Katabasis

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/26744932.

Rating: Explicit
Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Category: M/M
Fandom: 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Relationship: Min Yoongi | Suga/Park Jimin
Character: Min Yoongi | Suga, Park Jimin (BTS), Kim Namjoon | RM, Jeon
Jungkook, Jung Hoseok | J-Hope, Kim Taehyung | V, Kim Seokjin | Jin
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Alternate Universe -
Noir, Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Superheroes, Anti-Hero,
Heroes to Villains, Detective Noir, Crimes & Criminals, Crime Fighting,
Partners in Crime, Disturbing Themes, Revenge, Serial Killers, Murder,
Murder Mystery, Graphic Description of Corpses, Death, Family
Member Death, Violence, Aftermath of Violence, Implied/Referenced
Child Abuse, Past Abuse, Physical Abuse, Emotional/Psychological
Abuse, Childhood Trauma, Trauma, Psychological Trauma, Post-
Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Explicit Language, Mild Sexual
Content, Aged-Up Character(s), Necromancy, Pyromancy, Past
Relationship(s), Estrangement, Broken Promises, Mental Health Issues,
Insomnia, Nonbinary Character, Trans Male Character, Hoseok
Taehyung & Seokjin Are Referenced But Do Not Feature In This Story
Language: English
Series: Part 1 of Sphagia
Stats: Published: 2020-10-01 Words: 23,368 Chapters: 1/1

Katabasis
by sugamins

Summary

Yoongi’s retired … at least that’s what he says. He wasn’t really ever cut out for the whole
‘hero’ business anyway. How much can a guy that talks to the dead bring to the table? Not
much – you can’t save someone that’s already dead. Really, he’s glad to be retired.

One by one, burned corpses of important people start showing up all over the city. It
appears that an old partner has turned rogue. His victims have been chosen for one reason –
grave misdeeds they committed, which had an insidious and long-lasting effect on their
childhood training and adult lives.

Yoongi knows the culprit.

Goddamn, he wished that he didn’t …

Notes
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support me as a writer! :)

Playlist

This story contains dark and disturbing content. Please check the tags before reading
the story.

The premise of this story follows Yoongi, a now retired member of a disbanded squad of
superheroes. The squad underwent extreme, military boot camp training to not only prepare
them to fight crime, but to break their spirits in order to make them compliant so they would
not cause trouble with their gifts in the future. It contains many references to the past
physical, emotional, and mental abuse that the squad mates went through for many years,
starting in childhood and spanning into adulthood. It also features Yoongi’s backstory,
which is very distressing and involves family death.

I know that the tags already explain this, but I know readers do not always properly check
tags.

If you are in any way affected by the issues in this story and it might trigger you, do
not read it.

Another rainy night, another murder.

It was starting to feel like clockwork. Whenever the weather got really bad and a storm started
raging, it would happen. It wasn’t enough if it was just a shower; it needed to be a powerful
rainstorm, filled with a deluge of rain and rumbling thunderclouds.

Considering it was starting to edge close to typhoon season, and heavy rainfall was occurring every
day and night, there was a chance there could be another murder before the end of the week.

Yoongi didn’t know whether to feel dread at the thought … or to smile.

There was a light drizzle currently falling from the sky. It wasn’t heavy enough to require an
umbrella or even a hood. It was a thin spray of moisture that lingered in the air, just to be irritating.
He could see the droplets misting around the glowing bulbs of the streetlamps, and he could feel
beads of moisture starting to soak down deep into his hair. It felt like cold fingers were teasing at
his scalp. He hated the sensation. It made his skin crawl, so he reached up to roughly brush his
hands through his hair to knock the beads free.

The droplets ran over the surface of his dark-brown flight jacket. The waxed cotton repelled the
moisture to keep him dry. But the sheepskin collar had started growing damp, just like the lengths
of his distressed jeans.

Well, at least the storm had cleared off. Just a few hours ago, the rain had been lashing down to hit
the buildings and ground with enough intensity to sound like the pounding of war drums. Had he
left his home then, he wouldn’t be concerned about his damp jeans. He would have been soaked
through to his skin within minutes, his hair plastered to his scalp and his boots filled with
rainwater. He might just have caught his death in such cold and harsh conditions. Sadly, he was
still kicking.

But someone else had caught their death tonight. It had come not from freezing-cold rain, but
scorching-hot flames.

Yoongi had received the call some time ago. It had come through in the deep of the night, but it
had not woken him up. He hadn’t been sleeping; he had always struggled with sleep. If he was
lucky, he might manage three hours a night. If he was unlucky, he wouldn’t sleep a wink. Tonight
had been one of those unlucky nights, when he had been unable to stop brooding over memories of
the past that filled him with dread and pain.

How fitting it was that the killer had struck again tonight …

To get to the scene, he could have jumped a bus or took a brisk ride on the subway. But he had felt
like walking tonight, even in the bad weather. Walking gave him time to gather his thoughts, and to
prepare himself for what was about to come. He needed to prepare because each time was getting
more difficult to handle than the previous. He was struggling to stay in control, and he was scared
that he might just slip. This was why he was dragging his feet down the desolate streets, even when
he longed to be out of the irritating, piddling rain.

The storm had been a bad one. It had taken down power lines, which had caused power outages
across various regions of Busan. It had also caused sewers to back-up all over the city, so sanitation
teams were present on plenty of blocks to try and control the mess. The sight of their bright yellow
uniforms caught the eye; they were impossible to miss out on the dark and gloomy streets. Only
they were out at this late-night hour, as only fools would be out on the streets in the wake of a
howling storm.
As he drew closer to the scene, Yoongi started to sense signs of police activity.

The first thing that he noticed was the sight of flashing lights bouncing off the tall sides of the
buildings that lined both sides of the road. The vivid blue-and-red lights were bright enough to cut
through the darkness. They flashed on and off in sporadic bursts that made him squint.

Then came the sound of distant activity, in the form of radio static, echoing voices, and faded
sirens. He couldn’t hear what was being said as the sound was muffled by rain, but he knew that
most of it would be pointless radio chatter between the on-duty officers and those back in the
station. He didn’t need to eavesdrop to know what crime had occurred, he knew exactly what had
happened this evening. In fact, he knew more than the police that were already at the scene, and he
had yet to even see the body. When he had, he would have all the information they needed.

Finally, there were crowds that were gathered around the police line. From the packs of press that
were eager to report on the crime, with their massive cameras and overhead drones to capture juicy
footage, and their incessant reporters that would shout at the police to try and gather as much
information as possible, to the curious civilians that just wanted to know what the hell was going
on – the crime scene was swelling with activity.

Yoongi was going to have to weave his way through the crowds to reach the police line. The police
were going to be on high-alert tonight, just to keep the crowd at bay and not let anyone slip past
their barricades. But he had no need to worry. There was a certain man already at the scene that
would be able to grant him entry, even when he had no badge to his name.

Namjoon would be waiting for him to arrive, just like always.

No, not Namjoon – Inspector Kim. That was what he was supposed to call him now, it was his
official title.

Once, he had gone by another title, a simpler title. Captain. That was what they had called him,
right from the start. The title had stuck to him like glue, and he had decided to take the playful
taunt and wear it like a badge. Over time, he had become their captain. He had guided them
through thick and thin, like a proper leader should.

But Namjoon wasn’t ‘Captain’ anymore.

None of them went by their hero titles now: Captain, Nekyia, Tempus, Hope, Mascot, Ace, or
Umbra.

It had only been a few years, but Yoongi still struggled to not call him Captain sometimes. It just
slipped out because he was so used to saying it. It was familiar, like a scar that had long since
healed up and faded away. Or a missing tooth, which he couldn’t help but keep revisiting with his
tongue so he could poke around at the hole it had once filled.

There was a police line formed around the outer boundaries of the crime scene. It was marked by
plastic barricades, which were painted bright yellow and emblazoned with the message: Police line
– do not cross. The barricades were placed in clusters in the middle of the surrounding roads and
sidewalks. Plenty of matching yellow police tape cordoned off the scene from the public.

All across the line, there were various uniformed officers. Most of them were standing like
sentries, still and silent. But some of them had megaphones in hand, which they were using to
shout instructions at the press to try and control them. They were like hounds baying for blood,
hungry for the grisly and horrifying details they could splash onto television screens and
newspaper front pages, just in time for breakfast.

Yoongi hated the press. He always had; they had caused him nothing but grief over the years. They
liked prying their noses into private business and smearing the names of people both guilty and
innocent. They did so with no remorse. They were almost as criminal as the criminals they made
bank reporting on every single day.

He could only hope that none of them noticed him approaching the police line. He didn’t want to
end up on the front pages again. It had been several years since that had happened, and he was
eager to never have it happen ever again. Luckily for him, they were so distracted that they paid
him no heed. He was just another random citizen that wouldn’t help them farm clicks or sell
papers, so he was basically invisible.

There were two officers standing behind the barricade that Yoongi was heading towards: a tall and
skinny man, and a short woman with wide and full hips and thighs. They had nametags pinned to
the breasts of their standard issue jackets – Im and Moon. They were both undecorated officers, so
they had been placed on the line to stop pedestrians and the press from trying to enter the crime
scene. Rain ran over the plastic caps that they had slipped over their uniform caps. It dripped down
just a mere inch from the tips of their noses in a steady stream. They looked tired, and it was no
wonder why. They had likely been working a long and arduous shift before they had been forced to
respond to the crime. They could be standing around for hours in the pissing-down rain before they
could return to the station.

“Sorry, citizen, but you can’t come through here,” said Officer Moon. She lifted her gloved hand to
hold it out to him, her palm extended to tell him to stop advancing towards the line. “This is
official police business, so please move back–”

“Moon, Im – let him through.”

A deep and smooth voice suddenly cut through the air from just a few feet away; a voice that
Yoongi was more than familiar with. It caught the two officers by surprise, who visibly jumped. A
moment later, someone emerged from a shadowy alleyway along the stretch of sidewalk that they
were guarding.

Namjoon.

The inspector reached up to slip his face mask free. He wasn’t wearing it to save the crime scene
from being contaminated, he was wearing it to block out the smell that was coming from the
alleyway. Even from his distance, Yoongi could smell the foul stench of death and smoke … and
the disgusting tang of vomit from a nearby gutter. One of the first responders had lost their dinner
at the sight of the dead body. Not Namjoon, of course. He had a strong stomach and was used to
such grisly things by now.

“Um, I apologise for asking this. But, Inspector, who is he?” asked Officer Im. His voice was a
nasally drawl that would rapidly get under the skin.

“He’s Nekyia. I summoned him, so let him though, please.”

“Ne-Nekyia?!” Moon and Im stammered in unison. They were unable to hide their shock, their
eyes growing round and their mouths falling open. The sound of their voices carried through the air
at a surprisingly loud volume, bouncing off the high walls of the surrounding buildings to echo
along the street.

Yoongi hastily shoved his way between them to get on the other side of the police line. He had to
suppress the urge to mutter a curse under his breath because the stupid officers might have just
caught the attention of the press. All that he could do was keep staring straight ahead and not look
over at the gathered sea of reporters because he didn’t want any of them snapping photographs of
his face.

To stave away the chill night air, Namjoon was wearing an overcoat layered over his work clothes.
His day suit was a deep shade of navy that complimented his light-blue shirt. His black tie matched
his charcoal overcoat and polished, leather dress shoes. The coat skirted around his shins. He had
such long legs; all his height was in them. Were they skinnier than usual, or was it just a trick of
the light?

Yoongi might be mistaken, but he was certain that the other man had lost a little weight. This was
concerning, but it would be improper to remark on his appearance in front of his colleagues. Should
the opportunity arise later, he would enquire about his health.

They might no longer call each other partners, but after close to 30-years spent together, growing,
training, and working, their bond went deeper than that of associates. They were family, along with
the rest of their small and tight-knit squad. They had been children when they had been introduced
to one another. They had grown up together and shared many experiences. If Namjoon was losing
weight because he was under great stress or suffering from a health condition, Yoongi wanted to
know.

“The body’s in the alleyway,” Namjoon explained, ducking beneath the police tape. As he
straightened up, he reached behind himself to take hold of the strip and lifted it up for him.

“Yeah, yeah,” Yoongi muttered, as he moved to slip beneath the tape. “Ain’t it always …”

Why Namjoon felt the need to tell him where the body was, Yoongi didn’t know. He had worked
alongside him for almost two decades, so he was more than aware that he could pinpoint the
location of a corpse from a mile away. It was probably a force of habit from working for the police
department, which was filled with regular men and women without gifts.

Being the only inspector in the field that had the gift, Namjoon had needed to adapt for their sake.
Working with civilians was drastically different to working alongside fellow gifted individuals – or
‘heroes,’ as the public liked to call them. For an intellectual like Namjoon, it probably felt like he
was working alongside children most days.

The body had been left in the middle of the alleyway. A filthy alleyway, he noted. It was fitting
that it was filthy because it symbolised just how little the killer thought of their victims. They were
trash to them, so what better place to leave them than lying in a pile of rotting rubbish?

Yoongi could see all kinds of trash littering the concrete flagstones: old newspapers and flyers,
cigarette butts, hardened blobs of gum. The buildings that formed the alleyway had piles of rubbish
stacked against their walls. Cardboard boxes had started rotting away from time and moisture, and
the scent they produced was unpleasant. There were delivery boxes, takeaway boxes – emblazoned
with logos for various pizza joints – and cigarette packets. Some of them had spilled free from a
dumpster, which was filled to the point of spilling its contents all over the floor. Judging from the
foul scent, a couple of the trash bags had ripped open and leaked their rotten contents everywhere.

