barked and growled a little but would never do much worse than piss on the floor, but the moment I’d actually bite a nerve, he wouldn’t hesitate to get rid of me. I had to work quickly, before I became too much of an eyesore to him.

Speaking of which, Yoongi didn’t stray from his routine too much. In the mornings he would alternate between visiting the clubs, restaurants and his hotel, then he would either stay at the hotel’s office or move to his office building. In the afternoons he sometimes went to certain warehouses, but from what I could gather, it was mostly Hoseok, Jungkook and surprisingly Namjoon, who came to him with information about these places. The weekends he’d spent in his office until the clubs opened and then went either to Pied Piper or The Rose, both in which I wasn’t able to enter again.

Sometimes I would let Yoongi sit in the office and move to the warehouses. I alternated between them, checking on them to see who was where, and saw Jungkook and Namjoon very often. Hoseok stayed ever so elusive he might as well have been a ghost, but I was absolutely sure he must have been actively communicating with Yoongi.

I even tried to tail Jungkook, but the man was impossible to track down. No matter what I did, I’d always lose him after a few minutes, and I never managed to stay on him for longer than a few streets. I’d become so good at taking all kinds of back streets and alleys to keep out of sight that his ability to just disappear was truly mind-boggling to me.

While when I tailed Namjoon, I quickly realised that he moved in a very constricted area between the offices, some of the clubs and some of the warehouses. He never lingered for long when he was out but was capable of sitting for hours upon hours in the office building, so that ultimately also went nowhere.

The map in my room was quickly becoming crowded with differently coloured strings and post-it notes, in the evening (or sometimes early morning) I’d come home and add another new little thing and I was feeling like an obsessed stalker a little more every day. From Yoongi’s point of view, I most likely was. But it had to be done.

It had to be done.

It was one regular Tuesday when I chanced upon gold. I was sitting on my bike, bored out my mind, stuffing my face with fast food watching Yoongi laugh about something with Jimin and Taehyung outside of one of his clubs, when a black car with tinted windows pulled up. It was a car I sometimes saw with Jungkook, so I more or less knew to expect the young man, but when Hoseok in all of his glory jumped out and walked over to hug the two youngsters, I was so surprised I almost choked on a hot dog and fell off my bike.

Jungkook came out of the car right after him and immediately started looking around, so I ducked and started pulling my bike a little more behind a corner. The five men conversed for a moment and then Hoseok waved and started walking towards a different car. I watched him full of anticipation, my fingers flexing on their own, eager to try my best at tailing Jungkook if it meant I’d get to find out where Hoseok worked. But to my absolute elation, Jungkook wasn’t following. Hoseok was leaving alone. Fucking jackpot.

I was so happy I almost passed out. I didn’t know what sort of luck this was, but I wasn’t about to complain.

Hoseok walked over to a sleek silver sports car and sat in the driver’s seat. I was getting ready as if I was about to run the marathon, my sweaty hands nervously fidgeting with the handles of my bike, body taunt as a bow. He stayed still for a moment, a moment that felt like hours to me, but then I heard the faint sound of a running engine. He waved to the others again, and then he was off. I pressed myself into the building as he was passing me and then quickly followed.

I’d never been that nervous about tailing someone, not even when I first went after Yoongi almost two months ago at the beginning of December. This was most likely my only shot for a long time, there was no telling when I’d be able to spot him again.

He drove to one of the many docks that were under Yoongi’s control. In this particular area, they owned a whole three warehouses that looked over some of their ships and imported goods. I was here a lot when I was trying to find Hoseok on my own, I figured this was such a hotspot, if he went somewhere, it would probably be here, but I never caught sight of him. Now I was proven right but felt annoyed that I missed him so many times.

The reason for that turned out to be quite simple. The biggest warehouse, situated closest to the water, had another door that I haven’t noticed. It was in the back and blended into the wall so well I almost thought for a second Hoseok’s just loitering in the back banging on the walls. When a patch in the wall suddenly opened and he disappeared inside, it was like unlocking a whole new world in my mind. No wonder I’d never seen him, the whole time he was coming in from the other side.

I admit, it was a bit reckless to pour my attention here after a single sighting, but I was willing to risk it. I took the time to scope out the area while Hoseok was inside (if he was anything like the others, he’d be spending hours there anyway).

A little ways to the left was a small building, but right behind it I saw an abandoned half constructed concrete monstrosity, most likely a leftover of attempts to redevelop this part of the capital city that crashed and burned on the involvement of gangs in the area. I made my way to it.

It was fenced off, but a little probing here and there, I was able to break into one of the fence gates. Inside I apologised to whoever owned this building, but it was very obviously uncared for, so I justified myself in that way. I probably wasn’t even the first person that broke in, I told myself as I made my way up the stairs. I swallowed the sour sensation that left me with and trudged on.

Within an hour I found a perfect spot to stake out. It was high and secluded enough to see the warehouse and its surroundings without a problem if I used a telescope, while I wouldn’t be risking being seen by the people on the street. It faced the second exit, which must have been used by Hoseok enough to escape my notice the first time around. In two days, I’d return here and watch.

It almost felt like things were looking up, like I could finally stop mindlessly following Yoongi around and move forward with this case, and for the first time after a long time I felt some sort of joy and relief.

I reached into my pocket to take out my phone and take a photo of the number on a nearby column, so I’d be able to find it easily again, but found it missing. For a hot moment of panic I thought maybe I had dropped it somewhere around Yoongi’s club, which would mean he now no doubt had it and I’d have to go get it from him, and it would be extremely embarrassing. But then I realised I must have left it at my table at the station that morning when I stopped by to hand deliver some documents to Park. I looked around to find something that would immediately catch my eye upon entering, but in the end I decided to just luck it out and left.

On my way home I’d stopped by the station for the phone and ended up having a coffee with Minjoon. For a brief moment, when I sat in a cafeteria, drank that shitty coffee and laughed at some story Minjoon was telling me about his first few months in the force, I found myself thinking I wish all my days were this nice.

I should have known it wouldn’t last, though.

Due to the fact that it was still January, I was absolutely freezing my balls off on stake out the next few days. Sitting in an open room in minus temperatures staring into a telescope the whole day turned out to be a pretty bad way to spend one’s time and quickly I was turning very cranky. I was hungry, cold, thirsty and even though Hoseok turned up and took the back entry, he just sat there for the whole day and didn’t come out until evening. I was mostly just watching some of the low-tier mobsters mulling about, moving about crates, caring for the ships and continuously walking in and out of the warehouse. Which was something I had already seen when I was staking out here before.

It seemed that the reason Hoseok was so hard to find was because he spent literal days holed up in that metal building, doing god knows what.

On my fourth day I was absolutely losing it. I spent the morning at the station and then went straight here. Hoseok’s car was already present, but other than that there was no other trace of his existence, just like the other days. He didn’t even come outside to smoke like Namjoon would. Not one of the other boys came here either, which was weird since they always seemed to be in close vicinity of each other. I was tired and frozen and I could feel the beginnings of a nasty cold and I was getting nowhere.

My day got exponentially more interesting though, when Yoongi’s black car rolled up to the back exit. It was the first time in the four days he came here, and the first time since I’d started tailing him that he came to this exit. That should have been my first warning.

I watched as Yoongi walked around free of all troubles, wide smile on, and if I wasn’t currently more than 100 metres away from him, I’d punch him in the face. The door opened and Hoseok stepped out to greet him. I could cry with happiness at the first appearance of the man in days. And also punch him in the face. Together they disappeared inside, and I was left with the same sorry view as before.

Impatiently watching the clock, I saw the minutes drift away into two hours of silence and no movement in the back. Just when I thought about just slipping into a coma to escape this hellhole, I heard movement outside my little spot. Instantly alerted, I quickly stood up and pressed myself closer to a wall where I wouldn’t be immediately noticeable from the entrance into the room. My whole body was stiff from coldness and hours of just sitting, my muscles protesting and painfully pulling until I was barely able to hobble away.

The steps got closer and closer until a figure clad in all black stepped in. For a moment I thought it was Jungkook and was a second away from wailing in frustration, but it wasn’t him. It was a young man, based on his clothes he must have been part of Yoongi’s security, but I didn’t remember his face from before.

He located me in a second – after all, there weren’t many places I could be hiding in a completely bare concrete room. Without a word he thrust his hand to me. My eyes slid down to see a take-out coffee. When I wasn’t taking it, he impatiently moved his hand, trying to get me to relieve him of this definitely extremely bothersome task.

I did take it, mostly because I didn’t want to annoy him more when Yoongi was already doing such a good job of it and sighed in defeat. How the fuck did he even sniff me out here? The guy looked at me and then said: “Boss wanted me to tell you that he truly thinks it’s admirable how hard you work in such cold weather.” His face was completely unreadable, but I knew he must have thought this was such a laughable situation.

I wanted to feel angry, I really did, but I didn’t even have the strength to do it. Instead I sighed and pinched the root of my nose between my fingers. Frustration coursed through me and now I was annoyed with Yoongi too. Did he become omnipotent or what?

I returned the poor guy’s gaze and said: “Please send a message back. Tell him that he’s annoying and I hate him.” He nodded and left, no expression on his face. A true professional.

From then on, whenever I got closer to them, Yoongi would send me a subtle message that he knew about me. Either he would send me food or drinks or just stand in my line of sight and wave in my direction. Sometimes when I knew he could see me too I returned the gesture by flipping him off, to which he always laughed. Taehyung also caught on and to any birds sent their way he sent back a kiss and a wink.

It took me embarrassingly long to figure out that they planted a tracker on me. One night in a mad fit to find it I turned upside down most of my apartment. At 3 am I was standing on the street, pawing at my bike like a crazy person, attempting to stuff my fingers to all the nooks and crannies. A passing woman looked at me as if I was sexually harassing my own vehicle and after that I rather returned back home, not interested in getting the cops called on me.

Every time I went to stake out, I would leave home an item, just to try and narrow down where it could possibly hide. I decided to trust that my bike was tracker free and I bought myself a set of completely new clothes even though I thoroughly checked the old ones. I would wear different shoes, even if I knew there was no way they got to them. One day I even chanced moving about without my wallet. They still found me. And that’s how I realised what the only thing that I had on me all the time, no matter what was. My phone.

I thought back to the day I stormed into Yoongi’s office, distraught and upset, how he acted strangely nice and comfortable. Taehyung’s strange behaviour and my phone. Lying on a table, away from me, but close to Yoongi wandering around. He was messing about that table even when I stayed sitting on that damned couch.