As he made his way along the alleyway, Yoongi couldn’t help but reach up to take hold of the
collar of his jacket. He pulled it up to press his face against it, just to try and block the disgusting
smell that filled the narrow passageway. It was pointless doing so, nothing would be able to lessen
the stench that had pervaded the alleyway. It was a force of habit that he had yet to train himself to
stop doing.

The body was little more than a blackened husk. It had been burned beyond any form of
recognition. The remains of clothing were still clinging to it. Some of the artificial fabrics had
melted into the flesh, whereas the organic fabrics had burned up instantly from the flames. It was
still wearing shoes, or at least what was left of them. The leather had burned away, but the soles
had melted from the intensity of the heat. The bottoms of its feet were coated in the now-hardened
substance.

Once, the corpse had had skin. Now, it had a tough, leather-like outer layer that had been cooked
until it resembled charcoal. The skin had split open to expose layers of flesh, muscle, and fat. Raw
redness was visible between the deep cracks in its flesh. Some of the fat had melted and leaked out
of the cracks, so it was lying in a disgusting puddle of yellowish congealed fat and dirt. The smell
coming from it was rank – burnt flesh, hair and fabrics mixing with greasy fat and garbage from
the surrounding alleyway.

It kind of smelled like a barbeque … not that he would say this to anyone else. Remarking on the
strange similarity between the smell of roasted human and pig flesh was considered in bad taste.

Especially in the presence of said roasted corpse.

The only thing that left a bad taste for him was the goddamn smell. It would take hours before he
would be able to get the scent out of his lungs and off his tongue. It seemed to cling to him, until
his clothing and skin stunk. He had a feeling it was because the body hadn’t been burned by a
regular fire, it had been practically annihilated by flames created by a gifted individual. Such
flames burned far hotter than natural flames, with the potential to burn through even thick steel
beams with ease.

It had finally happened.

The first gifted serial killer.

In the relatively short time that gifted individuals had started being born, there had never been a
gifted criminal, never mind a gifted killer. Those born with gifts were detected by the far-reaching
radar of a specialist division of the government, which had been created to ensure such individuals
would receive mandatory training. This training was not only to keep them in check whilst
observing the development of potentially dangerous skills, it had also created squads. These squads
were tasked with upholding the peace and delivering swift justice to those that threatened the
public. Because of their responsibilities, they were known as ‘hero squads.’ As a result of this
mandatory training, which beat morality into its participants (literally, in their case) there had never
been a gifted criminal.

Until now.

Yoongi had been a member of the very first hero squad. He had worked side-by-side with six other
gifted individuals, who had amassed their gifts to create a powerful and well-balanced team. For
close to 20-years, they had been tasked with keeping the peace in Busan. They had been the most
respected hero squad in the country, becoming household names and popular celebrities because of
their outstanding dedication to saving innocents and punishing criminals.

And now, he was retired.

Well, he was supposed to be retired. But Namjoon kept requesting his assistance with the ongoing
murder spree, so he was technically still on the job.

Yoongi hoped that he was getting paid for this.

Considering the terrible condition that the body was in, it was difficult getting close to it. He didn’t
need to touch a dead body to make contact with it, he could do so from vast distances and through
many feet of earth and concrete. He didn’t need to see it, he could sense it. He was drawn to
corpses like a magnet was dragged towards strong metal. He had no control over it; he never had.
They attracted his attention, even if he tried to ignore them.

Such was his gift, which felt more like a curse most days.

The corpse was naked because the heat of the flames had burned its clothes to ash. Whatever
identification it had been carrying had also been burned to a crisp. The police had no idea who the
victim was. They would be unable to figure this out until they had checked dental records and
examined whatever CCTV footage they could find from the surrounding area. This was why they
needed someone with a special gift to tell them everything about the charred corpse instead. Like
its identity, and who might just have been responsible for its death.
The reason why Yoongi wanted to get close to the corpse was because he wanted to look at it. He
wanted to look right into the smoking holes that had once housed its eyes so he could properly
gloat for the brief moment he was allowed to be near it. He knew exactly who the victim was. He
felt his lips turning up into a grin as he folded his arms across his knees.

Yoo Hyungmin.

Also known as the devil himself.

“Well, well, well, look who it is,” Yoongi muttered under his breath, letting out a soft chuckle. He
pressed the back of his hand against his lower face to suppress the sound. He didn’t want it echoing
along the alleyway, lest someone hear it. “Shit, man, it’s been, what, 10 years? 10-whole-years
since I last laid eyes on your ugly face. I gotta say, you look better like this. Peel away all the skin
and you’ll see what a person’s really made from. Now you finally look like the goddamn monster
we all knew you were.”

Yoongi stopped talking for a moment as he slowly ran his gaze over the corpse in front of him. It
had its arms pulled up in front of its face. This was a sure-kill sign that Yoo had died trying to
protect himself … or to avoid looking at the person that was going to end his life in an explosion of
supercharged flames.

How ironic it was that the man that had taught them how to be strong, how to fight and protect
themselves, had died trying to protect himself in the face of certain death. In his final moments, he
had not met his death like a real man would, with his head held high because he had accepted his
fate. He had died a coward, afraid of what was to come and willing to let his attacker see how weak
that he truly was.

How ironic … and pathetic.

“I wonder how many other kids you were allowed to beat when you were done trainin’ us. Did you
break their bones too? When they were late, or when they argued back and tried to defend each
other? Or when you were just in a bad mood and you wanted to take it out on someone else?
Someone you knew couldn’t fight back because they were far weaker than you. You goddamn son
of a bitch. I wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire and look at you now. God, I used to wish that
he would burn you so bad there would be nothin’ left but a scorch mark on the ground. But this …
this is much better. It’s humiliatin’. So many people are gonna have nightmares after lookin’ at
you.”
Had it not been a crime scene, Yoongi would have spat right onto Yoo’s smoking ruin of a face.
But that was a foolish thing to do. If Namjoon found out that he had contaminated a crime scene by
desecrating a corpse, he would beat him around the head with one of his heavy case files.

No, Yoongi could wait. He would be patient and wait for Yoo’s body to go into the ground or an
urn – should someone have a wonderful sense of humour and decide to set him on fire for a second
time. Then he could spit on his grave as much as he wanted. Hell, he could piss on it, if he so
desired. If there was ever a man that deserved to have their grave pissed on, it was Yoo Hyungmin.

After giving the body another quick study, Yoongi sighed and cupped his face in his hands. The
corpse was telling him everything that he needed to know, and yet he didn’t care. Between the
constant blubbering that had been Yoo’s final words to the overwhelming negative emotions of
anguish and fear that were radiating from his remains in black energy pulses, he just didn’t care.
What he cared about was what Yoo had seen before his death.

Yoongi was the only person that would ever know the final, harrowing moments that a murder
victim had been through. Police Inspectors could piece together a crime scene with evidence and
confessions, but they couldn’t see the truth. Not the way that he could – through the eyes of the
dead.

Over his many years of inspecting corpses, Yoongi had never wanted to see their final moments
beyond morbid curiosity and professional necessity. But with the victims of this gifted serial killer,
he was desperate to know what had happened during their final moments. He hungered for them,
and none more so than Yoo Hyungmin. He had been envisioning the man’s death for many years
now. Now that he was finally looking at his mangled corpse, there was an emotional desire that
trumped the rest.

Vindication, perhaps?

Or maybe the sweet, sweet taste of justice finally being served.

With some effort, Yoongi was able to burrow deep into the energy that was radiating from Yoo’s
corpse. It took plenty of concentration, so he deeply furrowed his brow and set his jaw. It came to
him in pieces at first, quick flashes that were disjointed and unclear. But he was able to grasp hold
of the thread that was starting to develop between him and the dead body. Then he took a deep
breath and dived right in.

There he was, standing right in front of him, with his hand hovering a mere inch from his face.
The killer.

He had accosted Yoo on the street, where he had managed to frighten him into submission and
forced him to enter the alleyway with him. He hadn’t done so with physical force, like viciously
beating him and then dragging him into the darkness whilst he was weakened from the blows. All
that he had needed to do was place his hand against his lower back and roughly whisper, “Do you
remember me, you bastard?”

Yoo had just returned from some night fishing on the nearby lake, where he had managed to secure
quite a sizable trout. But the police wouldn’t know this. The killer had not only murdered him, he
had destroyed his fishing rod and cooler in a fit of fiery rage. It hadn’t been enough to kill the other
man, he had needed to destroy his personal belongings too. It was personal, it was a crime with
great motivation. He had been stalking Yoo for a long time to learn the perfect time to strike. And
tonight, he had finally taken the plunge and attacked him.

The final thing that Yoo had seen before his body had been turned into a bonfire was the face of
his killer standing over him. They had stared right into each other’s eyes when it had happened.
From beneath the shadows that his massive hood produced, Yoongi could see the killer’s face,
illuminated by the white-hot flames that were licking over the back of his dripping-wet hand.

Those eyes.

Those eyes, burning with an intensity so strong that it would be possible to believe he could set a
man aflame without even needing to touch him.

Those eyes, filled with venomous hatred and yet something else too.

Fear, so much fear.

Yoongi snapped the thread between him and Yoo because he had discovered all that he needed to
know. There was nothing else to discover; his job was done. He could report back to Namjoon and
then get the hell out of here. The stink of cooked flesh was starting to get to him, and he longed to
be free from it. He would have loved to spend time gloating over his corpse, but he was tired. He
didn’t believe that the man deserved an ounce of his energy. He owed Yoo nothing, except for a
hard kick to the teeth. Should he kick him now, his face would probably crumple into ash and blow
away in the wind.
When he emerged from the alleyway, he saw that Namjoon was standing nearby. He was busy
talking to another inspector, who had a tablet in hand that he was rapidly typing on. Yoongi studied
him for a moment, and then he moved to put some distance between him and the dead body. He
wanted to find a quiet spot, far from the annoying press and the other police officers. Only then
would he talk to Namjoon, when he knew it was safe and he could speak without hesitation.

After finding a quiet spot, he reached into his jacket pocket to collect his crumpled packet of
cigarettes. It was almost empty, but there were still a couple of sticks inside. He slipped one free
with his teeth and sparked a light to set the end alight. It seemed a little inappropriate to smoke in
the presence of a charred corpse. Yoongi could sense a couple of police officers watching him
from a nearby barricade. They looked to be muttering about him. They might just recognise him, or
they might be discussing how disrespectful they thought he was. But he didn’t care what they
thought about him. He didn’t give a damn about the thoughts and opinions of people that he would
never see again. They were irrelevant to him. Let them talk shit about him, it didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered in the end.

Death made all men equal.

Yoongi had been savouring his cigarette for just a couple of minutes when Namjoon appeared. As
he approached him, he removed the latex gloves. He snapped them free and shoved them into his
coat pocket. “What do you think, Nekyia? Is it the same perp?”

“Don’t call me that – that ain’t my name anymore,” Yoongi muttered around his cigarette. He gave
him a sideways glare and then dropped his gaze to stare down at his battered boots. “That ain’t
been my name for a while now, Captain.”

For some reason, this made Namjoon chuckle. The sound caught Yoongi by surprise because he
hadn’t been expecting such a reaction. He glanced up at him as he listened to his laugh, his brow
twitching with uncertainty.

It felt like years since he had last heard the other man laugh. Had it really been that long? Had
things really gotten that cold and distant between them all that he hadn’t heard Namjoon laugh in
such a long time? He had always had a serious nature, even when they had been children. But he
had still been quick to laugh and hard to anger. Time changed all things, but for some reason,
Yoongi was struggling to accept this truth.
Namjoon’s face was starting to show signs of age. It was still subtle, but the fine lines that were
starting to settle into his brow and around the corners of his eyes were noticeable. They were more
pronounced than Seokjin’s wrinkles, despite the fact he was a couple of years younger than him.
Stress was a bitch on the skin, and Namjoon had had a hard life thus far. After close to two decades
spent leading their squad, it was a damn miracle he didn’t have a face lined like a roadmap and a
head full of grey hairs by now.

Or maybe Seokjin looked younger because of cosmetic surgery? He had always been vain like that,
so it wouldn’t surprise him if he had injected all kinds of toxic chemicals into his face. He had
used to stress the importance of looking good for not only the public, but for the cameras that had
followed them everywhere.

According to Seokjin, a hero should always look the part, no matter what gruelling trials they had
just been put through. Even if they had broken bones, they should smile through the pain in order
to bring comfort and relief. No one wanted to see a hero crumbling away at the edges. Heroes
weren’t supposed to bleed, and cry, and suffer – they were supposed to serve and protect, all whilst
looking good.

Hell, Yoongi wouldn’t even be shocked to discover that Seokjin was warping time and space to
reverse the effect of ageing on his skin. It seemed like something he would do without regrets.

“Alright, then what do you think, Yoongi? Is it the same perp? My instincts are telling me that it
is. After studying the crime scene, I can say that I’m 98% positive that the victim was attacked by
the same killer as the previous three victims. I’m leaving 2% for standard variables, they are
common and hard to predict.”

“Same perp.”