All I could do was laugh at his craftiness. At how easily I fell into a trap of his softer demeanour because I was surprised he sat on the floor and talked seriously, how I let Taehyung completely consume my focus by flirting and teasing me. I had to applaud them, really. It was brilliant and I walked right into it. I was so stupid, I let him fool me even though I was suspicious of him the entire time.

At first I feared he was tracking me through the phone itself, but when I inspected it closer, I noticed a little bump under the case. When I took it off the phone, there it was. A tiny little tracker attached to the plastic.

I wondered what Yoongi was trying to accomplish. He put a tracker on me, but then also made it obvious that he knew more about my whereabouts than he was supposed to. He was quite literally giving it away. Therefore, knowing about the tracker didn’t necessarily put me at an advantage since I had no idea what his goal was. I decided to keep it there until I made up my mind about what to do.

But I was petty. Really petty. And as impressed as I was with my ability to fall for Yoongi’s cheap tactics, I was also peeved. That’s how one day I found myself at our station, loitering around an office where the IT guys had their stuff. When one of them rounded the corner, I immediately took my chance. It took a lot of persuading and lying. A lot of “I’m from this department” and “I was tasked with getting one for the next mission” and such, but twenty minutes later, I was leaving the room with a tracker of my own. Was it technically illegal? Yes. Would Yoongi find the tracker within the first 24 hours and then triumphantly return it to me while telling me to try better next time and I would return it right after before anyone noticed I ever had it in the first place? Also yes. No harm done, just a little revenge.

After that, every day for a week I went straight to Yoongi’s office. Whether I was on duty or not, every afternoon I was sitting on his stupid little sofa, grinning at him mischievously and sipping on tea that he started offering me instead of stiff drinks. I would find anything to talk about, I joked and played and asked stupid questions I knew he’d never answer.

And I could see it on him, he was trying to figure out where this was going. He would look at me, intrigued and confused, his head just whirring with ideas of what my new plan could be, and I was enjoying it so much. Sometimes he’d just stare at me in that way he did to people, and I’d stare right back at him and I was able to laugh. For the first time it felt like we both were trying to catch the other off guard, and not as if I was just mindlessly walking straight into his traps. For a few brief moments, the scales were balanced, and I liked that I was able to keep him in suspense. But I also had to move on from this.

At first his eyes would follow my every move, sharply watching me interact with things he had in his office, but once he'd become used to my presence, become used to how I hovered over things and examined the décor and played with the little trinkets he had on display, I was sometimes able to slip his attention. And then, on the seventh day, when he left the room for a split second to call for Jungkook down the hall, I slipped the tracker into a little tear I had noticed on his jacket, along with a little surprise for him, when he found it (which would be soon).

I walked out of there without saying much, wearing a mysterious smile on my lips when both men turned to watch me leave. Once outside, I took the tracker off my phone and slipped it into the bag of a random guy passing me by on the street. Let’s see how long before they figure that one out.

The game was on.

Series masterlist | Next part

A/N: thank you so much for reading this! i hope you enjoyed yourself, feel free to interact, i will be grateful for comments or asks of all sorts :)

Divider from the amazing @saradika-graphics &lt;3

Taglist (open) : @wobblewobble822

#bts fic #bts #bts x reader #bts smut #bts angst #bts fluff #bts mafia au #bts yoongi #yoongi fic #yoongi x reader #yoongi smut #yoongi angst #yoongi fluff #min yoongi fic #min yoongi x reader #min yoongi smut #min yoongi angst #min yoongi fluff #min yoongi #yoongi #namjoon fic #seokjin fic #hoseok fic #taehyung fic #jimin fic #jungkook fic #min yoongi mafia au #yoongi mafia au #abraxas series

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

deathly hallows is so weird. i remember even when i first read it at 12 being kinda like ???? because really? this? this was supposed to be the big hyped up grand finale?

obviously book 7 isn't the only book with plotholes but there are so many more than in the others ones and they were really obvious things that just felt so lazy. like suddenly people can be their own secret keepers? meaning that the plot device that kicked off the entire series now doesn't make sense? or jkr forgetting harry canonically knows how to cook. just basic stuff like that that felt so sloppy. or harry and co breaking into the ministry to steal something that umbridge might just as easily have left at home in a drawer in her house. ?? or they somehow don't have food when they're camping even tho they can do magic and can duplicate food so they could just take a ton of stuff from a grocery story and copy it forever?

plus the pacing. it has some really good moments towards the end but omg a lot of it has no sense of urgency. or i remember as a kid after reading book 6 being super hyped to see the other cool and difficult to defeat enchantments guarding the horcruxes like we saw in book 6. but nah. in book 7 they're just lying around anywhere.

it's like jkr set up this whole horcrux hunt thing and then got bored with it and wanted to get thru it as fast as possible. and then added a bunch of poorly thought out wand stuff that contradicts prior canon. there were a ton of cool things that could've been done with book 7 and instead most of it feels so rushed.

It seems we all have secret trauma revolving Deathly Hallows.

The beautiful thing about the being your own secret keeper, of course, now means that if that was the case then someone didn't tell the Potters this or they were dissuaded from this path for some reason makes Dumbledore look very suspect.

Though I personally love the idiotic plan to bust into the Ministry to get the Horcrux rather than try to find out where Umbridge lives or trying to get a hold of her when she does her shopping in the country's one shopping district of Diagon Alley. It's just so dumb.

Or the fact that the gang suddenly survives only on mysterious mushrooms they gather deep in the wilderness of Great Britain or the time they look for blackberries in the middle of winter. Ron knows there aren't going to be blackberries, tells Harry as much, but since he's come back from abandoning this very stupid mission he now believes that Dumbledore must have had a plan.

Dumbledore had a plan.

Right?

Dumbledore?

Dumbledore?

DUMBLEDORE?!

WHY DID YOU TELL US NOTHING DUMBLEDORE?! WHAT IS THIS BOOK OF FAIRYTALES EVEN SUPPOSED TO--

(But yes, anon, it's just a bad book filled with beautiful stupidity that felt like it should have been a video game and was oddly written as if it was a video game where most of the chapters are boring cut scenes you want to skip and the game play is things like "raid gringotts" or "fetch the sword from the bottom of a pond to destroy the horcrux".)

#harry potter #harry potter meta #deathly hallows #anti deathly hallows #opinion #meta

[alicedrawslesmis]

I know I just said I didn't want to just be complaining about everything so I'll try to word this in a more constructive way asdfghjkl

It's hard to be an Eponine fan in a world where the musical -and On My Own specifically- is sooooo mainstream. Because imo as much as On My Own itself is kind of a half-decent, if simplified, encapsulation of Eponine's struggle with her love for Marius if you analise the lyrics in isolation, the musical as a whole, her role in the narrative as the unrequited love diva (I'm also simplifying here. I don't think this is super fair to the anglo musical, but compared to the book there's no question of how they reworked her into a glamorous 80s diva contralto because musical theatre has usually very strict gender roles), did her so dirty. So dirty. And imo often her character is reduced to her pining in fandom as a result. And I don't like that, personally.

I love that girl so much. I love that she is just young enough to still be a child but adult enough to be aware of her social role. She has one foot in the gamin life and one foot in the adult world. I love the tragedy that is the fact that she likes the beauty and pomp of high society girls and wish she could have silk shoes but knowing she can't.

And also being super resigned to her class despite it, she doesn't believe she ever will have any of that. She resents that too, somewhat. The tragedy of her knowing that she couldn't be with Marius because of his social class and her accepting that (angrily? sadly?). I love her self-banishment as his guard dog because of this. I love her drunk sailor voice. I love how manipulative she is and that she isn't Marius's friend at all. He's just her one neighbor who wasn't a total asshole one time. He was, later. But not at first. And she can't be in his head and know he thinks she's kinda despicable because crime because Marius is a judgemental little shithead.

And Eponine isn't an idealist, she's resigned to her position. I understand why she gets paired with grantaire in fics but her canon narrative parallel is Javert, they both believe they are excluded from society from their outcast position and so become the watchdogs for it. Eponine a kind of guardian (in her own words a devil, not an angel) and Javert the same. That's why he's the one person who sees her in the barricade, he's the same as her. Marius saw her but that's only cause he had a use for her in that moment, as soon as she didn't he forgot all about it.

I think also Gavroche, with his ability to be kind of a figure above the narrative, with his gamin skills of being almost omnipresent is something Eponine used to have, but with her age she's starting to lose that. She's starting to grown old enough that she's required to be IN the world and not supercede it. Gavroche is also almost there, if he had been allowed to grow up he would've lost that ability too. They both inhabit this sort of magical surreal world superimposed on our own.

A lot of Les Mis and Notre Dame de Paris can be kinda described as magical realism, I would go so far as calling them urban fantasy. And characters like Babet, Thenardier sometimes, Gavroche, Eponine (and Javert sometimes as well) are inhabiting this magically charged layer. This reality that's imposed Over the real world.

Talking about that One Series Of Wizard Books is a bit passé rn so uh. Doctor Who. Particularly the initial New Who seasons before they got that huge budget. That's a good parallel to what I'm getting at. The real world is still the same but there are certain characters that inhabit this mystical overlayer and are able to transverse from one to the other (Javert can't really because he is stuck forever outside and the second he understands that you CAN'T be an unbiased outsider who only enforces the norm without participating he freaks out and literally dies about it). Eponine is right in the eye of the storm tho. She manipulates reality to get her way, to die with Marius, because that's as close as she can get to being with him. And she manipulates reality to protect him too. Contradictions be damned. She has many contradictory feelings that make her complex and cool and an awesome character whom I love and wish would stop being reduced to the glamurous mysical theatre role with a single black stain on her face and a beautiful actor and a big unrequited love song about a random boy (whose personality was also changed for the musical and I argue is probably the character that was most fucked up by it in the public perception because he's such an weird little self-insert of an even weirder guy. But I get it, the musical is long enough as it is).

Anyway, I wish eponine could be more of a mongrel, a little gremlin. A little rat child that's just beginning to grow into an adult and is self aware of her role in the narrative society. She's a teenage girl which already sucks to go through when you're not constantly starving and cold and being forced by your father to work and do con jobs. Marius is the object she attaches herself to, but it could've been literally anything. Javert did that with the social order, he protects and guards it. She just chose Some Guy instead. Which, we all have that one friend who does that too. Like girl you're too good for him. Come on let's get you sone ice cream. And clean clothes and a roof. Literally anything. Bread.

I think if Eponine had a roof over her head and like, food on the regular she would forget Marius exists. Same as Cosette if she had moved to England. Like he'd be that one intense crush they had as teenagers. Can't say the same for him tho. He would hold onto that for the rest of time.