“Was the victim able to communicate with the killer? Did they hear anything, see anything that can
help us identify them?”

“He didn’t see his attacker.” The lie left Yoongi’s lips with startling ease. No one would be able to
tell that he was being dishonest, except for a mind reader. Unfortunately for Namjoon, his gifted
brain could do many things, but it could not read the thoughts of others.

“So, you’re telling me that yet another one of the victims didn’t see the killer? They were all killed
without seeing their face?”
“What d’you want me to do? Lie? I told you what I know. He didn’t see his attacker, so I dunno
who killed him. He was attacked from behind, he died within seconds of bein’ set on fire. Only
cowards attack from behind. Our killer’s a little pathetic, if you ask me.”

“I am asking you, and I’m asking you to give me something here, Yoongi. This one is bad, it’s the
worst attack so far in the killer’s spree. This is the fourth victim this year, and they’re showing no
signs of stopping. With this murder, we’re officially looking at a serial killer. Please tell me that
you have something, even if it’s just their identity?”

“… It’s Yoo.”

“Yoo Hyungmin.” There was something in Namjoon’s tone that revealed he wasn’t asking, he was
stating. He didn’t need any clarification, just the clan name alone was enough for him to figure out
who the victim was. His voice was surprisingly steady when he said the other man’s name, but
Yoongi could sense that he was uncomfortable. His hands were shoved inside his coat pockets, but
he had a feeling they had just given a weak tremble. It was impossible to not tremble thinking
about their old trainer, no matter how many years it had been since they had crossed paths with
him. “… Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Nope, it’s the devil man.”

Namjoon took a deep breath and then let it out in an unsteady sigh. He shifted to lean back against
the store shutter behind them. It creaked from his weight. He thought this over for a moment, and
then he turned his head to look at him. “That’s all you got?”

“Yoo liked to go fishin’ at night. He was returnin’ to his home after such an outin’ when the killer
got the jump on him. He was dead in seconds, he died screamin’ with piss-soaked pants.” Yoongi
held his gaze without blinking. He had always been good at bullshitting, but he couldn’t help but
wonder how much of it his old squad mate was buying.

Did Namjoon know that he was lying through his teeth, or did he trust him too much to know the
truth?

“Anything else?”

“Mmm, just one thing. You should send some of your men up there.” Yoongi lifted his hand to
gesture at a towering apartment block that was visible above the tops of the buildings. “Room 431.
The elderly lady that lived there passed away last night. You should collect her body, before her
cats decide to make her face their midnight snack. Bring the cats to me, I’ll gladly take them off
your hands.”

Namjoon followed his gesture to look up at the building, and then he softly muttered something
under his breath. Yoongi didn’t catch everything that he said, but it sounded like he was cursing
him. He couldn’t help but smirk from behind his fingers as he reached up to slip his cigarette from
his lips. The inspector turned on his heel to walk down the street towards the nearby police
officers, leaving him alone at long last.

Finding out that one had a gift was not always a simple thing. For some, it was obvious from birth.
Some gifts manifested with ease, their effects impossible to mistake for anything else. Other gifts
could take time to develop and appear. In certain cases, gifts were so unique that they were difficult
for normal civilians to understand. Especially when the gifted individual was just a child.

For Yoongi, he had been aware of his gift for some time before anyone had believed him. Back
when he had been a young child, his gift had been brushed off as the actions of a little boy with a
wild – if not morbid – sense of imagination. He had been making up imaginary friends, or he had
wanted attention, so he had told grand tales in order to get others to listen to him. There were no
such things as ghosts and so he couldn’t possibly have been talking to them. Which was true – there
really were no such things as ghosts.

But Yoongi hadn’t been talking to ghosts.

He had been talking to corpses.

Necromancy – the ability to communicate with the dead. This was the gift that he had been born
with. He often thought it was a curse, rather than a gift. It had never brought him any joy, but it had
brought him plenty of misery over the years. Whenever someone called his affliction a gift, it felt
like they were spitting in his face.

Yoongi was unable to communicate with the dead the way that many assumed. He couldn’t
summon them to him, like bringing forth spirits of the departed in order to converse with them.
Hell, he could barely even talk to them. It was pretty much a one-way conversation – with the dead
doing all the talking.
In order to communicate with the dead, he needed to be in the presence of a corpse. As he had
grown older, his gift had grown stronger and allowed him to make contact with the dead from quite
the distance. But when he had been just a child, he had needed to be within the immediate presence
of a dead body.

Little did those adults and children know, but every single time he had told them about the ghost
that was talking to him … they had been standing right above some unmarked grave.

Which was a particularly terrifying revelation to have when standing in a children’s playground.

Yoongi didn’t think of his gift as a curse for no reason. Many might assume that having contact
with the dead was unpleasant because it was depressing, which would explain his dislike of his
gift. But there was nothing depressing about having contact with the dead.

From a young age, Yoongi had known that everyone died. He had accepted this fact without once
feeling fear because children were very receptive to honesty and truth. There was nothing sad about
being up close and personal with death because it was a natural event. If anything, he found it
strange that so many people were frightened by death and dying, so much so that they refused to
even be in the presence of the dead body of a loved one.

When he had been just 5-years-old, Yoongi had made a discovery that had changed his life forever.
The discovery had been the first serious mistake that he had ever made, and it had been the start of
the curse that had been his existence.

Yoongi had been born into a loving family, with happily married parents and a brother four years
older than him – Honggi. He had been very close to his mother, who had let him help her with the
cooking in the kitchen. Cooking had become a lifelong love of his, and he had her to thank for his
talent in the kitchen. He hadn’t been very close to his father, who had spent most of the day
working and had rarely made it home in time for dinner. But the one time that he had gotten to
bond with his father had been during trips to the countryside. Once a month, his father had used to
fill their car with camping goods to take Yoongi and Honggi to the countryside, where they had
fished, stargazed, and hiked through the hilly plains.

One day, whilst his father and brother had been busy fishing, Yoongi had decided to wander off.
He had gone for a little walk along the bank beside the brook, in search of things that would hold
his fascination. Like some pretty flowers or maybe a cool bug. He had liked bringing flowers home
to give to his mother, though they had always been withered and ugly by the time he had been able
to present them to her. Back then, he had probably been hoping to find some magical flower that
would never wither away.
But the thing that he had discovered had not been a magical flower. It was along the bank, hidden
beneath a mound of freshly turned earth and rocks, that he had made contact with a dead body.

The dead body of a young woman, who had been missing for several weeks and had yet to be
discovered – Ryu Minah.

The dead body of a young woman that had been bound and gagged and stabbed over and over.
Who had been left to die in the same spot where they liked to set up their campfire and tents.

Yoongi had stood there, rooted to the spot, transfixed by brutal images of sadistic and sexual
violence that he had never seen before. He had stored it all up inside his mind, and he had bided his
time, waiting for the perfect moment. He had fretted over it, fearful that no one would believe him
and would claim that he was making up stories again. His mother might have gotten angry with
him for saying such horrible things about a poor lady, whose family had been distraught and
desperate for her to come back home. He might have gotten spanked on the butt by his father for
his naughty behaviour, which was something that had always made him cry like a big baby.

Two nights later, when they had been back home enjoying a tasty dinner of fresh fish that Honggi
had managed to catch, Yoongi had looked his father right in the eyes and had asked him why he
had stabbed poor Minah in the belly with his hunting knife.

Yoongi only knew what had happened that night because he had managed to get his hands on the
police report many years later. He had gotten the report through less than legal means, but a certain
somebody in the department had owed him a huge favour and had found a way to slip it out of the
files and into his hands.

He had what his therapist described as ‘repressed memories.’ Apparently, this meant that he was
unable to remember what had happened because his conscious mind had forced the trauma into his
unconscious mind to make sure he would never think about it ever again. He didn’t know how his
mind had done this, but it seemed that the hard blow to the head he had suffered might have
contributed to his inability to remember anything. Brain damage went hand-in-hand with memory
loss. Considering what had happened to him that night, it was a damn miracle that he hadn’t lost
more than just a single evening of memories.

That night, his parents had gotten into an argument, which had rapidly spiralled out of control.
Yoongi had frightened his mother with his graphic and disturbing description, and she had become
hysterical. She had hounded his father for answers and had threatened to call the police to report
what their son had said in a moment of panic. This had been a mistake, a mistake that had cost her
life.
Whilst she had been distracted trying to shepherd both Yoongi and Honggi out of the kitchen, his
father had slipped one of the knives out of the chopping block across the floor. He had taken the
knife, with its six-inch Japanese steel blade, and he had plunged it right into his mother’s back.

Somehow, against all odds, his mother hadn’t died from the blow. It had taken 32 stab wounds to
her back, shoulders, stomach, and chest before she had finally died. And the entire time that it had
happened, she had been curled up over Yoongi, using her body as a shield to protect him from
harm. She had taken stab after stab, but she had refused to let him out of her arms because she had
known that her husband would have killed him.

Honggi had tried to escape to call for help. He had managed to get out of the kitchen and entryway
through the front door. But their father had caught him on the front lawn and dragged him back
inside the house. According to the police report, he had suffered from grievous neck injuries
consistent with being throttled. Several vertebrae in his neck had been snapped like twigs. He had
suffered a terrifying and likely agonising death. But in his attempt to escape the house, Honggi had
made enough noise to alert their neighbours to the attack, and they had come running.

They had arrived just in time to save Yoongi. His father had managed to pry his dying mother off
him, and he had delivered a stomp to his unprotected skull that had been so hard it had cracked it in
parts like the feeble shell of an egg.

It had taken four neighbours to drag his father away and pin him down onto the kitchen floor whilst
another neighbour had called the police. The men and women had taken turns stomping on his
arms and head as they had screamed bloody curses at him, calling him a psycho, a monster, an evil
son of a bitch. They had even spat on him. One man, who had been very kind to Yoongi and
Honggi and had often let them play in their big garden with his twin daughters, had threatened to
kill him with such resolve that he had needed to be restrained too.

By the time the police had arrived, his mother and brother were dead. They had shoved his father
into the back of a police car, bruised and bleeding. Yoongi didn’t know this, but several of the first
responders had suffered breakdowns that night. Men and women that had served the force for
decades had broken down into tears and had needed to seek counselling to handle the brutal
nightmare that they had discovered in the kitchen of his family home.

The blow to the head had fractured his skull. Fragments of bone had gotten lodged into his brain,
but none of them had sunk deep enough to cause severe damage beyond memory loss, insomnia,
and frequent bouts of mental instability. But hey, on the plus side, at least he could talk and walk
like a normal person.
Yoongi had been bed-bound for months, then confined to a wheelchair, and then finally able to
walk again. It had taken him a whole year to recover from the assault physically. Mentally, he had
yet to recover, and he doubted that he ever would. Some things were too traumatic to recover from,
he knew this to be true.

Every month, he liked to visit his father in the maximum-security facility he was being held in just
outside the city. There, he was allowed to talk to him through a plexiglass screen and receiver.

Sometimes, his father refused to pick up the receiver to listen to him. But he never refused to see
him. Even if it meant they would spend the whole visitation just glaring at one another through the
sheet of reinforced glass, he was too proud to say no. To say ‘no’ would show Yoongi that he was
intimidated by – or even frightened of – him. He couldn’t let him know that he dreaded seeing him,
so he forced himself to withstand each visitation for the sake of his goddamn pride.

Yoongi relished every single second that he had with his father because he got to watch him squirm
as he told him all about the wife and son that he had murdered in a fit of rage. He could talk for
days and days, had he the time. His mother and brother had so many things to say to him, even
now, 31-years after their deaths. Whenever he touched the earth above their graves, they would
scream, and scream, and scream until he just couldn’t stand listening to them anymore.

Yoongi wanted him to hear those screams too. He wanted him to hear their anguished, hate-filled
words leaving his snarling lips over and over. Until they got under his skin and he wanted to
scratch at it until he drew blood.

He always liked to remind his father that he couldn’t kill himself. If he killed himself, he would
request ownership of his remains. He wouldn’t be able to escape his torment, not even in death. He
would touch his urn every single day, just to remind him that he was a piece of shit that didn’t even
deserve to be called a human.

Of course, Yoongi couldn’t talk to the dead, not exactly. But his father didn’t know this. He was
exploiting his ignorance for his own gain, and it felt great knowing that he had so much power
over him.

That night, Yoongi had solved his first murder. This had put him on the radar of a certain
organisation that worked on behalf of the government, who had wanted to know more about the
traumatised kid that could communicate with the dead.

Through many visits from a kind and soft-spoken lady, Yoongi had found himself being placed in a
special facility. In this facility, which she had described as being like a school, he would meet other
children that were just like him. Gifted children. They would learn all about cool things and train to
be just like superheroes, as they had gifts that made them special. The Academy would help
Yoongi become all that he could be – a hero that would save innocent people. No one had been
able to save his mother and brother that night, but with heroes around, no one would ever be able to
do the horrible things that his father had done. At just 6-years of age, Yoongi had been officially
enrolled in The Academy, where he would remain for the next 10-years before his hero squad was
unleashed on the world.

And it was there that things got worse.

So much worse.

Though he never liked hanging around the crime scene, Yoongi was unable to leave just yet. He
needed to wait for someone to bring the cats to him. The two cats that had been left alone in the
apartment room across the block because their elderly owner had passed during the night – the
result of a long and slow bout of cancer that she had never told a single soul about. This left him
with no choice but to loiter around the police line. He was filled with impatience and a burning
want to hurry up and leave before someone recognised him.

Now, Yoongi didn’t need to wait for the two cats. He could easily message Namjoon to tell him
that he needed to go. He could offer to come and collect them from the station in the morning, or
just tell him to place them in a shelter instead. It probably would be for the best to turn down his
offer of taking them home with him because he already had quite the number of cats. But he
couldn’t help himself. He had seen the two cats when he had made contact with their owner’s
remains. Hyejin had good tastes in felines, for she had two exquisitely beautiful Siamese cats, with
sharp, angular faces and delicate bones that made them look regal. He had seen them through her
eyes, snuggling her feet at the end of her bed, and he knew for a fact that they were well-trained
and sweet cats.

Yoongi didn’t have a single Siamese cat. He had plenty of moggies and a couple of breeds, such as
shorthairs, bobtails and folds. But he didn’t have a Siamese. If he was patient and stayed for just a
little longer, he would have two.

Two Siamese cats …

Was it a special day today? Was it his birthday, maybe Christmas?

Yoongi’s cat collecting habit was a recent development, born from his overwhelming sense of
loneliness and longing for physical contact of some kind. Humans had a bad habit of talking and
asking questions, which he didn’t have the time nor strength to deal with most days. Dogs were too
much; they were loud and boisterous. They were too similar to humans for his liking.

But cats … cats were it.

Cats had just the right amount of energy and independence to mean that he didn’t need to worry too
much about them. They liked having their own space, but they were more than happy to cosy up
against his side and settle down on his lap when the mood hit them. They provided him with that
sot and warm physical contact that he so desperately craved, with none of the negatives. Save for
the smell … they could create quite the stink.

It had started a couple of years ago, when he had stumbled upon a cat that had been abandoned
after their owner had died in a sudden accident. The poor thing had been wary of him, and he
hadn’t been able to give it a single stroke because it had fled the very second that he had tried to
draw closer to it. He had managed to capture it in a cage after a few days of visiting the area and
leaving food for it. At the time, he had done so in order to bring it into a shelter of some kind, one
that could get it off the streets and out of harm’s way. Stray cats were seen as a pest to many, so
they often ended up beneath the wheels of cars or dead in alleys after being fed food laced with
poison.

Of course, it took time to find a good shelter. So, Yoongi had taken the cat back to his home in
order to keep an eye on it for a few days. At first, he had called it ‘cat’ in order to not get too
attached to it. But then the urge to call it something else had struck because the little thing had had
a personality. He had called it ‘Jeonsa,’ as even though it had been a scrawny thing, it had been
scrappy and a fighter.

Jeonsa had been the first: a shorthair tomcat with a round face with fat cheeks, cream fur, and big
orange eyes. He had told himself that he would have no need for another cat, seeing as Jeonsa was
more than enough to handle. He was fat, lazy, and prone to waking him up in the middle of the
night by sitting on his chest and heavily panting on his face. Why ever would he want another one
if there was a risk that it might be as strange as the one he already had?

But then it had happened again, and again, and again.

Now, Yoongi’s home contained not one, not two, not even three, but 29 cats. When he returned
home tonight, there would be 31 cats.

This habit had gotten a little out of hand …

Obviously, Yoongi was starting to run out of inventive names for them at this point. Luckily for
him, a lot of them had been wearing collars when he had retrieved them, so he just stuck to calling
them by the names their owners had selected for them. Some were simple enough; others were
pretty humorous. For example, one particularly fat cat had been called ‘Ppangi’ because she looked
like a loaf of freshly baked bread whenever she lay down. Hopefully, the two cats that he would be
taking home with him tonight already had names. Or else he was going to have to start making up
nonsense names again. He already had a Mimi, Momi, and Mini – all litter-mates – and Dodo,
Didi, and Dabi. He was strongly considering going for Pip and Pop for the next two names.

In the time he had been loitering around the crime scene, his cigarette had burned up to near
nothing. He hadn’t really been smoking it. It had been dangling between his lips for some time
now, the cherry slowly eating away the length of the shaft. He had been so busy observing the
ongoing police activity to pay it much attention, but he had been inhaling the thin smoke that had
been curling up from the end.

Yoongi had settled on waiting across the street from where the body was situated. He could see
right down the alleyway from his position. He was engrossed by the CSI squad, who were busy
tagging the limited evidence they had recovered from the scene. An inspector was busy making a
detailed report of all the evidence, which had been photographed, logged, recovered, and bagged.
The squad had already swept the surrounding area to recover evidence long before he had been
allowed to view the corpse. This meant they would be ready to leave soon. They would analyse the
evidence and likely come up with nothing useful, just like they had been unable to find anything at
the previous three crime scenes.

The report wasn’t going to be very long, considering the limited evidence that would have been left
behind. The killer’s gift produced a heat of such intensity that it burned up a lot of trace evidence
that could be discovered around the body, such as hair and fibres. If they were lucky, they might
have been able to find a shoe print. Or a single smudge of a fingerprint on one of the alleyway
walls, should they have been a little careless.

But they wouldn’t. The killer was too smart to be so careless. They knew all about crime and
criminal investigation because they clearly had personal experience with it. They were using all
their skills and knowledge to cover their tracks, and they were doing so fantastically. The police
were used to dealing with normal human criminals, not gifted ones. They had no experience to
draw from, so they were struggling with the task of apprehending them because they were simply
outmatched right now.
Well, Namjoon was there to even the odds. It was taking him a little while to figure it out, but it
was only a matter of time. The killer was running on borrowed time, and they might finally catch
up to them soon.

Hopefully, they got to take out a couple more bastards first.

There was a sudden shift in the atmosphere from somewhere close-by. It was a strong, static
crackle that made his skin prickle with goosebumps, a little like frisson. As it started to spread out
through the air, it made a sound that always reminded him of a thunderstorm. It was low rather
than loud and strong – a series of dry cracks that was similar to the tumultuous sound of thunder
rolling across the skies. It mingled with the soft sound of the misty drizzle that was still coming
down, the rain pattering against the slick pavement and tarmac and bouncing off the hoods of the
many squad cars that were parked around the crime scene. It was a sensation that Yoongi was
more than used to after such a long time, and he knew what it meant.

A certain someone had just decided to show up.

“What’re you doin’ here?” he asked without even looking over at them.

“I was in the area; thought I’d stop by and see how things are going.”

“Yeah, well, the show’s over now,” Yoongi muttered from around his cigarette. “Go home, Koo.
There ain’t nothin’ to see here.”

“No, I think I got here just in time.”

Jungkook stepped out of the shadowy entrance of the alleyway a few feet to his left. The sound of
their rustling clothing was loud, and it was followed by the soft thumping of their boot soles
connecting with the flagstones as they drew closer to him. They made sure to keep their distance;
they knew him well enough by now to know that he wasn’t too fond of others intruding on his
personal space.

Yoongi spared a quick glance over at them as he reached up to get his cigarette between his
fingers. Jungkook looked the same as always. It was strange looking at them now and thinking of
them as an adult because he still saw a kid. The fact they hadn’t aged too much certainly helped
maintain the illusion that they were still a teenager. Their features had broadened over the years,
but their large eyes and nose still created the impression of youthful softness.
It appeared that Jungkook had only just hit the streets, judging from their dry hair and clothing.
They had tied their hair up, which was often left to hang free around their jawline and shoulders in
a tousled curtain. It wasn’t quite a bun or a ponytail but was caught between the two. Locks of
black hair stuck up in parts from the crown of their head, and more messy locks hung forward over
their face. They were wearing an oversized, dark-grey t-shirt that was long enough to skirt around
their knees, which had been paired with a pair of black tactical pants that had many pockets and
straps. A pair of leather boots with thick soles and a large jacket that had no shape to it completed
the look. The black wool jacket was cast over their shoulders. It somehow managed to look like
both a shawl and a duster coat.

Jungkook had always had a strange sense of fashion. If anything, it had just matured over the years
to become a little more sophisticated, rather than normal.

As they shifted to lean back against the brick wall, Jungkook gave their hands a quick shake.
Wisps of a dark substance that resembled smoke wafted from the tips of their fingers. But it wasn’t
smoke.

It was shadows.

Jungkook’s gift was a powerful gift, one that Yoongi had envied ever since he had been introduced
to them. Jungkook had been a mere baby then, just a year old and barely able to walk. But they had
been moving from shadow to shadow with an ease that had been both amazing and terrifying to
witness. They had been shadow-walking before they had even been able to crawl, which had
terrified their mother to her core and forced her to give them up for adoption. The poor girl had
been a teenage mother, unwed and unprepared to handle the burden of an immensely gifted child.

Back then, children born with gifts had been rare. Most civilians had not even heard about such
things. As a result, many children had been orphaned, abused and even killed by their parents, who
had been frightened of the strange creatures they had somehow produced.

Creatures like Namjoon, who had a brain that could process and store memory and knowledge that
went far beyond the ability of a normal human brain.

Creatures like Jungkook, who could step into shadows and materialise wherever they desired,
whenever they desired.

Creatures like Yoongi, who could communicate with the dead and yet were barely able to
communicate with the living.

Rather than fall into the deep cracks in the social welfare system or get adopted by an
understanding family, Jungkook had been scouted by The Academy. This was how they had ended
up joining their squad. Their gift had been a great advantage for them, and in a way, Jungkook had
become the most valued member of their squad. They might have been the youngest, but their
skills had been stronger than all of them combined.

Except for Jimin.

No one was stronger than Jimin.

Shadow-walking was a gift with a name that explained it all. There was no hidden meaning –
Jungkook could walk through shadows. ‘Walk’ might confuse some because it seemed to explain
that they just walked into shadows and disappeared. This wasn’t true. Jungkook could
dematerialise their body in order to become one with the shadows, which they used like a goddamn
subway system to travel around the city. They could move from place to place in the matter of
seconds, so long as it was a place that they knew well. They couldn’t transport themselves into
unknown places, like new cities or different countries. Somehow, Jungkook’s body was able to
treat shadows like matter, even when shadows had no physical substance.

Yoongi didn’t understand how it worked. He didn’t even know how his own gift worked. He just
liked to brush it off as some quantum mechanics bullshit and leave it at that, no questions asked.

Oh, how Yoongi wished that he had been born with such a gift. The ability to just slip into the
shadows and disappear without a word was a gift that certainly came in handy for someone like
him, who was prone to opening his big mouth at the wrong time. The number of awkward
situations that he could have simply refused to be a part of …

Truly, Jungkook had been blessed with their gift. Because of their talent with shadows, they had
been given the title ‘Umbra.’ Not that any of them had called them it, save for when they had been
out in the field on duty. Jungkook had always been ‘Koo’ to them, and they always would be.

“If you’re after Inspector Kim, he’s on the scene … somewhere. I dunno, he might’ve left by now.
He was pissed off, big time.”

“Why was he pissed off? What did you do this time?”

Yoongi was quick to retort, “‘Cos he expected me to pull a rabbit outta my arse.”

For a few seconds, Jungkook just stared at him. But then something came over their face. It started
at the corners of their lips, which twitched a couple of times before curling up into a grin. Then the
edges of their eyes, which deeply crinkled in response to their smile. As they let out a soft chuckle,
they folded their arms over their chest and crossed one booted foot over the other. They were
leaning back against the wall in a comfortable slouch. It was easy to believe that they might just
dissolve straight through the bricks, just like they moved through shadows. “Still nothing?”

“Still nothin’. The dead guy didn’t see his attacker. He was burned to a crisp in seconds, he didn’t
even see it comin’. I told Inspector Kim that, but he wasn’t exactly willin’ to accept it. He was
expectin’ me to have somethin’ more for him, like a name or a face. Maybe a location they should
search to try and find more evidence. But it’s like I said, I got nothin’.”

“They’re really something else, huh?”

“Well, they’re the first gifted serial killer, Koo. Of course they ain’t gonna be like anythin’ else
we’ve even seen before. They’re the first of their kind.”

“I still can’t believe that the killer has gifts,” Jungkook remarked, as they started gently bobbing
their foot back and forth. “I’ve met some pretty unpleasant heroes over the years, some real
bastards for sure. But I’ve never met one that I thought was capable of becoming a cold-blooded
killer.”

“What makes you think they’re a cold-blooded killer?”

“Do you think that someone could kill four men and still have the ability to feel remorse?” they
asked in return, turning their head to give him a quick study. “If they felt remorse, surely they
would’ve stopped after the first kill?”

“Pft, you still dunno a thing about murder, Koo,” Yoongi said with a dry chuckle, as he reached up
to slip his cigarette free from his lips. He stuck his tongue out to wet them, feeling chapped skin. It
was the result of his anxious picking and nibbling. He had yet to grow out of the habit like he had
defeated his nail-biting habit.

“I always thought that was a good thing.” Jungkook cracked another grin before gesturing at his
hand. “Hey, you got a spare cigarette? I left mine in my place … over in Jung-gu.”

“Mmm, sure.” Yoongi retrieved his packet of cigarettes and thumbed them open. He held them out
to them in offering, so Jungkook slipped one of them free. Before slipping it between their lips,
they gave the stick a quick rub between their fingers to make sure the tobacco wasn’t packed too
close to the end. “Well, a murderer can feel remorse and still kill. Shit, there’s been killers that
have turned themselves in because they couldn’t handle the guilt that came with their crimes. This
killer might feel remorse for their actions, but they can’t stop themselves from killin’ because
they’re actin’ on compulsions. … Or maybe they’ve got motivation of some kind for the kills?”