#rambling #idk. anyone has any thoughts? #if you disagree with me. go right ahead and say your piece! I'm open to being contradicted here #I'm no authority asdfghkkflsbsg like I'm just some rando on the internet with a les mis blog #long post

[19burstraat]

proving kaz is a tidemaker, even tho it's not canon and shouldn't be, but I'm gonna argue for it anyway

I already made this post ages ago and now this has been in my drafts for even longer, I just unearthed it... but I'm making it again, more in depth, bc I didn't hit on everything I wanted to last time. obviously this isn't canon bc the point of kaz is he's Just Some Guy and how that really really pisses off more powerful people, and I think that's definitely best, Kaz NEEDS to be otkazat'sya for his function in the story... but if you ever wanted to prove it in a fic, shit is EASY. (I am vaguely considering how it might work out in a fic. we'll see. I've done stuff that couldn't/I wouldn't want to be canon before with my jordie-lives fic, so...) I'll mostly talk in the context that he'd be a tidemaker bc I feel like that's the conclusion a lot of this comes to, but some of the points are more generalised.

obviously the basic argument everyone makes for this is that the reason kaz was able to get back to shore from reaper's barge is bc, subconsciously or not, as a tidemaker he could control the currents to help him, since that's one of the most basic tidemaker powers. in the harbour scene, he notices that the tide has moved to work against him, but it doesn't seem to prove much of a problem; he attributes it to his new will to survive, but... Well. Kaz is exceptionally good at withholding information, even in his own POV.

grisha not using their powers become ill or weaker; kaz isn't really physically ill but he has an element of the underfed and sallow about him that's generally attributed to living in the barrel.

kaz is also ESPECIALLY horrified by the state of mikka, the tidemaker under the influence of jurda parem at the start of SOC; this is attributed to his past trauma and his dislike for things he can't rationally explain, which, yeah, but he is thrown in a way we don't really see again for the rest of the series. he instantly thinks of jordie, and it's maybe the one time he succumbs to superstition in the whole series.

the obvious explanation for how kaz knew that coffee extract and paraffin hid the scent/evidence of grisha is that he's very clearly involved in smuggling (jesper mentions how coffee grounds were used when packing smuggled jurda shipments) but the second explanation,,, is that he uses them himself. he comes up with the solution with IMMENSE speed and he just like, has the coffee extract around. ok, sure, not that hard to get hold of, but still. and coffee gets mentioned in relation to him at least a few times, most noticeably the 'bitter coffee eyes' thing inej uses, which is amusingly romanticised, but also... inej why do you associate coffee w kaz... something you've noticed abt him?

(but then, you wonder why he didn't suggest this to jesper previously; the answer I'm sure he would give you is he did, when it was a problem. before that it wasn't a problem and jesper was doing fine at staying hidden on his own)

the gloves can also add to this one, since they presumably at least cover his wrists and therefore his pulse somewhat, though obviously that's not their main function.

recovers with startling speed from nearly drowning at the ice court; matthias has to get his breathing going again but he's almost immediately fine after. I know yk, heist fantasy book, gotta keep going, but still

kaz is almost completely correct about the methods, powers of, and appearances of the council of tides (one single thing, the method of hiding their faces, is wrong.) impressive, no...? he is also shockingly apathetic in the face of their threats; they fill his lungs up with water and he just coughs it up and then is like "lol" immediately after. this is funny no matter what the fact of the matter (major general of the idgaf war) but the fact his link to them is left hanging is also a thread that could be easy to pick up. I think it would be hilarious if he was secretly in the council, but I won't stretch it that far bc they clearly don't like him lmao, that would have to be a proper AU.

in the dregs, kaz has a corporalki (nina) and a materialki (jesper) but no etheralki. wouldn't it be prudent to recruit one, if he could find one? or maybe he doesn't need one. if he already has one around, for an emergency of emergencies... for a rainy day... (ha ha)

the way kaz's trauma is often described as manifesting, is with the rising of the harbour waters; so it's pretty reasonable to suggest that in suppressing that, he'd also, inadvertently or not, suppress any kind of tidemaker/etheralki impulse or power. possibly he can't even tell the difference between the two, or they're so tangled up he can't really separate them anymore, which is why he doesn't so much as even think to attempt to use it. still, if this was the case I think improvement with one would not necessarily improve the other, or vice versa. kaz hypothetically using grisha power he'd had suppressed would not magically make his touch aversion go away, I think that'd be weird, and I'd not want his PTSD to be passed off as solely being the sickness from not using grisha power, that's reductive as hell. but I can see them certainly being two things very much intertwined.

we don't know a lot about grisha who are native to kerch, but assumedly he'd not have had much cause to use it in his childhood, on a farm somewhere inland, so most, if not all, of his experience with using it would likely be irretrievably tied to ketterdam and jordie so no wonder he just wouldn't use it. I don't think he'd even see it as feasible. perhaps it would be a very very final resort, but he'd never let it get to that point, he'd always want to try something else first. and anyway, he'd not be trained.

the sankt vladimir story is also thematically quite close to Kaz; holding back the harbour waters until he's finally too exhausted and lets it drown him. I like this regardless of this analysis actually it's a good comparison. patron saint of the drowned and unlikely achievement....

even if kaz wasn't an otkazat'sya, after all that happened, I think he'd try very hard to pretend he was. it couldn't save jordie, therefore in his extreme as hell thinking around that entire thing, I imagine he'd reason it wasn't useful, that he could get on better without it, and, like jesper, think it was a liability.

this would add a wild layer to him being the one to have the jurda parem on him for almost all of crooked kingdom; it would make it feel like his plan z was to take it himself. certainly he'd sooner do that than let jesper take it.

and finally: thematically, it slays. like half of the imagery around kaz (and kanej) centres around water (think the bathroom scene, how he only washes in front of her, etc) and that plays into both of their trauma, plus religious imagery, all this... it's a fantastic bit of extra theming. it just doesn't really work with how his character operates.

basically I think you could DEFINITELY make it work and it'd be a killer fic but again it's one of those things, like jordie living, that I don't really want to be canon because it undermines something about kaz's character that I consider pretty critical; in this case, that kaz is not really endowed with any special power or circumstance, he's just bloody-minded and clever, but that's enough for him to pull off almost impossible jobs anyway.

#six of crows #crooked kingdom #kaz brekker #soc duology #soc #my post #six of crows duology #this has been in my drafts for sooo long lmao #it'd be an interesting fic but idk how I'd frame it. I'll have a think

[assiraphales]

you havent really been liveblogging your one piece experience much, but since you seem to be through Alabasta at this i was wondering if youd be willing to share any thoughts about the series so far/your takes on the characters in their original forms?

-luffy is a little gremlin who was fed after midnight but stayed cute. 10000 points in mischief. has THE biggest heart and would die for a stranger if he thought it was a worthy cause. much more intelligent (in an unconventional way) than he's given credit for. figuring out crocodile's weakness almost immediately?? hello??

-i like how all the crew mates have different (but very valuable and nourishing) relationships with each other. usopp n luffy's is very sweet because they're still kids at heart (and probably always will be, at least a little) who live by their imaginations and for fun/joy. zoro washing chopper in the bathhouse. usopp and nami being voices of reason for very different reasons, usopp making her a weapon bc she admitted one of her weaknesses to him. nami's love for luffy coming out in concern and sternness because she knows what he's capable of but also how hard he can fall

-some of the emotional moments that affected me the most; nami getting a tattoo for belle mere, nokijo, and genzo. pell sacrificing his life for alabasta and flying the bomb into the sky. sanji n zeff's relationship.

-klahadore is the biggest lil bitch thus far. but shout out to his kitty cat crew for supporting him and trying not to deadname him

-really liked the mihawk fight bc even tho zoro got WHOOPED mihawk was clearly impressed, and let him live for a reason. he also said after watching luffy and zoro together that they were a good team. which.

-luffy and zoro making each other better and worse (depending on how u look at it) and the crew just having to accept that "ok yah. that's their relationship. they're crazy bastards who enable each other and they're dreams are entwined."

-zoro being a secret goofball. I could go on about it. but one of my favorite small moments was when he told the usopp pirates that they were cannibals and ate usopp

-nami has such big dreams but she's so scared to get her heartbroken again. she lost her mom, she thought she lost her town and sister when she went along with arlong..... everything is a defense mechanism. she's a survivor. and she's so hurt. but everyday, from the crew's love to luffy's kindness, she's learning to accept that the world isn't that bleak. that good people exist

-ace's tattoo. um. JUMPSCARE. but he is neat and loves luffy lots

-tony tony chopper I would die for u. kureha is an icon and now I totally understand why people want jamie lee curtis to play her

-i'm glad that luffy n co were able to heal the giants relationship on little garden and now they're broskis who can fight n drink together without worrying about the whole "TO DEATH!!!" thing. zoro trying to chop off his legs and then posing so that he'd look cool if he died is another notable highlight from that arc

-princess vivi and nami. I know what u are. but in all seriousness she was just sixteen and infiltrated a secret assassin organization for her kingdom!!! I love that she had igaram pose for her so she could say goodbye to the strawhat crew properly

-there's just so many good people trying to do the right thing in the face of massive adversity. no matter what the odds, they'll fight to their last breath for what they believe in. and if luffy's there, he'll make sure they don't have to (die, that is)

-luffy managing to befriend the weirdest animals that want to kill him and them eventually saving him (the lapins and the kung fu dungongs)

-luffy asking zoro to save smoker's life because he couldn't swim, and smoker letting luffy go instead of arresting him so he could try and save alabasta

-sanji smoking cigarettes in the middle of a fight and constantly wearing a suit for Aesthetics

-mihawk hunting down the red haired pirates in his coffin throne boat just to show shanks the bounty on luffy's head (also way to go bestie getting it up from 30 million to 100 million in like two weeks)

-zoro sleeping everywhere but mostly near the rest of the crew so he can eavesdrop / be close to them

-the straw hat crew being a bunch of wild animal ragers and turning any event into a PARTAAYYYYY

#I sowwy :( i'm not much of a liveblogger unfortunately #I feel weird spamming ?? if u know what I mean #i'm very glad u sent this ask tho bc i've had a lot on my mind #one piece #long post

[saintobio]