“I see …” Jungkook made a soft sound under their breath as they continued rolling the cigarette
between their fingers. They were glancing off across the street so they could observe the CSI
squad. The glow from a nearby streetlight cast over their unique, black eyes, made them gleam like
liquid tar in a way that was simply captivating. “Did Captain teach you that? Or did you learn it on
your own?”

“On my own. What can I say, I got a natural fascination with death.”

This little quip made Jungkook snort laughter from the corner of their lips, which ruffled a stray
lock of hair that was hanging forward over their brow. The sound made Yoongi’s lips twitch up
into something close to a smile before his expression turned stoic once more. He was far too
focused on watching the squad too. They had just brought the body bag in so they could bag up
Yoo’s charred corpse and remove it from the scene.

“… Have you seen Mascot recently?” Jungkook asked out of the blue. Their voice was calm and
steady as they asked this question, which revealed they weren’t nervous. Their fingers were just as
steady as they brought their cigarette up to meet the smouldering cherry of Yoongi’s cigarette.
They took a quick inhale to get the cigarette burning and then continued, “We all know that there
was something between you. Not intimately speaking, I’m not saying you were intimate.”

Yeah, we fuckin’ were.

“But something happened between you, back when we were still kids.” Jungkook shifted to lean
back against the wall as they breathed the first drag free from their nose. They turned their head to
look right at him, squinting at him through the thin waft of smoke.

Rather than hold their eyes, Yoongi kept his gaze focused across the street. They were starting to
move the corpse now, so things were getting fun. Last time they had moved the dead body, it had
fallen apart when two forensic officers had lifted it up. The sight of the blackened husk splitting in
two had made one of them let out a shrill yelp of shock and horror, which had tickled him
immensely.

Yoongi knew that it was in bad taste to laugh … but goddamn, it had been funny. The son of a
bitch had been wheeled into the back of the forensics van in pieces. He only wished more of him
had broken off from the impact of hitting the ground.

Oh Dalsu – one of three men that had once been their bodyguards. The two other men, Kim
Woojin and Choi Daeyeon, had been the first two victims.

The scummy bastards deserved it. They might not have beaten them as much as Yoo Hyungmin,
who had been in charge of their physical education. But they had suffered under their combined
emotional, mental, and physical abuse for years – even after they had finished their training and
had been allowed to leave The Academy. The three of them had stalked them from a distance to
make sure they didn’t cause any trouble. Trouble had included dating normal girls (they had never
considered the risks of them dating boys, which never failed to amuse Yoongi) being seen in public
without appropriate facial coverings to hide their identities, and eating food that was deemed bad
for their health. They had kept them isolated from society, they had restricted their diets until some
of them had started losing hair from the lack of nutrients and stress, and they had beaten them if
they had acted in a way that they had disapproved of.

It had taken Yoongi years to recover from their abuse. Even now, he had moments of intense
paranoia that he was being stalked from the shadows and that one of them would pounce out and
start beating him with a bamboo cane. Sometimes, the paranoia got so bad that he would start
sweating, and his heart would pound in his chest so hard that it started to hurt. They had left a
lingering presence behind that still haunted him to this day, despite the fact they were all dead.

Was it bad that he thought the three of them had deserved to die an agonising death for their
actions?

Perhaps.

But those that might judge him hadn’t experienced a decade’s worth of isolation and repression at
the hands of three arseholes that had been more than keen to dish out physical beatings. And public
humiliation too. Oh boy, had they enjoyed humiliating them in front of each other. Usually, the
humiliation had involved nudity – regardless of their age.

None of them had hated this form of humiliation more than Hoseok. Especially when they had
become teenagers and had started maturing. Being made to expose parts of his body that he hadn’t
even wanted, that he had been uncomfortable enough to hide under layers of restrictive bandages
and loose-fitting clothes.

Fuck them.

Fuck every single one of them.

Yoongi knew that hell wasn’t real, and he relished this fact. He knew that what lay in wait for
them was a fate far worse than brimstone and hellfire.

He was waiting for them.

They couldn’t stop him from visiting their graves and gloating over their crispy, burned remains.
They had no power anymore; they were his victims now. He had control over them at long last, and
it felt so-fucking-good.

Sadly, Yoo’s body didn’t fall apart when it was lifted up and placed inside the body bag. Yoongi
let out a soft and disappointed tsk from the corner of his mouth as he hovered his cigarette in front
of his lips.

“It’s just … I haven’t seen him in a long time,” Jungkook continued in a soft voice. “Mascot could
barely go a day without seeing me, or Hope, or Ace. I spoke to Ace a few days ago, and he said
that he hadn’t seen him either. Apparently, he hasn’t seen him once since the night he was released
from hospital. That’s not right. He and Ace were inseparable. Something must have happened to
him.”

“Why’re you askin’ about Jimin at a time like this, huh?”

“No reason, really. This is the first time I’ve seen you in almost a year, so I thought it was best to
ask. I don’t know what you’ve been up to, other than helping Captain with this ongoing case. I just
thought that if anyone would’ve seen Mascot, it would’ve been you. Even if only for a short time,
I’m sure he would’ve contacted you. Has he?”

“… Not really.”
“But he has contacted you?”

Yoongi just grunted in response to this question rather than speak. He slipped his cigarette back
between his lips so he could shove his hands into his jacket pockets. He brought his shoulders up in
a comfortable hunch as he watched the squad wheeling Yoo’s body bag out of the alleyway at long
last. He didn’t really know what to say, he just knew that he wanted to stop talking about this
particular subject.

Jungkook dwelled on this cryptic response for a moment, and then they made a soft noise under
their breath. “Have you been busy?”

“Define ‘busy.’”

“Ah, so you’re still telling everyone that you’re retired? You know, you could really start
something with your gift, Nekyia. I’ve been thinking it over, and I think that you would make a
good private detective. You wouldn’t have to worry about working with others, you could have
your own agency and do it all on your own. Do you know how many kids go missing every year in
this country? Last I checked, it was over 4,000. Most of them are discovered, but there are those
that aren’t. So many families never find their children because the police never discover their
bodies. Sounds like something that you would excel in. Right?”

“I’m retired, Koo. I’m too old for this hero shit.”

“You’re 36, you’re not even close to being old.”

“Yeah, well, I feel old. I feel fuckin’ ancient. Bein’ dragged into this crap is makin’ me feel
worse.” Yoongi let his breath out in a heavy sigh, breathing smoke out of his lips. It floated around
his face for a moment before a sudden breeze dragged it away.

“Then why didn’t you say no?” Jungkook raised their eyebrows. The movement caused the stray
locks of hair hanging over their brow to shift.

“… ‘Cos I wanted to see if he got another one,” he muttered.

“He? You think the killer’s a man?”

“It was an educated guess. Women rarely go on murder sprees. Especially sprees as violent as this
one. They don’t tend to think about all the people they can abuse when they realise they have
power, they tend to want to help others. Men, on the other hand … So, yeah, I think the killer’s a
man. I ain’t the only one, I’ll bet the criminal profile will say he’s a man too.”

Yoongi realised that he was babbling, so he forced himself to stop talking. He collected his
cigarette and gave it a quick study. There was little more than a stub left, so he tossed it aside. It
landed in a puddle that had formed in a crack in the pavement.

“Who was it this time?”

“Yoo Hyungmin.”

“Oh … him.” Something passed over Jungkook’s face before they managed to get themselves
under control. It was just a subtle shift of their features, but to Yoongi’s well-trained eyes, it was
the visual equivalent of a scream. Fleeting fear, followed by a rush of relief, and then something
that might just have been shame. They dropped their head forward to avoid his gaze, their hair
obscuring their eyes from view as they took a pull off the end of their cigarette. “So, the killer
finally got Yoo. I was wondering when that would happen. It seems they’ve moved onto the big
players, hmm?”

“Mmm, startin’ with that son of a bitch. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, huh?”

“You really shouldn’t say such things so freely, Nekyia …”

“Yeah, well, who’s gonna stop me?” Yoongi retorted. He hadn’t intended for his tone to be so
sharp, but the words had spilled free without restraint. It was a defensive response, maybe the
result of a guilty conscience.

“… I remember how we used to all conspire about how we were going to kill him,” Jungkook said
in a whisper-soft voice. They were staring down at the slick pavement beneath their feet. The rain
mirrored their reflections back at them, but the reflections were dark and distorted. “I don’t
remember who started it. I think it was you, or maybe Mascot. Shit, we really hated him. We well
and truly hated that bastard … but I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel right now. Should I be
… happy? Should I be glad that he finally got what he deserved, or does that make me as bad as the
killer? Who am I to decide that someone deserves to be executed?”
“The victim,” Yoongi suggested, his own voice a low and husky whisper. “I think that gives us
more right than other people. Don’t you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know, Nekyia. I don’t like this. I don’t like this feeling in my chest right
now.”

“Get used to it, kid. You’re gonna keep feelin’ it.”

“What do you mean?”

“People die, Koo. Bad people die, just like the rest of us. There are gonna be men that die that
you’ve been wishin’ death on for years. Try not to feel guilty about it. Take pleasure from the
knowledge that you survived them, and then move on. It’s all you can do – it’s all we can ever do.”

“Oh, okay.”

With this, Jungkook fell silent and stopped asking questions. This left Yoongi with a moment to
catch his breath and gather his thoughts. He felt like he had just been in a brawl with them.
Jungkook’s questions had come so suddenly and without warning that he hadn’t been prepared to
answer them. Especially the questions about Jimin. He was never prepared to talk about Jimin with
their former squad mates. He was always scared that he would slip up and reveal too much by
accident.

“If you see Mascot, let him know that we’re here for him. I … I know that we left things on a bad
note. We were all going through a rough time in our lives, and we weren’t there for him when he
needed us the most. Every time that I hear about one of those bastards turning up dead, burned
alive, I think about him. I think about how he used to promise us that he would kill them for
hurting us, back when we were kids. But … but we grew up. Those were just stupid things we said
because we were kids. We changed, right?”

“D’you think he killed them?” The question slipped free from his lips without much thought. He
just hadn’t been able to control his tongue. Yoongi knew it was bold to ask such a thing, much too
bold. He shouldn’t even be speaking about Jimin and the killer in the same sentence, and yet here
he was.

Talk about taking a risk.

Rather than reply, Jungkook just slipped back into the shadows coming from the alleyway. A
second later, they were gone. The only thing they left behind was the sweet aroma of their perfume
and a faint wave of crackling energy that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

“Ha, nice seein’ you too, kid.” Yoongi let out a soft snort as he stared into the dark alleyway. He
slipped a hand free from his jacket pocket to tinkle his fingers. When he dropped his hand down to
his side, he let out a weary sigh. “Jesus Christ …”

After several painstakingly long minutes of waiting, Yoongi finally caught sight of Namjoon
walking around the corner at the end of the street. He looked a little harried. A few locks of his
dark hair, which were usually neatly slicked back into place, were hanging forward over his brow.
His work shirt was wrinkled and looked to be coming free from the waistband of his trousers. As
he made his way across the empty road towards him, he reached up to fix his hair back into place
with one gloved hand. In his other hand, he was carrying a large, light-pink cat carrier.

From his distance across the road, Yoongi could hear the two cats meowing away. They had funny
meows, sounded a little like human babies when they were really desperate for attention. They
weren’t after attention right now; they were stressed-out and frightened. They were communicating
these emotions the only way they knew how – by making plenty of noise.

“Here,” Namjoon held the plastic carrier out to him, “two cats, females: desexed, look to be litter-
mates. Their collars say they’re called Lili and Lolo, but you can call them whatever you want
now.”

Yoongi accepted the carrier, letting out a grunt that was supposed to suffice as thanks. No, they
would remain as Lili and Lolo because that was what their owner had wanted. There was no need
to change their names, but he would need to inspect their collars. Should there be an address
engraved on the tags, he would need to have them changed. Just in case the pesky things managed
to run away before he got them to properly settle in their new home.

He lifted the carrier up to check them out through the mesh. In the dim light coming from the
nearby streetlight, he could see their blue eyes staring up at him. They looked to be as pretty as
they had when he had seen them through Hyeja’s eyes. He couldn’t help but smile for a moment
before he remembered that Namjoon could see him. He forced himself to stop smiling as he
lowered the carrier, hearing the two cats once again letting out mighty cries in response to the
movement.

“If Yoo’s got a cat, y’know what to do. Give me a call and I’ll be there to pick it up.”
“How many cats do you have right now? Don’t give me an estimate, I want the exact figure.”

“… Includin’ these girlies, I got 31.”

“Bloody hell,” Namjoon remarked with a dry chuckle. He smoothed at the front of his work shirt to
neaten up his appearance.

“You just missed Koo, by the way.”

“Jungkook was here?”

“Mmm, they showed up without warnin’, asked a couple of questions, bummed a smoke from me,
and then left.”

“Ah, I’ve told them before, they’re not supposed to enter the crime scenes.”

“What’re the police gonna do? Arrest them? Pft, they’ll just poof outta here before anyone can
catch them.”

Yoongi lingered for a moment, waiting to see if the other man would ask him any more questions
about their old squad mate. When it seemed like he wasn’t going to, he started walking along the
street so he could finally leave the crime scene. He had managed to take but a couple of steps when
Namjoon called out to him.

“Before you go, I just wanted to ask you something.”

Yoongi slowly turned around to face him. Rather than speak, he waited for him to continue talking.
He tried to keep his expression neutral and not show any signs of discomfort, as there was no
reason why he should be feeling uncomfortable right now.

Not unless he was hiding something.

“Who do you think did it?” Namjoon slipped his gloved hands inside his overcoat pockets and
gently rocked back on his heels. “The murders, I mean.”

“Y’know, Inspector Kim? For a guy with such advanced intellect … you don’t need my help to
solve this crime. You really ain’t usin’ your brain right now.”

“Oh, I’m using my brain. I was hoping that you would be able to prove my instincts wrong.”

Yoongi tightened his grip around the carrier handle. “What instincts?”

“The instincts that are telling me you’re lying.”

The air fell deathly silent between them. Even the cats had stopped crying, for it seemed they had
been able to sense the sudden shift in energy. The air had become so thick with tension that it was
almost suffocating. Yoongi found it difficult to draw breath. He didn’t want Namjoon to hear his
uneven inhale, but he had a feeling that he was more than aware of his discomfort.

“We worked together for almost 15-years. I’ve seen you solve hundreds of murders. Many of them
were decades old, with zero evidence on record to assist you. But with this string of murders, you
seem to have lost your touch. And I don’t mean that you’re starting to slip, or that you’re rusty
because it’s been a few years since you gave it up. I mean that you’re not even trying to look for
the answers. Or perhaps you already have the answers, but you’re unwilling to share them with the
rest of class. And I’d like to know why.”

“Only fools make assumptions. You ain’t a fool, so stop assumin’ y’know what’s goin’ on in my
head,” Yoongi said in a low voice. “If you waste your time focusin’ on me, you ain’t never gonna
catch the killer.”

“The circumstances … it’s too much of a coincidence for me to ignore it much longer.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Four dead men – Yoo, Oh, Kim and Choi. All men that we knew, that we had … a colourful
history with. All killed on stormy nights when the air was filled with moisture.”
Namjoon paused for a moment to let the weight of his words sink in. Even though he tried his
hardest to not react, Yoongi felt his fingers rolling up into a tight fist from within his jacket pocket.
He was clenching them hard enough for the blunt edges of his nails to dig into the skin on his
palm. They might just draw blood.

“Look, Yoongi. He needs moisture to activate his gift. During a storm as bad as the one that
happened tonight, there would be so much hydrogen in the air for him to absorb and–”

Yoongi snapped, “Why don’t you come out and say it, Inspector Kim?! Start actin’ like a fuckin’
man! He-this, he-that – none of you wanna say it! C’mon, say it! Say his fuckin’ name, I dare you!”

“… I don’t need to say it,” Namjoon said in a low voice. “I won’t say it until there’s irrefutable
evidence that he committed these murders. He deserves that much. Innocent until proven guilty is
the only true form of justice.”

“So you say, but to me, it sounds like you’ve already made up your mind! You’re just waitin’ to
find evidence that can back up your assumption! Are you really suggestin’ that he murdered those
bastards?!”

“I said what I said. There’s no need to dwell on it. Former squad member or not, if he had anything
to do with these murders, he will have to answer for his crimes. I hope that I’m wrong, I seriously
hope that I am.”

With this, Namjoon turned on his heel and crossed the road, leaving him to watch him walk away.

This was bad.

This was really bad.

Time was running out.

By the time that he was back home, it was starting to edge close to dawn. Because of the
approaching typhoon season and terrible weather, the skies were far from bright. They would likely
be grey all day-long, with heavy and dark rain clouds blocking out the limited amount of sunlight.
There might just be another storm, and there was certainly going to be much more rain.

Yoongi’s clothes were damp from the annoying drizzle, his hair dripping wet. As he shoved his
hand into his pocket to collect his house keys, he sniffed hard. A fat droplet dripped off the
rounded tip of his nose and splashed down onto the welcome mat that was placed on the front step.
Said mat was soaked and would take days to dry because of all the goddamn rain. Still, summer
rain was far better than sweltering heat, even if it made a hell of a mess.

Yoongi didn’t live in banjiha, not exactly. His home wasn’t a tiny box of a room, accessible
through a flight of stairs that led down into the basement of an apartment building. He owned a
single storey home with a deep basement, which he had decided to settle in instead. He didn’t like
spending time on the ground-floor, even though it was where all the rooms were located. He had
renovated the interior to move the bathroom and kitchen down into the basement, and all the walls
had been removed to create a single, open space.

The ground-floor belonged to his cats. The entire lounge had been filled with furniture for them,
with various towers and shelves installed onto the walls for them to climb and sleep on. One of the
windows was connected to a large enclosure that ran around the building and into the garden. The
enclosure was made from wood and thick chicken wire, which they loved trying to climb like
freakish, furry spiders.

Yoongi didn’t like his cats roaming around too much. He was fearful that some bastard would
flatten them under the wheels of their car or hurt them for fun. There were plenty of sick fucks
around. He should know, he had made contact with enough dead animals over the years to know
how many of them had been force-fed fishhooks or set on fire by budding sociopaths.

Trays covered with food dishes and water bowls, cat beds filled with old t-shirts and blankets,
random toys, and litter boxes were scattered all around the lounge. Luckily for him, most of them
liked doing their business in the garden instead. Had they preferred using the boxes … well, the
stink they would produce would be enough to knock him dead. Cats were clean creatures, but clean
didn’t mean they didn’t smell. Considering only a couple of them liked being bathed and groomed
… it could get pretty bad some days. It was a good thing that he never had any guests. They would
take one step inside the home and then frantically stammer out an excuse so they could leave
again, just to get away from the unmistakable aroma that cats made.

Whenever he returned home, he would be greeted by the sight of them all crowding around the
door. They would mewl at him and trip him up by wrapping their bodies around his shins. They
would also attempt to sneak out the door if he didn’t close it fast enough.
However, when he stepped inside his home, Yoongi was surprised to see that most of them were
hiding away across the room. Furry tails were visible from underneath various tables, and
gleaming eyes reflected the dim light back at him from within the shadowy compartments of cat
towers. A couple of them darted across the lounge to greet him and see what was hidden inside the
big box that he was carrying. But they were surprisingly quiet, like they didn’t want to make any
noise.

Something was wrong.

Across the lounge, Wangbi was hanging around the top step that led down into the basement. Her
neck was stretched out as far as it could reach, so far that she was visibly straining. She was
furiously sniffing away, her nose scrunching and her wiry whiskers twitching like mad. Her entire
body was elongated from the severe stretch, and her tail was bristled and easily double its usual
size. Her thick, black fur was almost standing on edge. She was frightened, and he knew why.

There was someone in his home.

Yoongi slowly shut the door behind himself, and then he placed the carrier down onto the floor.
Lili and Lolo let out funny squeaks in response, before falling silent when an adventurous old
tomcat called Soot shoved his snout right up against the mesh door to start sniffing them. He
thumbed at the latch to lock the door without looking behind himself. He didn’t hit the light switch
on the wall, he didn’t need it. He could see just enough of the lounge interior to be able to creep his
way towards the staircase.

Wafting up from the basement, there was the unmistakable scent of something warm like amber …
and ash.

Yoongi let his pent-up breath out in an uneven sigh. His knees gave a sudden tremble, so he had to
lean against the wall to stop his unsteady legs from spilling him to the floor. As soon as he felt a
little more in control of his shaking legs, he started descending the steps at a slow pace.

The basement was a large space. It contained a lounge and kitchen and had enough space for a bed
in the far corner of the room. The bathroom was separated from the space by two walls and a door.

The floor was concrete. It was stained in parts, cracked elsewhere. The walls were exposed red
brick, with some decoration covering them, in the form of cork boards covered in old photographs,
maps of the city, and random sentimental things that he hadn’t the heart to throw away. Like ticket
stubs from the premiere night of the first film that had been made about their heroic exploits. It had
been pretty bad. But he had gotten to hold hands with Jimin for the entire thing, the darkness
disguising the act of affection from any prying eyes, so that had been pretty amazing.

The lounge contained a sparse amount of furniture, with just a single sofa, a coffee table, and a
woven rug placed in the centre of the room. The kitchen was in one corner, with a stretch of dark-
wood counter and many cupboards placed above it. The bedroom contained nothing more than a
bed and a metal rail, on which his clothing hung.

Yoongi was a simple man who liked simple things. The only technology that he needed was his
phone. He had grown bored of fancy gadgets quite some time ago, after spending so much time
around them during his hero days. So long as he was comfortable and warm, he was content.

There was a single window on one of the walls, directly above the kitchen sink. It allowed sunlight
to spill into the basement. The light was dim, but it had cast enough illumination into the room for
him to see where the other man was.

Jimin was sitting on the sofa, with his legs cocked up in front of him so he could rest his bare feet
on the cushions. His head was rolled back, and he was staring up at the ceiling with a blank
expression. He had one of his cats in his arms, hugged against his chest – Aegi. One arm was
wrapped around her bottom to support her weight, and his hand was buried deep in her ginger fur.
His other arm was hanging down over the side of the sofa so he could keep his hand in a deep
bucket that looked to be filled with water.

“When I first entered, I was surprised by how empty the place was. But when I looked down the
staircase, I started laughing.” Jimin said, not even sparing a glance over at him. “All this time and
nothing’s changed. You still like sleeping in the basement.”

“I like bein’ underground.”

“Do you feel closer to the dead that way?”

“Somethin’ like that,” he agreed with a soft nod, coming to a stop at the bottom of the steps. “It’s
peaceful, I like it.”

For a moment, Yoongi didn’t quite know what to say or do. He was so stunned by the sight of the
other man inside his home that he had been rendered mute. All he could do was fiddle with his
house keys for a moment before shoving them into his jeans pocket.

Jimin looked at ease sitting on his sofa. He had never stepped foot inside his home before, yet he
looked like he belonged here.

Because he does.

Jimin’s parka coat was cast-off on the floor a few feet away from the staircase. It was lying in a
large puddle because he had been soaked through by the powerful storm. He had been wearing a
tracksuit jacket, but he had cast that aside too, along with his soaked sneakers. He was clad only in
a vest top and a pair of tracksuit pants. The tracksuit was black and emblazoned with red and white
details, the vest top was white.

His bare arms and a hint of his chest were on display. They were thick and rippled with muscle. His
golden skin was covered in freckles and old scars. There were shiny patches on certain sections of
his skin, such as the curved ball of his right shoulder. These were old burn scars, of which he had
many. It was a miracle that his entire body wasn’t just a big burn scar, considering the abuse that it
had been through his entire life.

For some time now, Jimin had been sporting a buzzcut for the sake of practicality. Having long
hair was impractical with his gift, as it just got in the way and caused him discomfort. Though he
hadn’t been a hero for several years now, it seemed he was set in his ways because he had yet to
start growing his hair out. It was cropped short, his scalp covered in a fine layer of orange stubble
that Yoongi knew felt amazing to stroke. He felt his palms starting to itch at the thought, so he
stuck his tongue out to lick at his chapped lips.

Jimin had always hated the fact he had been born with coloured hair. When he had been a baby,
many strangers had openly told his mother that he had such ugly hair. It was a shade of orange that
was so vibrant it didn’t look natural. But it was natural, even if his gift had been far from it. Yoongi
knew that he had felt liberated when he had finally shaved his hair off. He had finally been able to
look in the mirror and not see the hair that he had hated so much.

Personally, Yoongi had loved his hair. He had been so enraptured by it when he had first been
introduced to him that he had been unable to help himself. He had followed the other boy around
for the whole day until he had worked up the courage to pluck one of his carrot-coloured hairs
from his head. He had raced off with his clutched in his greedy fist, to the sound of the other boy
shouting about how he was going to kill him. But he loved his buzzcut too, just for a different
reason.
Jimin’s buzzcut exposed all of his face, his handsome face, which had only gotten more masculine
and attractive with age as his features had broadened out and hardened. His thin, heavily lidded
eyes had always reminded Yoongi of a fox, but now there were some faint lines around the corners,
they were more … wolf-like. Less sly, more predatory. His lips were full and shapely, and they
would part to reveal a dazzling smile that would make even the coldest heart melt. His nose was
small and delicately pointed, with a crooked bump high on the bone that had been caused by a bad
break when he had been a kid. His front teeth had been damaged at the same time, had been
chipped and almost dislodged from the impact.

Yoo Hyungmin, the devil himself, had hit him in the face with a fist clutching hold of a brick.
Yoongi couldn’t even remember why this had happened, or what lesson their trainer had been
attempting to teach them. But he could remember the noise that Jimin had made when his nose had
crumpled to the side because it had been seared onto his goddamn soul. That screech, that high-
pitched squeal like a piglet being savaged by a wild beast.

Jimin had been brought to The Academy when he had been just four-years-old. The reason? He
had set another child on fire for calling him fat.

If someone were to ask Yoongi the kind of person that Jimin was, he would tell them this fact.

Jimin was the kind of person to try to immolate a fellow human for calling him an insult. He
always had been, not much had changed over the years. He had trained alongside them, but he had
not been like them, not exactly, Throughout their training, he had been forced to undergo many
examinations because there was something different about his gift, something that the rest of the
squad were unable to do. Even when he had been a mere child, The Academy had wanted to
influence and brainwash him into becoming a morally upright hero because they had been scared
about the potential for him to go down another path entirely.