Omg ok ok hello! I had this huge rant in my head about sy and sn so pls feel free to ignore it, but I love your writing so much and it gives me some STRONG FEELINGS. First of all it surprised me that I like the way you write y/n cuz she doesn't become a "bitch" after the whole deal with Gojo and have some elaborate revenge plan, but she is also not a goody two shoes (even if she stayed with Gojo earlier but she had a lot of external pressure to stay in the marriage). Not that those tropes are necessarily bad but it's just more realistic this way. She's just a person who has been deeply hurt and is trying to do right by others. Even if she has made big mistakes, she still wants to make up for them cuz she's not completely in the right either. Also getting bashed by everyone for trying to make amends/ not following their advice regarding you own life; while very triggering for me (lol) is also just such a natural reaction. Not right, just natural. When things get out of people's hands and they want to blame someone for it, they often go for the one who is actually trying and won't retaliate if for nothing than to just keep the peace. Also wanting people to understand your side of the situation yet feeling undeserving of it at the same time because of your mistakes is UGHHH I feel like you do that so well! It's amazing but genuinely heartbreaking to see how far Satoru has come as a person too. Also when he thinks about how he wants to be a better person for Akemi IT MADE ME WANT TO PUT MY HEAD THROUGH A WALL... cuz WHY COULDN'T HE BE LIKE THAT FOR US!!! At the same time we have moved on without him, so if we are allowed that luxury then why isn't he? It's just so ANGSTY AND SO SO GOOD! Because we love Satoru we always will but he had a chance and he fricked it over terribly! So it would be idiotic to go back to him but at the same time the heart yearns for him. This is a side tangent but whenever any character says "this is not like you", "you have changed, this isn't how you'd act" makes me so MAD lol (maybe bc I am triggered?) But these guys WATCHED MY GIRL GO THROUGH SOME HORRIFIC SHIT AND STILL EXPECT HER TO NOT BE PERMANANTLY AND IRREVERSIBLY CHANGED???!! ;-;; IDK what they want from her oof >.< I do think Akemi is a shitty friend but I can't bring myself to hate her completely. Seeing them together is so ANGER INDUCING AAAAA (and her wanting a family with him is fine BUT THIS EARLY?!JUST AFTER ADMITTING YOU FEEL "SORRY" FOR BETRAYING US?! IT MAKES ME WANNA HURL HER TRHOUGH CONCRETE) but at the same time Satoru and Akemi both deserve someone who can love them. It feels hypocritical to be angry when we ourselves told him to move on and find someone who can love him the way he deserves. It's just very very shitty it had to be them. Sera is also such an interesting character. She has a lot of traits that I admire a lot. Her resourcefulness and complete and utter pride/confidence and being unashamed to ask for things/ stand up for herself (even when she is wrong) is something I wish I had sometimes. Still wanna stick her head through a toilet tho and yet when a person who slept with a married man can see the bloody violation of girls' code that is sleeping with your bff's EX HUSBAND oh BOY you should KNOW SOMETHING IS WRONG. I have no strong feelings for Toji (cuz I don't like him much anyways but that's just personal bias XD )but I do think his anger and frustration is well founded especially since he runs over whenever the reader needs him. He's so supportive and invested and honestly he deserves someone who can give that back to him. It's kinda sad but then again I don't like him much to begin with lol.

OH AND THE ENDING OF THE LAST CHAPTER IS SOOOOO PAINFUL. To always be the second choice even for YOUR SON OHHH MAN I'D RATHER YOU PUT A KNIFE THROUGH MY HEART ;-;

All in all I hate how much I love this series and love to hate these characters and take out my repressed anger on them cuz I can't do that irl. This series is my Roman Empire lol. It's so painful, yet so beautiful and it makes you FEEL so many things and yet hold out hope for things to become better. I love this, love you and your writing- ok mwah bye bye (and thank you if you read this rant put together by my post nap, barely coherent brain) I have so much more that I want to say. I can write essays about this series and how it uses so many technically "cliche" tropes but it is anything but cliche . Truly some of the best angst I have read like ever!

oh wow !! i don’t even know what to say, this feels like such a comprehensive review of the sy series sdksks but i think many readers could definitely relate with some of ur points here :D this is such a nice perspective to read, thank you so much for sharing and tysm for reading sn/sy aaaaa i’m happy u enjoy the angst as much as i do <3

#🖤: letters to saint #series: sincerely yours

[masezace]

little off topic for my blog, but i started watching a new show since a friend mentioned it was good and i'd heard positive things about it, so i just wanted to talk about it a little bit (probably never again after this since this isn't a fandom blog, but it's the only one i have rn so idc it's going here)

the show is Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous, and just going on looks alone, despite my love for dinosaurs and the Jurassic Park franchise i never would have considered it. it appears to be very much for kids, and as i'm in my late twenties now i'm not particularly interested in especially kiddy media. however a friend my age enjoyed it and mentioned it has a canon lgbtq+ couple in it among the main characters, so of course i just had to watch it. i had already been hearing that despite its initial appearance and premise, it was surprisingly good for a kids' show, so i had already been curious, but i was even more keen after knowing there were queer characters, and not even the adults, the kids themselves (in a kid's show?!! what a time to be alive), so i finally sat down and watched it.

[spoiler warning, both minor and major, for the rest of this post btw, so continue reading at your own risk if you haven't seen it yet/are still watching]

the show overall

okay so firstly, i am coming at all of this from the perspective of a writer, so my observations are from a technical standpoint more so than just as a fan of the show. and honestly, it really is a well-written show as a whole. is it geared towards kids? definitely. there are plenty of jokes/gags in it that just don't appeal to me as an adult, but beyond that, there was plenty to appreciate as an adult.

the writing is actually phenomenal? there were several points in the series where i just sat back and mulled over the way a scene went, what the thought process behind writing it was like, how well it was executed, and how important it was to the characters and overall plot.

the suspense is spot on, nothing gets dragged out too long, and i will admit there have been a few scenes throughout that actually got me; i jumped! it's actually scarier than i expected a kid show to be, but i'm so glad they went where they did because it really elevated the experience.

the pacing overall is very good, adequately engaging for kids' short attention spans (and us adhd adults 🥲) but not too short either to a point where things felt abrupt or unfinished. plot arcs are well developed and tied up nicely. also, as a bit of a dinosaur nerd, the array of dinosaurs in the show is super broad and satisfying! very fun stuff.

character element

imo the real gem of this show is the character development. honestly it's just *chefs kiss*

the characters grow and change so much and so realistically over the course of the show, it's honestly so much better and more satisfying than the character growth in most adult fiction/media recently.

the growth in ben (who btw was def my favorite character by the end of s1) and kenji in particular were my favorites and, in my personal opinion, the most interesting. the way ben started out anxious, cowardly, and rule abiding to a fault, then grew into a brave, confident, adventurous little pyromaniac gremlin, then had that stint later in the series where he regressed a bit-questioning himself-until eventually ultimately striking a great balance and really coming into himself was just... peak character writing.

kenji started out overconfident, lazy, and overly concerned with money/status. but that arrogant overconfidence and laziness slowly turned into responsibility, and a desire to protect his found family, and the realization that it's the people in your life that really matter most.

honestly what i mentioned only scratches the surface in terms of those two characters, there's certainly more that can be said about them (as well as all the others) but i'm not really in the mood for a deep dive character analysis atm. just trust me tho when i say these characters are so well done and each one of them have arcs that are super satisfying to watch play out.

queer representation

and as for the queer couple? yasmina and sammy are PERFECT. it was so beautiful watching their relationship grow from one-sided to mutual friendship, to loyal devotion, then to love. they were set up incredibly well and incredibly naturally. i have like, no complaints when it comes to them. i don't even know if there's anything i can say that would add to things, they were just a really awesome couple to watch become canon, they're the beautiful and painfully needed representation we all beg for in tv and movies.

shipping, chemistry, and intent

but oh goodness... probably my only real complaint about the entire show would be how benji (ben x kenji) and kenji x brooklyn (kenlyn? brookji? idk and idrc) were handled. because for all that this show did SO much beautifully right, they really screwed the pooch here, sadly.

i'm gonna start by saying that the writing in this show, as with most, is deliberate. what i mean by this is that despite having no clue who it would be because my friend thankfully did not even spoil me as far as the genders of the queer couple, i clocked yas and sammy as the would-be queer couple as early as season one (actually it was between them and benji, but more on that later). i could already see the chemistry, because it was deliberately written in.

shipping is subjective. anyone can ship any character, and in most cases it's pretty easy to see how there could be (romantic) chemistry between fan pairings based on their personalities, their arcs, etc. and that's okay! ships don't even have to have any canon support to be valid, because shipping is for the fandom, and it's for fun (i have a few rarepairs and crack ships across different media that i just love).

but onscreen/written romantic chemistry is a lot less subjective (to clarify, it is subjective whether or not the chemistry is good, but it's not subjective about whether or not it exists). there are literally scenes written with the sole purpose of building the romantic tension and/or chemistry between planned couples (some of which even have absolutely zero plot relevance, which usually is not advised tbh, and most of which are the cliches/tropes you see in literally any romance ever written, some are just disguised a little better than others. but make no mistake, it's all the same set of cliches. there is nothing new under the sun), as well as intentional, key moments within scenes that have other purposes. they are essential to establish romantic pairings.

and typically, the foundations for these couples are laid VERY early on. always within the first or second season (well, at least they are when the writer actually knows what they're doing and has at least a rough plan/outline for the entire series & characters. this is usually a large part of what separates the good chemistry from the poor chemistry. an author who knows who the couples are going to be and has a plan from the beginning to build them up is going to be more successful in creating a believable relationship with good chemistry. one who does not plan, or makes last minute plans will almost certainly fail, and the couple is just going to suck). when the set of characters you're working with are going to stay the same for most or all of the story, you start immediately.

i don't mean to toot my own horn, because i think it's because i'm a writer so i just pick up on narrative patterns very easily, and pretty much always clock the planned couples within the first few episodes of any series, and by the end i am right like 9 times out of 10.

that being said, do you know whose deliberately written chemistry i also clocked in jwcc? ben and kenji's.

kenji and... brooklyn?

no offense to people who like/enjoy kenji and brooklyn, you are free to love them, but the way their romance was written is... quite possibly the weakest point of the show. it felt like they were just trying to appease the upsetto heteros in charge, because there was definitely another het pairing that had a lot more potential than kenji and brooklyn (hello darius x brooklyn aka darilyn, you would have actually made sense because your relationship had amazing buildup and multiple standout scenes from s1 on. dgmw, i love that we got a m/f strong, supportive, purely platonic friendship out of them, i live for those and we really need more of them. but we could have had that with kenji and brooklyn, or darius and sammy, or ben and yas, literally any other pair instead).