Jimin’s gift had the ability to protect … and kill.

Jimin had been born with the gift of pyromancy. He could start fires with just his hands and some
moisture. The more flammable the liquid, the better. But so long as it had some hydrogen or
ammonia in its makeup, he could utilise it. Water, sweat, rain – he could take the substance and
alter it with his skin to produce one of two things: a fire or an explosion. The power of the flames
depended on the amount of moisture that he was able to convert. He had control over the
temperature, for he could choose to produce flames weak enough to cause minor burns, or
scalding-hot enough to cut through multiple layers of skin and muscle to leave a permanent scar
behind.

Jimin was known as Mascot because he had become their mascot. He had always been there to
pick them up when they had fallen, to lift them up when their spirits had dropped. Naturally, they
had taken to relying on him to cheer them all on and encourage them to develop their gifts. This
was how he had become their own private mascot. But this effect had spread beyond their squad
and out into public, who had fallen for his charms and fiery passion.

Mascot, the face of their squad, who was loved by all. Especially children. He was the most
popular hero of their squad by leagues. His action figures sold-out within seconds every time they
were released. He had commercial sponsorships for everything from skincare to the emergency
services, where he taught kids all about fire safety and what to do in the event of a terrorist attack.

Jimin … Mascot … the first gifted serial killer.

Jimin had burned four men alive with his bare hands.

Yoongi knew that he was the gifted serial killer. He had seen him through the eye of every single
victim. He hadn’t tried to disguise himself because he had wanted his victims to know who was
going to kill them. He needed them to know because he wanted to have power over them right at
the very end, when it mattered the most. Power that he had been denied for so many years.

Jimin wanted them to look into his eyes and realise in their final moments that they had created a
monster. They had twisted him. They had hurt him. They had driven him to this. They would die
filled with horror and regret, finally receiving the justice they so rightly deserved.

“What’re you doin’ here, Jimin?” Yoongi finally managed to ask. He slipped his jacket off his
shoulders and hung it on a wall hook placed beside the steps.

“I needed somewhere to lay low for a while. This seemed like a good place to hide. It’s off-grid,
it’s quiet, there’s an army of cats upstairs – perfect.” Jimin finally rolled his head down to look at
him from across the floor. “Do you want me to leave?”

“No,” Yoongi replied without missing a beat. He was eager, much too eager. He took a couple of
steps closer to the sofa before coming to a stop. He folded his arms across his chest and dropped
his head to stare down at the floor because he could feel his cheeks starting to grow warm. “No,
you ain’t gotta leave. It’s fine, I just …”

The words were right there, on the tip of his tongue … yet he couldn’t say them. He didn’t have
the strength to do so because he felt breathless and weak. His heart was racing in his chest, his
palms were coated in sweat, and he felt like he might just puke down the front of his jumper.
It’s been six-years since I last saw your face, Jimin.

I didn’t even get to say goodbye before you left that mornin’. I woke up and you were gone. That
was it, it was over. I killed our love, and you buried it.

Shit, baby, you look good, you look really good. You always have, but you’ve never looked as
perfect as you do right now.

I missed you! I missed you, you stupid bastard! Six-fuckin’-years! You left me on my own for six-
years and now you just expect me to be fine?!

Oh, fuck, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Jimin. I was a selfish bastard, I was so selfish and scared that I
fucked it all up. And since you’ve been gone, it’s all gone to shit. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I can’t
stop thinkin’ about you. Please, forgive me. I promise I’ll make it up to you. Until the day I die, I’ll
be here for you, like I was supposed to back then.

“Huh,” Yoongi huffed, pressing the back of his fingers against his lips. He had to take a couple of
deep breaths in through his nose and out his lips to get himself back under control. “Fuck, I, uh, I
dunno what to say.”

“Oh? Well, you were never any good at small-talk,” Jimin remarked, the corners of his lips
twitching to almost form a smile. “But some days, you would never shut up, I always found that
funny–”

“How long am I gonna have to keep lyin’ for you?” Yoongi interjected. Jimin stopped talking, his
words trailing off to nothing as he gave Aegi another gentle stroke with his fingers. “They’re gonna
catch you. Y’know that, right? It’s only a matter of time before they come lookin’ for you.”

“They can catch me. But first, they need to let me finish the job.” Jimin held his gaze, confident
and unblinking. He had always had a powerful presence, a fiery intensity buried in the depths of his
dark eyes that intimidated others.

Yoongi had never been intimidated by it, he had been attracted to it. He had wanted to poke and
prod, had wanted to antagonize him to draw out that heat. Even now, he felt the urge to slip under
his skin to make him snap at him, despite knowing it was not the right time for such childish
actions.
“Once I’m done, they can do whatever they want to me. I won’t resist arrest, I won’t try and run
away. I’ll gladly accept my punishment, knowing that I got to punish them first. Someone had to
do it, Yoongi. I know this, you know this. They all know this, even if they pretend they don’t.”

Yoongi wasn’t going to argue against this point. It was obvious that he was on Jimin’s side
because he hadn’t snitched to the police. He had been brought to all four crime scenes to tell them
who the killer was, and each time, he had lied through his teeth about not knowing the culprit. He
was aiding and abetting a criminal. And not just any criminal, but a serial killer.

Jimin knew that he was on his side, and this was why he had decided to visit him. He could
pretend that it was because he needed a safe place to hide, but Yoongi knew the truth. He didn’t
need a safehouse, he needed him.

“… Inspector Kim’s onto you. Tonight, whilst discussin’ the murder, he started talkin’ about how
much of a coincidence it all was. He mentioned the bad weather, said somethin’ about how there
would be plenty of hydrogen in the air that would be just perfect for ignitin’. He indirectly
suggested that you might be a suspect, or even the culprit. He didn’t say your name, but to use his
own words – he didn’t need to. It was all right there in front of him. It always has been, you ain’t
exactly been tryin’ to cover your tracks.”

“Hmm, Captain was always the smart one in the squad,” Jimin pointed out, his lips finally forming
a slight smile.

“You mean the only one of us that had a fuckin’ brain?”

“That too.”

“It took him longer than I expected to put it all together, all things considered. I think he was tryin’
to convince himself that it couldn’t be you. He can’t handle the thought of one of us goin’ rogue.
He taught us how to be good people, how to be morally just. The thought of one of us killin’
another man … I don’t think it’s somethin’ he can process right now.”

Jimin didn’t reply to this, he just made a soft sound under his breath. He dropped his gaze to look
down at Aegi, who was happily purring away in his arms. His warm and strong arms, which
Yoongi had missed slipping into when he was having a restless night and couldn’t get comfortable
enough to fall asleep.
“Let me see your hands.”

Yoongi snatched a cushion from the sofa and dropped it onto the floor. Then he shifted to lower
himself onto it. He grunted as he did so, feeling the strain in his lower back and his knees dryly
creaking and he folded them in front of himself.

Back when they had been heroes, Jimin had needed to wear a special suit in order to safely utilise
his gift. Though his body could handle high degrees of heat and not burn, when it came to intense
flames that were capable of burning through concrete and steel, even his tough skin was unable to
withstand it for long periods. Without adequate protection, he could only wield white-hot flames
for a couple of seconds. Just that short amount of time was long enough to burn his skin.

Which was why he had been given a special suit that had contained conductive materials. It had
been breathable enough to allow his skin to come in contact with moisture in the atmosphere, such
as rain, so he could produce flames by setting the hydrogen alight. The conductive fibres woven
into the material had been able to absorb the powerful heat and distribute it across his body, rather
than let it stay concentrated on his hands. This had caused great discomfort, but the heat had been
able to cool down much quicker without harming him.

Upon finishing their training and being granted full permission to use their gifts, Jimin had been
given his special suit. It had covered every inch of his body, from the crown of his head to the tips
of his toes. The only part that hadn’t been covered by the conductive material had been his eyes.
Instead, they had been housed within a layer of heat-resistant material to keep them protected from
damage. The eye covers had been tinted black to reduce his damage to his retinas from the
intensity of his white-hot flames. Just looking directly at them made black spots cloud one’s vision
for hours on end. Yoongi knew this from personal experience.

Jimin had been just 14-years-old when they had finished their training. Yet he had been given
explicit permission to burn his own flesh in order to serve and protect the public from danger.
Perhaps permission was the wrong word? Maybe ‘coercion’ was a better fit?

An adult could make such a decision because they were fully equipped with the capacity to make
proper judgements and think about the potential consequences of their actions. In other words, an
adult knew what they were getting into.

A child did not.

A child didn’t have the full capacity to make such decisions on their own. They required influence
to make them make such decisions, and Jimin had been groomed from the young age of just four-
years-old. All his life he had been told that he was a hero that had to save others, and so this was all
he had known. He had been unable to think about the consequences of his actions because his
brain hadn’t developed the ability to do so at that point. To him, the only thing that had mattered
had been saving lives. His own future had meant nothing to him. If it had, he wouldn’t have put
himself through such agony for so many years.

After a hard day of work, Jimin would have removed his suit to reveal the sight of his flushed skin.
It had always been deep pink right beneath the surface and covered in a layer of thick perspiration.
Just touching it had made him hiss because it had been so sensitive and raw. His hair would have
been dripping with sweat, which was why he had started clipping it down short to avoid this issue.
But after a cold shower and plenty of application of lotions, his skin would have calmed down and
the discomfort would have passed.

Yoongi had used to apply the lotion for Jimin, as he had been unable to reach most of his body.
Even moving had hurt him because it had stretched his raw skin. At first, he had refused to let
anyone do it because he hadn’t wanted their pity. But after four whole years of pain, he had finally
relented enough to let him do it instead. It had been an unpleasant task because he had spent the
entire time moaning about how much everything hurt, and how much he wanted to just rip his skin
off to be free from the pain.

Really, it was no surprise that ‘something’ happened between them. After spending many nights
rubbing lotion all over Jimin’s naked body, Yoongi was surprised it had taken so long. All it had
taken was a slight slip of the hand over his belly, a tentative touch between the thighs that had
made his legs shudder. Then he had realised why Jimin hadn’t wanted anyone touching him.

It had started as clandestine meetings, in the dead of the night when the rest of their squad were
asleep. Little dates that were never too far from their dorm, for fear they would get caught by their
bodyguards and trainers. Frantic sexual experiences on the sofa in the lounge, their moans and
sighs muted against the cushions and each other’s hands because they couldn’t risk waking up the
others. Especially not Jungkook, who had still been a teenager and would have been scarred for
life, had they stumbled upon two of their beloved ‘big brothers’ in the midst of having sex.

But nothing good lasted for long.

They had made it work for 10-years. Those years were the only time in his life that Yoongi had
ever felt that elusive emotion known as happiness. So far as they knew, none of the others had
figured out that they were a couple. When they had gotten old enough to move out of their dorm,
they had simply moved into the same apartment block and pretended to have separate rooms.
It sounded silly to assume that their close companions could have been unaware of something as
serious as a relationship. But they had taken their private lives very seriously and had respected
boundaries for the sake of maintaining their professional bonds. Hell, Yoongi hadn’t even known
that Seokjin and Taehyung had had their first sexual experiences before him until many years after
the fact. They had simply never told him because he had never asked. Since none of them had ever
asked him if he and Jimin were a couple, he had taken this as a sign that they had never figured it
out.

Things had started to get serious a few years ago, much more serious than Yoongi had been
emotionally equipped to handle. Jimin had started struggling with the burden of their role as
heroes. He had suffered several emotional breakdowns from the stress, and his therapist had given
him medication to treat his manic depression and severe mood swings. One night, he had asked him
if he would like to run away with him, to America or somewhere in Europe, where it would be
sunny and warm all the time and no one would know who they were. They could get married there;
they could have children. Wouldn’t that have been nice, to start a real family?

Yoongi hadn’t been ready for children.

Children required love and affection in order to grow up healthy and strong. Love and affection
that neither one of them had truly had when they had been young.

Children could get hurt.

Children could die.

What if they were unable to give their child the care it needed?

What if they got angry and lashed out at them without thinking because it was the only way they
knew how to teach them a lesson?

What if … one evening, Yoongi just snapped like his father had? He hadn’t wanted to kill Jimin
and their child in a fit of murderous rage because something inside him was defective, was broken
and would never be able to be fixed.

Jimin had needed him. He had needed a lifeline to hold onto, and his dream about a villa on some
Greek island with a beautiful baby girl had been the one thing that he had wanted more than
anything else. A chance at a normal life, after so many years of struggle and pain.
And Yoongi had looked him in the eyes and said no.

Not long after, the squad had finally disbanded, and they had all gone their separate ways – Jimin
and Yoongi included. One morning, he had woken up to a note on his partner’s pillow, which had
explained that he had needed space and time to think.

Yoongi hadn’t slept since.

Though he didn’t miss the old hero life, he had never gotten over him. How could he possibly get
over a man like Jimin, who had living fire burning away inside him and a passion that burned twice
as hot? He knew that he would never be able to find someone with a heart as warm and loving,
who was fiercely protective and loyal – if not a little possessive at times. Even after everything that
Jimin had been through, Yoongi knew that he was a beautiful soul that loved their fucked-up
family more than any of them. He just wished that he had been able to love him that little more in
return when he had needed it the most.