kenji and brooklyn as a couple came out of absolutely nowhere. i honestly think they decided to shove them together last minute, and had no actual plan for them until they were working on s4. because their development barely started at the VERY end of s3 (the abruptness of him caring about her being held hostage so much more than literally anyone else in their group despite them having like zero buildup to that point gave me whiplash), but honestly didn't really even become "meaningful" development until s4, over halfway through the series. the two spend the first 3 seasons basically not particularly gaf about each other individually, only as part of the whole group and on an equal level with everyone else. they otherwise have no deliberate narrative foundation. it just starts in s4 with no prior hinting. which makes their development rocky and difficult to believe. the funny thing is their characters literally have dialogue (in s4) trying to draw comparisons/parallels between them to say that they especially have a lot in common and like??? no? they really don't? not any more so than any other two kids in the group. their relationship just, really falls flat.

it was disappointing to see it take such a massive spotlight in the series for almost all of seasons 4 and 5, overshadowing the friendships that have been the focus of the show and should have remained so, to the point where at times it just felt like i was watching some stereotypical het highschool romance. genuinely, it made s4 & 5 more of a drag to get through. yasammy and ben and yas' growing bond (which by the way was so sweet, it had the strongest queer solidarity vibes good lord, i sure wonder why yas chose ben out of everyone to come out to first, hmmm) were some of the few things that kept me invested, otherwise i would have dropped it if it had leaned much farther into becoming the kenlyn show than it already was. especially when it was that pair so much of the focus was given to, even though we had so readily and perfectly available, the pair that could have, should have been: benji. which finally brings me to:

ben and kenji

benji's foundation was laid in s1. their interactions, the situations they found themselves in, were deliberate (on the writers' part). i'm even gonna go out on a limb here and say the pairings were fully established in s1e3, even with parallels between yasammy and benji (sammy clinging to yas and ben clinging to kenji throughout the episode), and darilyn gets the beginning of their development too.

even though they bicker a lot in the beginning, they clearly care about each other? kenji protects/helps ben multiple times, and there are definitely some looks ben gives kenji at times. at the end of s1, the one who seems the most deeply effected over ben's "death," other than darius (understandably since he's the one who failed to save him), was kenji! immediately after it happens, we get two close up shots, darius and brooklyn then yasmina and sammy. after which, we go back to the whole group with kenji in center frame, the focus is intentionally on him. it is only kenji who drops to his knees at the loss, and then we get a close up of just kenji. he was saved for last, and he was alone in frame (tbf bumpy was in frame too, but i'm talking humans here), which implies his feelings are especially important in this moment. that is the reason for solo close ups.

after ben's "death," kenji takes to always wearing ben's fanny pack, and up until bumpy--who ben cares VERY much about--got separated from them, kenji was the one who (however briefly) took over her care, ensuring she got off the monorail with them, and he's extremely distraught, more than pretty much all of them, when they can't find her, and he's last to leave when they decide to accept that ben's gone. even when they do leave, he's distant and distracted and his mind is clearly still on ben.

other than darius, kenji is the only one (if i'm remembering correctly) to mention ben/say his name after they lost him, upset because he was actually trying not to think about him. he has clearly thought about ben, probably a lot, because it's hard not to be reminded constantly when you wear something that belonged to a deceased loved one. and frankly, he appears to be the only one who dwells on him that much.

when ben reappears alive (which btw he found the group again because of kenji's butter knife, hello), the frames literally purposely focus on kenji's reaction. he's the one in the foreground every time they show him and brooklyn in that scene. he is the first one to say ben's name, the first one to go to him and hug him, and the scene takes special care to highlight kenji's strong emotions at ben's reappearance, lingering on his teary face as the focus for a bit even after brooklyn enters the frame to hug ben (because she is not at all an important element in the scene at that moment). just like when ben "died," the way this scene is written and shot HEAVILY suggests that ben holds significant importance to kenji, specifically. because again, the focus here is on kenji and ben almost exclusively, with brooklyn as only an afterthought lol. and quite frankly literally everyone else's reaction to him being alive was pretty lackluster compared to the special attention they gave to kenji on this.

and then in s3 we have the infamous hat scene, where darius and ben are in the limo and ben sees and mentions kenji's sailor hat, looking sad and sounding like... longing?? then directly after we switch to kenji realizing he forgot his hat?? the scene has no real significance tbh other than to draw a connection between ben and kenji. like, it acts as a transition to switch to the pov of the group on the boat, but it was entirely unnecessary? why not just have darius say something about the others and then show them on the boat? if there were no special relationship between ben and kenji, it would have made far more sense if they really wanted it to be ben to say something, that he sees the hat, and sadly says something along the lines of "i hope the others are okay/doing better than we are right now/etc" which implies that the hat made him think of everyone, their whole group. rather than what we got... which very much implies that he was mostly just thinking about kenji 💀 and then kenji thinking about the hat at the same time ben's looking at it and thinking of kenji. like, this is.... a very blatant connection being made by the writing/directing here.

all of that. so many deliberate connections made between ben and kenji, they had a very solid foundation laid for a romance to develop, and by all intents and purposes one already WAS developing according to the show's own subtext. which was why up until s4 obliterated the idea, i was positive the queer couple in the show was either going to be yasammy or benji. it was extremely obvious imo. but as soon we started getting the typical, loud, cliche "we are going to pair off these characters" scenes for kenji and brooklyn, i knew we were getting yasammy and not benji (to be clear, i'm not at all upset about yasammy, they're beautiful and i love how their relationship was done, i wouldn't have had it end any other way for them. but i do personally prefer benji, i just like their personalities and dynamic more. and i feel they had so much potential that got wasted to make way for a far less interesting pairing between kenji and brooklyn. why can't we have 2 queer couples, huh? and if we really needed a minimum of one hetero pairing to appease whoever needed appeasing, darilyn was right there).

but then??? their like entire bond just gets dropped (honestly ben himself gets pretty heavily sidelined for almost all of the last two seasons, which is criminal imo). mostly so that a rushed kenji x brooklyn can be established. like there are still a few small moments here and there in early s4, and one episode in s5 (ep 10), but from early s4 till pretty much the end of the series we hardly see them have any meaningful conversations or interactions, meanwhile literally every other combo in the group does.

it's so weird? why build up benji so deliberately over the course of multiple seasons just to like, fully discard it for a pairing with far less chemistry, even after the chemistry-building scenes they shared, some of which literally had no other purpose than to affirm their connection? even though they were very sparse, the moments benji had were just so blatant (kenji leaps into the rock crevice right onto the back of a saber tooth to save ben?!!?? like he literally was just willing to exchange his life for him like that?? he basically says that he wasn't really thinking, he just did it. so he moved out of what, emotional instinct, that's what we're meant to intuit from that series of events? implying that he specifically has strong emotion and doesn't think things through when it comes to ben? because he doesn't do that kinda stuff for any of the others in the group! even better, this parallels when sammy jumped on the nothosaurus to save yasmina. and then the way benji look at each other after it's over??? hello??? and then how kenji pulls both brooklyn and ben in for that hug a couple minutes later... side eyeing the writers for that choice. they knew what they were doing there and they were evil for it). i just can't see any reason to have dropped them like they were, after all the development they shared for 3 seasons. confounding. biggest disappointment of the series.

i know this probably reads to some as just "wahh, my ship didn't become canon" nonsense. but that's not why i'm bugged. this wasn't just a ship i liked and wanted canon despite no actual narrative support, as most ships tend to be. this ship did have narrative support. there was intent behind many of their scenes together, lingering looks and little things that matter narratively and are always used to signify a stronger/special connection. and it led nowhere, for no good reason. that bothers me. writing that implies and promises something, but never delivers on it. like a person who never finishes their sentences (think Dr McPhee from Night at the Museum). ultimately it's not a HUGE deal or anything, at the end of the day it's just a ship and just a kids' show. but as a writer, it's just irritating to see something like that be done. what can i say 🤷

conclusion

even despite the wasted potential between certain pairings, and even though i do think the first three seasons were superior to the last two, overall i really enjoyed the show, and for what it was, it was really well-made. the overarching focus was of course on found family and friendship before anything else, which i absolutely love, and it was masterfully done. out of 6 kids, all of them had at least one or two meaningful bonding moments one-on-one with another in the group, so every possible combination had their moment to build strong, believable friendships with each other. i'm just so surprised by how good it was as a whole honestly, good enough to binge over the course of a week. i will happily recommend jwcc to anyone willing to give it a watch regardless of age, because i definitely think there's no age limit for a good story, no matter the medium it's told in. :)

#jwcc #jurassic world camp cretaceous #benji jwcc #benji #yasammy #yasammy jwcc #i would say that there's prob an age minimum tho... it's a bit scary so depending on the kid i wouldn't rec it to under 10 years #this is a long post #omg so long i'm sorry #i just have a lot to say #gotta shout into the void #it just be like that sometimes #fair warning this post is literally just me praising the show in the first half n then going absolutely off about benji in the second half #review #tv show review #as always with stuff like this that has any mention of ships it is bound to ruffle some feathers #so let me postface this with the reminder that this is all just MY OPINION #you are free to disagree but i'd rather you don't share your disagreements on my post via reblog/notes #feel free to write up your own show/ship review if you feel so strongly #otherwise if you dislike anything i've said you can just scroll past or block me <3

[mastersoftheair]

ok, so my own final (and very, very fresh) thoughts, bc i wanted to wait until i'd watched everything to make a sweeping opinion of the whole series, and it's quite opinionated. and long. probably too long. i write essays for fun (everyone point and laugh):

my personal (and very, very fresh) ranking of the hbo war shows (not including gen kill bc that's a different war, sorry) goes- band of brothers > masters of the air > the pacific (it's the same for my title score rankings. that hasn't changed yet)

my main points of contention with MotA are 1) the nine episodes, 2) the length of the episodes, and 3) certain editing choices. nine episodes, compared to the classic ten, isn't Nearly enough time to showcase all that they wanna showcase (especially when the episodes are as short as they are, once you get past the recap and "next on" parts). and they wanna showcase A Lot! there so much going on! i'd ask them to pace themselves, but they literally Can't!

i mean, the editing choices are a Whole Thing! practically gives me whiplash sometimes lol. i feel like the weaker episodes still have parts that are Really good, but like. Individually. they don't work together as a stronger whole, which is to the episode's detriment. rather than jumping around (as the show often did), they could've benefited a lot from focusing on the One Story instead of squeezing three more stories into there (i say that, but i think the 4-5-6 episode run (all with multiple stories per episode) did this very well while Still being very good episodes, so it's not like it Can't be done, it just didn't work for 7, 8 and (partly) 9). granted, i suspect a chunk of the weird editing can be blamed on, well, there being only nine (and not all that long) episodes and no one wanting to cough up enough money for a tenth. ugh! i'm blaming both hbo And appletv for this (and covid19 ig). it's just One More Episode, how much could it cost?? and on the subject of episodes, why no episode titles? you used to love episode titles! i could've brainstormed episode titles for them For Free!!

when it comes to the characters, the rankings remain the same: BoB > MotA > TP. it's not totally fair tho, since BoB followed the exact same (and large-ish) group of guys from beginning to end, so you're Gonna know who they all are and get attached. this wasn't the case (for me!) when watching TP, since, unlike BoB, they jump around from group to group. i never felt like i got to know them all that well, outside of the main characters. i think MotA almost hits that sweet spot, especially knowing they had those two main things going against it: large cast And jumping from group to group. there's a case to be made for bias here (i Was the blog blogging about everything MotA for like. years.), but i still think they found a good enough balance of fleshing out the main characters while Also helping the audience get to know about a bunch of minor characters, of which there are a shitton (and their personalities, motivations, backgrounds, quirks).

there's also the representation of women. actual angel renée lemaire is and will always be a cut above the rest (bastogne is just That Good, argue with the wall). she's written so well that it almost makes me forget about how a bunch of women are portrayed in carentan. i have...issues with how women are portrayed in TP (even tho i love lena), so there's that. MotA falls in the middle (again) bc there's Way more women on-screen, but the writing can be questionable. balanced (as all things should be?) captain l'sandra wing-westgate is a character of all time, but episode 7 birthed the craziest discourse known to man (the hbo war fandom), but it wasn't all that unwarranted. manon and michou were sooo cool, but we didn't see nearly enough of them (another victim of the 'editing too many stories into one episode' problem. why not a whole resistance episode? or at least as the only b-plot?). paulina was interesting, but fulfilled one of those 'attractive foreign woman gives sage advice during/after sex' tropes (there's probably a tvtropes page for that idk). so many red cross girls, but none of the in-depth payoff :/ epic highs (multiple women!!) + epic lows (writing women??) = pretty tolerable. not great, not terrible. it was aight. i trust the fandom to build on this tho.

narrative is the big one tho. it's the whole "doing so much with so little" thing they've got going on (i'm ignoring their big budget here lol, could've been bigger). rather than having one main story with many connecting side stories (like BoB), it does the TP thing where there's many semi-connecting side stories set in the same general area. it helps that there's crosby's narration (i enjoy narration, sue me!), and he helps everything connect, sorta. but there's still other side stories that have Nothing to do with him (sandra's side gigs (revealing what she did takes away the mystery of what she Might be doing), the tuskegee airmen, quinn and bailey's eurotrip). would it have helped if there were two narrators (say, someone like rosie)? idk. gonna sit with that one. if there's a through-line, it's not super obvious like in the other two shows. which is insanely funny to me bc i literally like TP less, but that show's got an Extremely tight through-line all the way down. i can't lie and say it doesn't!

back to budget- i've seen people criticize this show for being called "masters of the air" when there's not much of "the air". ig that's fair, but there's the money issue, again. also, it'd get very repetitive if they were always in "the air". there was enough confusion about identifying who was who with the masks on, so imagine if that was Every Episode. out of All the issues the show has, this is the least issue-y. again, that's just my opinion, and it could change.

another budget thing (i think??)- idk enough about costuming and hair for period pieces so i can't comment on that with my 0 background in it, all i Can say is that i knoooooow people were clowning on marjorie cleven's hair in episode 1 (and i could see why, no such thing as 1940s beach waves). but from what i could understand- that actress' addition was a last-minute thing (bc i had No idea who the hell she was and i already found someone cast for marjorie all the way back in 2021). maybe there's something to say about the quality of rush jobs, but i really do think it was the most last-minute thing bc it came out of Nowhere, and timeline-wise, it looks like that bit was done long after everything else had been filmed. outside looking in, it seems something probably went wrong/didn't work out with who or what they already had and there wasn't enough wiggle room (time and money) to fix it. this isn't me being an apologist (lol), but i feel like a theorist at a big board bc nothing adds up! and i wanna know what happened! i'm just speculating! speculating on this blog is All i did for like Years lmaooo.

this is more of a side thing, but some of the lines in MotA feel really on-the-nose, almost corny. and that was Gonna be a knock against it, but there's some equally Extremely on-the-nose lines in both BoB and TP (Especially in BoB), so if i give MotA shit for it, i'd have to give all three shows shit for it lol. none of them are free of cheese.

another silly aside- no peaches, no main gingers, no main eugenes! we can't have 'em all, but c'mon!

there Is some good tho lol. one thing that MotA really has going for it, that i think the other shows have less of, is- and GOD it feels so weird to call this "world-building" when it's actual goddamn history, but- it's got world-building. maybe that isn't the best word for it. but i like how much Bigger ww2 feels in this show. BoB is one stop, then the next stop, then the next stop, which is, admittedly, good from a narrative-perspective (easy to follow), but not as good when you want a scale of how devastating the war is (in fairness, it was filmed in 2000). even TP feels pretty "enclosed" in a way. there's island-hopping, yeah, but all the damn islands look the same (not including australia lol). it's a theatre of the war we otherwise don't really get to see, but there still isn't all that much to see. it's water and sand and rock and dirt. which is the point, but Whatever! would've been cool if we saw sledge and co. in china, but moving on. MotA's able to really show the scale of it, both in the air and on the ground (that scene in germany during episode 6 was both harrowing and fantastic, also the inclusion of the actual children forced to fight nearer to the war's end in the finale). idk i just liked how it was able to zoom in and zoom out (and in and out again) in a way that the other shows weren't.

another thing it's got that the other shows don't is Really driving home how young everyone is (not "child soldier" young, but damn young). the cast is full of baby faces (rip babyface). a lot of ww2 shows/movies don't bother casting to reflect this, but i think overlooking that takes away from the overall impact. you browse through some old newspaper articles or photos of soldiers during ww2 enough and you're gonna Regularly get hit with the face of someone who looks like they could've sat in the desk next to you during a high school lit class. a lot of those b&w grinning faces look like kids bc they pretty much were (more so if they lied about their age). you don't really get that in BoB or TP (it's Crazy when the real life pics of the soldiers portrayed in those shows look younger than the actors).

i'm mixed about the tuskegee airmen. what we have, i love (thank you, dee rees). unfortunately, my biggest irk is that it leaves me wanting more of them, which i won't ever get. speaking as a black person (not speaking for All black people, just how i personally feel about it), having them included feels like a catch-22. if they weren't included in any capacity (all while knowing there were whole tuskegee airmen in stalag iii with the white main characters), there'd be a problem. however, including them (all while having these time constraints and not enough focus on them) leads to the feeling of having them "tokenized" (which i can see). there's no world where there'd be 50/50 split (even a 70/30 split) bc, at that point, just give them a show of their own. but there'd still be a general annoyance that big budget ww2 shows are only ever white. on the other hand, hanks and spielberg and orloff and miller and all the directors (except dee rees) are white, and how good of a story about black people are you really gonna get from the perspective of nonblack people? that in mind, i personally don't feel put-off by having the three tuskegee airmen in the posters/trailers/promos, bc i just Know there'd be a whole nother problem if they weren't included in them at all despite being in the show for however long (it'd be even worse if they made their pictures smaller). like i don't work in advertising, but i don't know if a "sweet spot" even exists for something like this. people would be pissed off no matter what imo (i'm also speaking with a bias here bc i had to browse through sooooo many comments written by white guys whining and crying and pissing and shitting themselves once they learned that the tuskegee airmen were gonna be in the show in Any capacity, so i'm just cool knowing they're in shambles rn (and josiah cross- he played richard macon- always goes Wild seeing his face in the promos, and his joy is pretty contagious).

i give it somewhere like a 7.5-8/10. 3.75 stars out of 5. not perfect, subject to change, gotta marinate, but i'm overall happy with it! MotA's best episodes are better than many other individual hbo war episodes. should i be grading it using the overall sum of its parts, not just the different parts? idk, i'm not being paid to grade lol.

#i feel like i'm knocking the pacific too much in this even when i like the pacific. i just like it much less #i've talked my sister's ear off enough about it (she adores the pacific the way i do band of brothers) #and like i've got plenty of issues with band of brothers but it just does it for me. idk. i'm complicated by avril lavigne #this is an essay. my GOD is this an essay #but better to vomit it all out now so i can look over it later and see how my opinion changes over time. i want to archive my fresh thought #masters of the air #hbo war #masters of the air spoilers #mota spoilers #band of brothers #the pacific #for once i'm not spam-tagging those. i talk about them a decent amount in here. sorry for the people who don't go here tho #long post

[markantonys]

You know, considering the show only fans' reaction to the Seanchean, if they do put Mat and Tuon together, they're gonna have to give her and them a LOT and I mean A LOT of character development. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if Tuon shows up already with thoughts and doubts about slavery. Cause there's simply no way people are gonna be okay with it.

yeah i really do not envy them having to figure out what to do here, because EVERYTHING about mat/tuon and about tuon as a character is a giant landmine. (even just with casting, because the Head Slaver being a black woman is 🥴 especially if we then get scenes of her having to be told by a white man that slavery is bad. but if you DON'T cast a black actor as tuon then you've whitewashed a book-canonically black character. tuon's character design is the kinda thing where rj was trying to go for a ~boundary-breaking role reversal~ but it just really isn't a good look, and i don't envy the show having to deal with his choices there.)

anyway, i'm really hoping for tuon to be introduced at least a season or two before she meets mat so that she can have some development before they even cross paths, let alone begin having romance. (similar to how elayne, aviendha, and min were all developed through non-rand characters this season, which was a great choice.) one idea i'm quite fond of* is tuon showing up in nynaeve and elayne's storyline in s3 in an egeanin-esque role (tho not exactly equivalent ofc given tuon's and egeanin's differences in status/life situation/etc), so then she unknowingly befriends and comes to respect 2 ~marath'damane~, thus she has to start rethinking some things about seanchan culture when she finds out her new buddies can channel. and in s4 maybe she can have some kind of invented plotline to keep her development moving along, and s5 might be the time for her to first meet mat, and they can spend seasons 6 AND 7 together with the romance being a very slow burn. if the show just has tuon show up in ebou dar straightaway with the initial invasion rather than in a second wave after mat's storyline's been left out of an entire book, then she can meet mat sooner and they can leave sooner and have more time to spend together.

rj could have pulled off mat/tuon if he'd introduced her way sooner and had left enough time for their relationship to develop naturally and for HER to develop naturally, rather than breaking mat's characterization to cram him into a rushed relationship it makes no sense for him to want to be part of at this point in time. in WH it really does feel like rj was planning a whole meaty character development arc for tuon, but then realized between books that he wasn't gonna have enough time for it in the main series and came up with the idea of the outriggers spinoff, and in COT suddenly we have tuon being a completely static character and mat replaced by a pod person who's obsessed with her and has completely changed his views on slavery.

but the show has the benefit of knowing the endpoint already, so hopefully they're already planning for how to make the mat/tuon romance feel more believable. i think the only 2 options are a) introduce tuon way earlier and give her a proper redemption arc, or b) make it a political marriage which mat is putting up with for the greater good but has 0 romantic interest in tuon. because yeah, mat falling in love with an unrepentant slaver would make him absolutely vile in the eyes of all viewers, especially after how hard the show went on showing the vileness of the seanchan in s2. show viewers will not have forgotten the torture egwene suffered by the time mat meets tuon as easily as so many book readers apparently did.