Maybe he hadn’t been ready for the kids then. But by now, he might have discovered that he was
actually a good father. A loving father, who would never hurt them and would keep them safe from
the cruel and dangerous world.

His one chance at redemption for the mistakes of his past, and he had blown it.

Talk about pathetic.

When he held his hands out in offering, Jimin moved to slip his hand out of the bucket of chill
water. He didn’t place it down on his outstretched palms because doing so would have caused him
immense pain.

Now that they were no longer active heroes. Jimin had no access to his suit. It was stored within a
high-security facility across the city, so there was no way that he would be able to get it without
breaking in. Without his suit, he was unable to redirect the heat from his hands all over his body to
protect them from damage.

As a result, Jimin had badly burned his left hand. It was a shockingly vivid shade of dark-pink, and
it was blistered so badly that it had swollen up. The burn ran up from the tips of his fingers to just
above the curve of his wrist bone. It was going to crack and weep, and the damaged tissue was
going to fall off it in layers like a snake shed its old skin. If he was lucky, it would heal up and
leave behind just another shiny, tight patch of skin. If he was unlucky, he might suffer from nerve
damage.

“Christ, Jimin,” Yoongi muttered, as he gently curled his fingers around his forearm. He slowly
rotated his hand so he could examine it, taking in all the damage. “You really hurt yourself last
night.”

“I didn’t burn the others as extremely, so the burns weren’t so bad,” Jimin explained in a soft
voice, watching him inspecting his burned hand. “But … I couldn’t help myself. When I saw him
again, it all just came flooding back. I had to do it. I had to incinerate him.”

“Yoo was a cunt, he had it comin’,” Yoongi stated in a matter-of-fact voice. He didn’t even try and
hide his feelings on the matter, he wanted to be completely honest with him. There was no point in
pretending to be shocked or horrified by what had happened. It was obvious that he was happy; he
had practically skipped away from the crime scene with a grin on his face. He knew that Jimin
knew he was pleased to have discovered Yoo’s still-smoking corpse in a filthy alleyway tonight.
He had probably been expecting a big, wet kiss on the mouth as thanks for his deeds. “Like I said
to Koo, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”

“Koo was there tonight?”

“Mmm, they said they were in the area, but that’s a lie. They were waitin’ for Inspector Kim, or
me, or both of us. They asked if I’d seen you recently, said that I should tell you that we’re all here
for you. Pft, that corny shit. Koo still acts like we’re all a team, even though it’s been years since
we dissolved the squad. I dunno what to say to the kid but–”

“Koo isn’t a kid anymore, Yoongi – they’re 30.”

“–Koo’s still a kid to me, and they always will be. I changed that kid’s nappies, a’ight? I helped
them learn how to goddamn walk – they’re my kid.”

“Whatever you say, old man.”

The basement fell silent at this. From the lounge upstairs came the soft sound of meowing and
scratching. It was Yoongi that started laughing first, his shoulders slowly shaking from the force of
his silent laughter. When a chuckle accidentally escaped his lips, it was enough to make Jimin start
laughing too.

The sound was so light and sweet that Yoongi had to close his eyes and take a moment to gather
himself. He felt a sharp twinge shooting up into his chest that made him take a quick intake of
breath. He was startled to find his eyes were starting to sting.

Goddamn, he had missed him.

“You would’ve made a good dad,” Jimin said in a voice barely above a whisper. “I know you’ll
never accept it. You don’t think you’ll be able to do it, because of what happened with your father.
But you could, you could raise a happy child.”

“It’s a little too late for that now, Jimin.”

“It’s never too late to try anything.”

There was something in Jimin’s voice that sounded like hope. Even now, with all the odds stacked
against them, he was still thinking about that old dream of his.

And Yoongi wanted to believe in it too. He wanted to believe more than anything else. But he had
always been a goddamn pessimist at heart and the years apart from Jimin hadn’t changed this fact.
They had only solidified it.

“Well, you really did incinerate to him. I couldn’t recognise him at a glance. There was nothin’
human left behind on his remains.”

"You might’ve struggled to recognise him before I burned him alive. He looked old, and he had
gotten fat.”

Yoongi snorted as he shifted to get back upright. Stored in his bathroom, there was a large first-aid
kit. He had always kept one, and he had made sure that it was mostly filled with treatments for
burns. He retrieved it and popped it open, rummaging around the packed contents to find what he
was looking for. Though Jimin’s burn was bad, it wasn’t bad enough to require emergency
treatment. Had a normal human suffered the same burns, their hand would’ve been burned black.
After some searching, he located a tube of ointment, which he hastily uncapped and squirted
directly onto his burned skin.
Jimin let out a hiss from the contact, which turned into a whine when Yoongi started gently
spreading the ointment across his skin. But he made no attempt to move his hand away, nor did he
tell him to stop. He just set his jaw and forced himself to withstand the pain because it was
necessary.

Yoongi’s voice was soft as he muttered, “Shit, I still remember that mornin’ as clear as day. The
mornin’ when he punched Hope in the face so hard that he shattered his cheekbone. All because he
had been a couple of minutes late for trainin’. He had been vomitin’ all night long and hadn’t slept
a wink, and Yoo still broke his fuckin’ face right in front of us, just to teach us a lesson.”

“He said that tardiness was unforgivable.” Jimin cleared his throat, and when he started speaking,
his voice was different. He had deepened it, had made it gruff and displeasing on the ears and was
affecting a strong Jeolla-do dialect. “‘Imagine you were late to the scene of a crime and someone
died because of your laziness! Unforgivable!’”

Just listening to Jimin’s impression of Yoo was enough to make a sudden shudder course straight
down Yoongi’s spine. He hadn’t heard the man’s voice in over a decade, yet it felt like he was
standing in the room with them right now, yelling at them and brandishing his fists up in front of
his chest. He couldn’t help but quickly glance around them, just to make sure that he wasn’t going
to come charging out of one of the shadowy corners to dive on him and pummel him within an inch
of his life. He gulped hard as he dragged his eyes away from the staircase across the floor.

“Yoo hated Hope the most. Used to misgender him all the time, no matter how many times we told
him he was a fuckin’ boy. What was it he always used to call him? Little pansy freak.”

“Hmm, and a pathetic whelp. He thought that he was a weakling because he protected others with
his barriers, but he couldn’t protect himself. Yoo didn’t know what real strength was. He thought
he did, but he was wrong. Hope was strong because he could protect others, even at the expense of
putting himself in danger.”

“Yoo didn’t train us how to become stronger, he taught us how to take a beatin’. That was all he
did. After withstandin’ his abuse for 10-fuckin’-years, we could take a punch better than anyone
else. What happened, when he saw you?”

“He screamed and begged for his life on his knees. He grabbed hold of my leg so tight that I
struggled to kick him off. It was disappointing to see him in such a pathetic state. That man, he
beat us almost every day for years under the guise of teaching us how to fight and endure pain.
Some days, I wanted to die just to get away from him. And when he was faced with his own death
… he was so scared that he pissed himself. What kind of man hurts kids but can’t take some hurt
himself? Huh?”

“Yoo wasn’t a man. He was a dog that taught itself to walk upright, that’s all.” Yoongi finished
spreading the ointment across the burn. Then he retrieved a clean bandage from the first-aid kit,
which he unravelled and started wrapping around his hand to cover the injury. “He should’ve been
put down a long time ago. Late is better than never.”

“What did you see?” Jimin asked, as he watched him slowly wrapping the bandage around his
injured hand. “What did his final moments feel like?”

“… When I made contact with him, at the crime scene, it took me so much strength to not laugh. I
mean, I could sense how fuckin’ terrified he was in his final moments … and I just wanted to
laugh. Yoo beat all of us, he was an equal opportunist. But he had clear favourites that he liked to
hurt the most, and that was me, you, and Hope. He wanted to hurt me and Hope because we were
physically weaker than the rest of you. And he wanted to hurt you because you were insolent. You
fought back, you stood up for us, when he was really whalin’ on us.” Yoongi stopped talking for a
moment so he could secure the bandage with a strip of medical tape. “I’ve made contact with
murder victims before. None of them had been as terrified as him. There were little girls that met
their deaths with more bravery than him. Yoo really was a coward. We always knew he was, only a
coward hurts children. But to finally feel his cowardice … It felt like vindication. I only wish I’d
had more time with the body. It didn’t feel satisfying only getting to look at him for a few
minutes.”

“In my coat pocket,” Jimin suddenly said. He pulled his hand free from his hold so he could
examine the bandages.

There was a small Polaroid camera stored inside his parka pocket. Yoongi pulled it free and then
reached inside again. He felt the sharp edge of a piece of film digging into his fingertips, so he
slipped it out and brought it up to his face to study it.

Jimin had snapped a photograph of Yoo’s charred corpse.

As a trophy of sorts that he could look at time and time again.

Jesus …

Yoongi studied the photograph for a moment, and then he slowly lifted his gaze to look at him.
Jimin was looking right at him with a hard to read expression. He was not smiling, like he had been
expecting. He looked cold, empty, and exhausted. After everything that he had been through over
the last few months, it was no wonder why he looked so hollow.

“Who’s next on your list, huh?” Yoongi asked, placing the photograph down on the coffee table.

“… Doctor Son.”

Just hearing the other man’s name being said aloud made Yoongi’s skin turn cold. He recoiled
from Jimin in response. He banged his side against the edge of the coffee table with enough force
to almost flip it over. He fumbled to grab hold of it with a muttered curse before it hit the floor.

If Yoo Hyungmin was the devil himself, then Doctor Son was Satan.

Son was evil incarnate. The things that man had done to them under the guise of medical research
… Yoongi didn’t want to talk about it. He couldn’t talk about it, he was too ashamed and scared to
even admit to Jimin what had happened to him. He had heard stories from the rest of their squad
mates over the years, which had always spilled free after one too many drinks, ripping free from
their pained grimaces. The gut-wrenching howls of broken men. But not him, never him. He had
never breathed a word because, even now, he could remember the sensation of cold hands
encircling his neck to violently shake him as the man had sneered down at him, his eyes hidden
behind the reflective surface of his glasses lenses.

“No one will believe you, mutant brat.”

“It’s not going to be easy,” Jimin continued, as he gave his injured hand a gentle flex. He winced
from the strain and placed his hand down in his lap. “Son doesn’t leave his home anymore, not
without an armed escort. He’s turned it into a goddamn military compound to keep me out. He
knows that I’m coming for him. I’m not going to be able to get him on his own. I’m going to need
help.”

“I’ve seen enough death,” Yoongi said with a soft head shake. “I don’t need to see anymore, never
mind make it. I ain’t got the stomach for it.”

“Are you so certain?”

No, he was not at all certain. Right now, Yoongi had never been so uncertain in his goddamn life.
After all those years of muttering death wishes on the men that had abused him and his squad
mates, he was finally being presented with the opportunity to do something.

But he was not lying when he said that he had seen enough death. He had made contact with so
many victims of violent murders that he didn’t think he could kill another man, no matter how evil
they were.

Yoongi wouldn’t even be able to kill his own father.

And if he did kill someone, wouldn’t he become his father?

Yoongi would rather someone stomped on his head and finally finished the job the man had been
unable to complete than become him.

“I dunno, I don’t wanna think about that monster right now.”

“What do you want to think about?” Jimin placed Aegi down on the sofa cushion, and then he
slowly shifted to place his bare feet down on the floor. He was sitting upright now and so he was
almost on eye-level with Yoongi, who was sitting right in front of him. “Is there something on your
mind?”

“I think I want some goddamn coffee,” Yoongi muttered under his breath, as he shifted to sit on the
spare cushion beside the other man.

Jimin made an amused sound at this and then got to his feet to go over to the kitchen. Using his gift
to rapidly bring some water to a boil, he brewed two mugs of black coffee. He carried them over to
the sofa and placed them down on the coffee table.

When Yoongi moved to draw closer to him, Jimin didn’t stop him. He allowed him to place his
hands on either side of his waist and gently tug him down onto the sofa. Yoongi shifted to bring his
legs up onto the cushion, and then he lowered his head so he could rest his cheek against the warm
expanse of his thigh. As he did so, he closed his eyes and let his breath out in a heavy sigh.

“… I missed you, Jimin. So-fuckin’-much,” he whispered. He felt Jimin’s hand settling against the
crown of his head, and then his fingers slipped into his damp hair to tenderly play with it. “All this
time, I’ve been thinkin’ about what I would do if I saw you again, and now that you’re here … all I
wanna do is just lay down beside you. I don’t wanna talk, I don’t wanna do anythin’, I just want to
feel you. I keep havin’ this nightmare where I make contact with a dead body out in the middle of
the woods somewhere, and it’s you. I wake up screamin’ every time. I can’t fuckin’ sleep without
you. Please, just … just stay the night. One night. That’s all I need."

“Shush, Yoongi. It’s okay. I’m not going anywhere; I’m going to stay right here.”

Yoongi let out a strangled sound as he tightened his hold around the other man’s waist. Hot tears
spilled free from the corners of his eyelids, so he turned his face to bury it in his lap. He felt
Jimin’s fingers stroking through his damp hair down to his neck, which he caressed with a gentle
touch that was so lovingly familiar. A gentle touch that he had been craving for so long now. After
some time, his touch started to feel faint, as Yoongi finally slipped down into the deep darkness of
sleep.

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