*i'm also very fond of the idea of tuon being introduced in seanchan proper because i spent the whole series expecting us to see seanchan proper and the court of the 9 moons etc and felt SO robbed that we never did, so i'd loooooove if the show took us there and had tuon leading a plotline there before she leaves for the westlands. but purely in terms of getting her to start rethinking the damane system early on, this scenario wouldn't be as useful as the one of her meeting nynaeve and elayne in the westlands.

and finally, it's very interesting that they killed off every single notable seanchan character from s2. this could mean that they didn't want to leave any loose ends because the seanchan will be entirely absent for the next season or two, ooooooooooooor it could mean that they wanted to clear the stage for tuon to step up as our major seanchan character in the next season or two.

#anonymous #answered #wot book spoilers #wot show spoilers

[chemicallywrit]

Happy Audio Drama Sunday! Last one of the year! There are so many amazing shows I listened to this year--Gastronaut, Kakos Industries, Madame Magenta, Dungeons & Daddies, Cry Havoc! Ask Questions Later, Bronzeville, Deviser, Ghosts in the Burbs, The Silt Verses, Fall of the House of Sunshine, The Ballad of Anne and Mary, Eliza: A Robot Story, Eeler's Choice, Hemophobia--this list isn't even comprehensive! But here is what stood out to me this week. (As always, some spoilers follow.)

🦸‍♂️ I've had Superhuman Public Radio on my radar for a while, but I finally got a chance to listen to it this week. For lack of a better way of putting it, the structural integrity of this show is flawless. It sounds exactly like listening to NPR, and it's funny and clever with some really incredible worldbuilding. It's everything I like about listening to local news without the stress of it being local news that affects me. I love it.

✨ I'm also new to Breathing Space, but the Firefly vibes are off the charts. I love any story that is basically just Anticapitalists in Space, but the western vibes of this really make the stories hit home. I especially liked S1E2, "A Rat Among Falcons," because who doesn't love a scruffy nobody being incorporated into a found family? S1E5, "The Salvage of the Valentina Tereshkova" was also a really excellent space horror story. I can't wait to see what they do next. And that theme song tho, right??

❤️‍🩹 @thefringespod has been making incredible use of their new full cast, and I love the twist that this season is driving home--it's not a story presented to you, the listener, it's a tragedy that the mute second character is helping to undo. The softness of the family that Pine Gonzalez spent the whole first season describing comes through beautifully in the work of the actors.

🌊 Modes of Thought In Anterran Literature is always a little bit unnerving, but this week our professor faced the horrors of...rich people. Like, REALLY rich people. "You're already paying for private security?" Absolutely chilling conversations. There was a headline this week about a bunch of Silicon Valley millionaires trying to start a utopia in the desert, which works great all the time of course, and I thought of Anterra, tearing itself apart, and about the professor, who doesn't exactly make great choices, tearing himself apart too.

🐺 Things are getting very scary on Palimpsest! Is this a werewolf season?? It is VERY gothic, which is fun in a Jazz Age setting. It feels incongruous, which just adds to the horror. The quiet build of Palimpsest never disappoints me.

📦 Bless those children on @storiesfromylelmore, they're so darn good. ItMe has always been excellent at writing along the span of human nature, and seeing them do it with the three kids in Stories from Ylelmore is wonderful. Of course, a lot of the credit has to go to ItMe's flawless line delivery too. The kids feel very real, even while they're delivering magical packages from a bookstore to the head of the local witch coven.

🐦 The Amelia Project's Twelve Days of Christmas thing has been so funny. I half hope we never find out who's tormenting Alvina. The only downside is that now I have the song stuck in my head constantly, and seeing that it's like, the second-worse Christmas song, this is a problem. The show's worth it, though.

🕯️ What should appear in my podcatcher this morning but the second episode of Flickers! I was intrigued by that first episode, and this second one is really bringing home the isolationist horror. I can't wait for the next installment.

👽 Among the Stars and Bones is coming back! It's coming back this month! This is one of my all-time favorite sci-fi shows, everyone, if you're not on board yet then GET WITH IT, because this next season is guaranteed to blow your mind.

That's what I've been listening to! Here's what's going on with me:

🧟‍♀️ The Dead has been posting episodes from its second series, Ephemeris, which I wish we could have spent more time on, because the premise is so good. Zombies. In. Space. My gosh. David Ault and Kayla Temshiv in particular are killing it on this story. It'll be a few weeks before our next story premiers, but I'm REALLY excited about that one. Tune in!

Finally, the most important news...

💚Inn Between Returns on Wednesday!🏹

AAAAAAAAAAAAA

I am THRILLED about season five. The cast is killer, the story is fantastic, everyone's bringing their A-game, and I can't wait for you to hear it.

That's all for me! Happy New Year everyone!

(If you like what I do, I'd love it if you could send me a ko-fi! Especially since my car just frikkin. Died. So rude of it. Thanks!)

#superhuman public radio #breathing space podcast #tales from the fringes #modes of thought in anterran literature #palimpsest #stories from ylelmore #the amelia project #flickers podcast #among the stars and bones #the dead podcast #inn between #audio drama sunday #audio drama #audio fiction #fiction podcast

[thekaijudude]

Uchuusen Magazine reveals important information about Blazar

Aight so there's ALOT here which would actually clear up alot of mysteries surrounding Blazar

1. M421

Apparently Blazar belongs to a whole race of Ultras from M421

This race of ultras rely on hunting kaiju around the galaxy as they are still primitive in nature, so they rely on throwing spears, essentially Blazar's Spiral Burrade

- So perhaps the Ultra that was seen decades ago in the series may have not actually been Blazar, but another member of his species (wonder if he'll also show up in the series perhaps?)

- So I suppose that Blazar's worshipping practice is meant to mimic primitive practices of praying to their deities for a good hunt (sure hope its an actual character, anything for a New Legendary ultra)

- But then I'm still confused tho, this implies that it's a planet of Ultras, but yet why early promo material says that Blazar came from a Black Hole? Maybe Blazar himself accidentally got trapped in one that teleported him to another universe?

2. Blazar's design

His crystals are meant to show how the open wounds look like. This is meant to emphasise Blazar's hunter look

So it's essentially crystallised ultra-blood

3. Why there isn't a New Gen Gaia

Taguchi says that back in 2021, the President of Tsuburaya Productions approached him about this, but Taguchi declined as he says that Gaia's world building and intricate story would be extremely difficult to top given the limitations of the modern series, so to avoid a "losing battle", he declined the Gaia remake but instead proposed Blazar

4. Blazar as a very experimental series

Blazar's focus would be all the new kaiju rather than the Ultra itself (tho Blazar will apparently have 2 more forms based on the datamines)

Tsuburaya Productions and FIELDS has also officially spoken out that if Blazar fails, they'll immediately return to the typical New Gen series formula

(They'll probably immediately make a fusion ultra to bring the popularity back if it fails)

But if it succeeds, Blazar will be the new direction for the franchise as a whole moving forward

- This is also reflected in Bandai's financial predictions that I posted recently as well

- Also in how TsuPro has been amping up promo material for Blazar far more than ever seen for any other Ultra before in the recent decade

#ultraman #ultraman blazar

[death-himself]

EPISODE 5 THOUGHTS LETS GO

this series just keeps getting better and better istg

(also I think the only spoilers for non-book readers are at the very end so feel free to read)

the switch to annabeth seeing the fates after thinking percy might've died is INCREDIBLE, I love that change. the fates always seemed a bit out of place in the book so it's nice to see them actually add something to the plot

percy acts kinda different after climbing out of the river, which makes sense, but it's weird seeing him kinda happier and more hopeful

was i the only one who thought that percabeth hug kinda paralleled percy and sally's hug in the first episode? maybe it was just one of them being soaking wet and the other being dry

them hiding when ares comes by because they're hiding from the police is funny

also them popping their heads up to talk to him was adorable

"gimme a second, I'm starting a fight on twitter" CRYING

not too big of a fan of gabe's portrayal in this episode, i feel like they should've kept in how quickly he moved onto another woman to up his shittiness in a disney-safe way

that "i really-we really loved that car" was funny tho, and does make him a bit shittier, so I'll give him that. the fake crying could have been more clearly fake, but that's probably just me being bad at reading emotions

when i saw the clip of grover having to stay behind i didn't really like that change, but now watching the episode i really like it. i loved the grover-ares interaction this episode

i love the whole theme park being made by hephaestus, idk why there's something really cool about that

also i really wanna go there i don't even really like amusement parks but that place looked cool as hell

annabeth getting distracted by how cool the mechanics are she's so adorable i love her so much

the explanation of celestial bronze felt a bit random but they needed to include it somewhere so I'm fine with it

what did ares mean when he said protestor?? there were protestors at the solstice?? what does that mean??

grover hyping ares up and getting on his good side to get information out of him loved that

BABY DON'T HURT ME PLAYING ON THE TUNNEL OF LOVE PLSSS

the tunnel of love showing the story of hephaestus's life is so funny to me, like damn ares and aphrodite went on the ride showing the sad life of the guy aphrodite's cheating on??

like that ride was definitely made with revenge on aphrodite in mind that's funny

"she was trying to keep me away from you guys" that adds something to someone's character and i love that. sally recognizing how terrible the gods are and never wanting percy to have to deal with that

also percy looking to annabeth when he said that. like he knows that she's also a part of this awful cycle of abuse, which adds even more to her rejecting that cycle later in the episode

in terms of casting hephaestus is my second favorite of the olympians aside from dionysus, purely because i've loved his outfit from the moment we got that first picture of him, so this episode is exciting for me

including the chair hephaestus built for hera, idk why but i love that so much. could go into how the gods traumatized hephaestus but i think the episode implies that enough

"was [athena] always like that?" i was expecting them to go into how athena might have also been traumatized by zeus but nope it just turned into a shit-on-athena round, which was objectively better

"if she's so smart explain the owl" i loved this conversation it's so fuckin funny

"and i (no owl) am not?!" they're making me love ares fuck

i know there's a reason behind it, but the back-to-back episodes of percy supposedly dying and sacrificing himself for annabeth felt a bit much. i feel like there should've been a bit more room between those, but that's just my opinion (i don't really know what they could've done instead that'd be better)

I DIDN'T EVEN CATCH THE FIRST SEAWEED BRAIN MY FIRST WATCH WAIT HOLD UP

"this isn't the arch seaweed brain, you aren't pushing me into the stairwell again" "yes i am" STOP I LOVE THEM

"you're better at this than me. you just are" CRYING STOP

i can already imagine the edits those are gonna break me

percy getting incased in gold looked so damn cool it felt so mechanical

annabeth not even going for the shield and immediately trying to get percy out

ngl i was fully expecting annabeth to be able to do it, i didn't even doubt her getting him out herself, so i was kinda thrown off by hephaestus showing up

annabeth and hephaestus's whole conversation was just incredible

"maybe i was that way once. but i don't wanna be that way anymore. i won't be like all of you" i can see the edits

"some of us don't like being that way either" i just love hephaestus i love how this episode implies that some of the gods are victims of the cycle of abuse too

the inside of the zoo truck looks waayyy more cramped than i was imagining it all these years

spoilers for people who haven't read the book past this point

grover knowing who the thief is?? he can't know who it actually is, that'd spoil the entire plot-twist, but then who would it be?? luke and clarisse are literally the only named campers not on the quest so far, so unless ares claimed his own daughter stole the bolt, there's no one else that would be a satisfying red herring

i trust this show to not give away luke being the thief until the last episode, so now I'm just very curious what grover's gonna say

i loved this episode so much, my only concern is they haven't mentioned the whole "gods don't have DNA thing" yet, and considering that they really leaned into the family dynamic thing, it's a bit concerning

like please, for the sake of the new fans and their percanny or smartwater, please tell them percy and annabeth aren't really related it's starting to get weird

#pjo #pjo spoilers #percy jackson #percy jackson spoilers #pjo disney+ #pjo disney+ spoilers #pjo tv show #pjo tv show spoilers #percy jackson and the olympians

[bingoboingobongo]

task force 141 + favorite christmas movies

Characters: Simon “Ghost” Riley, John “Soap” MacTavish, Kyle “Gaz” Garrick, John Price, Alejandro Vargas, Rodolfo “Rudy” Parra

Warnings: none

A/N: sorta did this already with ghost but now it’s time for the entire team

john "soap" mactavish:

what can i say soap is a home alone kinda guy

he fell in love with them as a kid and he just never fell out of love

it's that sorta violent but still comedic and overly dramatized kind of humor that soap likes

plus he's a sucker for montages and you know home alone has a bunch of them

he's a fan of the whole series too

but the first one is definitely his favorite, just because it's classic

definitely gets freaked out by the bird lady in the second one (i think it's the second one)

and yes he's always wanted a home alone situation whenever he was a kid

he would literally pray for a duo of goofy robbers to try and break in whenever his parents weren't home

of course it never worked

but you know

a man can dream

he also knows all the home alone lore

and he freaked out when he found out macaulay culkin was married to brenda song

kyle "gaz" garrick:

so this goes hand in hand with my christmas songs headcanon

but gaz's favorite christmas movie is the grinch (2018)

bc 1. it has a fire soundtrack

2. it's got great animation

and 3. beneficiary cumberbun as the grinch was unprecedentedly good

he also doesn't like the live action grinch

he watched it when he was younger and it really scared him

like im talking it really scared him

he saw it in a hotel while his family was visiting new york for christmas

and then he refused to sleep on the wall side of the bed because he was scared the grinch was gonna come from under the bed in that sorta shadowy area between the bed and the wall and steal him

and yes he still sleeps on the lamp side whenever he stays at hotels now

even though he's a grown man

so yeah the grinch (2018) was a very welcome change to that

i mean the animation is so bright and cheery

what's not to love

plus he really likes how fluffy the grinch looks

and yes he watched it in theatres with his family so there's a lot of good memories associated with that as well

simon "ghost" riley:

so kinda similar to gaz

but ghost's favorite christmas movie is actually how the grinch stole christmas (1966)

for those of y'all who aren't up to date on the grinch movie release timeline that's the cartoon one

gaz doesn't like that one because that smile the grinch does in the beginning (you know what i mean, it's the one where his cheeks literally like migrate to his ears) freaked him out

but ghost actually enjoys that scene

he says it scratches an itch

he also likes the 1966 grinch because it brings him back to simpler times

he first watched it in school right before winter break

and then he went home and made his mom watch it with him over and over and over again

and so now whenever he has the chance he'll watch during the holiday season

it does make him a little sad though

you know since his mom's dead

anyways

john price:

price's favorite movie is charlie brown's christmas

he's actually a pretty big fan of the peanuts

is that what they're called? idk

so it's only a no brainer that the charlie brown christmas special brings him a special kind of joy

before he used to watch it on cable on christmas day

and then he got apple tv+ so now he watches it to get in the mood

guys this isn't an ad for apple i swear

he likes to cozy up with a blanket, some nice socks (he's a sock guy what can i say), a cup of tea or hot cocoa, and some biscuits

sometimes he falls asleep before the end tho

but it's not like he's never seen it before so it's fine

yet despite his love for the peanuts he does not have a charlie brown christmas tree

no his tree is always freshly cut down and usually pretty hefty

rodolfo "rudy" parra:

alright so this one also goes with my christmas music headcanons

but rudy's favorite christmas movie is the frozen franchise

and yes it's a holiday movie

he will fight you on that

in his mind snow + fire soundtrack = christmas movie

so yes goncharov would technically be a christmas movie by rudy's criteria

and yes he will fight you if you bring that up

he also really hates claymation

like really really hates it

it's too uncanny valley for him

like for it to be enjoyable it better be super duper obvious that the characters are clay

but even then it still catches him off guard

he also really likes christmas specials for like a bunch of shows

so after he's done with his frozen marathon he'll turn on his favorite shows and just watch the christmas episodes

and yes he does that for every holiday that has specials

alejandro vargas:

okay so potentially controversial opinion

but alejandro really enjoys hallmark movies

like it doesn't matter which one it is as long as it's a christmas hallmark movie he's down to watch it

he doesn't even know why like he's aware of how cheesy they are

but they've really mastered that feel good formula

even if each movie is riddled with plot holes

but even then that's also part of the fun too

like he enjoys inviting rudy or even the others over so they can poke fun at all the logistical impossibilities of the movie

and really that's what he likes when he watches the movies

the good memories he makes

ig it's true guys

the real lesson was the friends we made on the way

or whatever the saying is idk

he also likes the cheesy romance of it all

and also he doesn't tell anyone that he secretly enjoys the hallmark movies

with everyone else he pretends that it sucks

but he eats it up every time

and yes he always checks to see if the kiss happens at the same time

and so far it has almost every single time

#bingoboingobongo.com #bingoboingobongo's christmas extravaganza #ghost x reader #soap x reader #gaz x reader #john price x reader #alejandro vargas x reader #rodolfo parra x reader #ghost headcanons #soap headcanon #gaz headcanon #john price headcanons #alejandro vargas headcanons #rodolfo parra headcanons #ghost cod #soap cod #gaz cod #john price cod #alejandro vargas cod #rodolfo parra cod #call of duty #cod #modern warfare 2 #mw2

[ksrlvr]

i think what irked me when rereading pjo, especially whilst having an interest in greek mythology too, was the portrayal of medusa, ares and the aphrodite cabin (mostly in the first few books).

tw: sexual/physical/emotional abuse, violence

cause wdym ares is basically just another deadbeat cunt, portrayed as a massive bully and he’s implied to be abusive to his kids - something we don’t even know the full extent of too. like when he had that convo with clarisse (sea of monsters i think, i can’t double check i don’t have my books with me rn). the girl is fucking terrified of him mate. she may be his favourite daughter but she’ll never be a son. i feel like the series only highlights his negative traits bc he is the god of war…. like he’s also the god of courage!! protector of cities, the amazons!! he bestows upon them his fighting spirit!!! his daughter was literally the queen of the amazons!! most if not all the olympians have committed heinous ass shit - i mean 2 of the big 3 are literally infamous sex offenders… (whole other topic of like these omniscient beings - literal gods - being like a reflection of humanity in a sense.. WAIT now I wanna go on deep dive… i’m getting distracted). i think my guy also got tried for murdering one of poseidons other crotch goblins because he raped his daughter (I DONT REMEMBER NAMES). another one of his daughters is literally the goddess of harmony - he isn't necessarily just producing devil spawn. i think he has two other kids with aphrodite uhhh phobos? and someone else, god of fear and actually I think this is irrelevant MOVING ON. MY POINT IS HE'S SO GIRL DAD CODED. HE'S A GOOD DAD !!! BRO IS LITERALLY IN LOVE WITH APHRODITE DAWG. HE TREATS HER LIKE A QUEEN, THE GODDESS THAT SHE IS!! bro has daddy issues and knows what it feels like so he treats his kids better! DO HKM SOME JUSTICE RAAAAH!!

i’m also aware of the different interpretations of medusa’s story (not gna get into allat rn tho). ya know general story, she was a priestess of athena who poseidon forced himself upon in athena’s temple so then girl got turned into a gorgon (some victim blaming on athena’s part idk claiming it was sacrilege etc/poseidon what the actual fuck). she’s often portrayed as a horrifying monster - later stories alluding to how she was both extremely beautiful (and terrifying) blah blah u get it. anyway it didn’t really dive into her story and just painted her as this insidious villain i suppose (tbh understandable for a 12 yo percy’s pov when this woman is trying to KILL him). then she obviously got beheaded - AGAIN must i add. also giving birth to pegasus (+ chryasor me thinks?) like good lord, girl is going thru it, she deserves sm better. though as far as I know (haven’t watched ep yet) she’s much more fleshed out in the show and you can see her humanity - yay!!

this bit is only in the very first few books but how the entire aphrodite cabin was shown just made me feel a bit icky. but later on in the story we have the kids having much more of a presence etc (silena leading the ares cabin bro!!!).

anyway think i’m done rambling for now, dunno if there are any other things i shoukd get into. uh feel free to add to or correct me if i’m wrong >_<

#im frothing at the mouth #like a fucking rabid dog #i feel feral #i cannot stop thinking about this stupid show #im going to pick apart my brain tbh #i cant take it anymore #what if i just #fucking explodes #losing my sanity #perchance #HAHA #anyway #pjo #percy jackson #percy jackon and the olympians #pjo series #pjo tv show #pjo fandom #pjoverse #percy jackson and the olympians