The room looked more like a high-end bedroom than a hotel room. Plush carpeting that Jimin could feel underneath his shoes, a large flat-screen television sitting on top of a chic dresser, several antique-looking paintings hanging on the walls. Despite the late hour, the room still felt bright and airy.
"Could I make a suggestion to you?"
Jimin spun around to face Zodiac again, instinctive fascination with the luxurious hotel suite evaporating instantly. He narrowed his eyes, studying Zodiac's face, but the alpha was unreadable. "What is it?"
Zodiac approached him slowly, pressing a hand against Jimin's side to move him in front of the mirror hanging near the entryway. He draped his arms around Jimin's shoulders as if they were suddenly familiar with each other, and had not just met that day. "You're about to get dragged underneath the wheels of an ugly machine," he said. "I don't need to be here. My mate is pregnant and I should be at home, nesting with him, but instead, I'm watching Jeongguk drive a behemoth off the side of a cliff. Maybe it's just my fascination with destruction."
"What's your suggestion?"
"That you take control of the machine. Otherwise, you're going to fall off the cliff with it."
Jimin pauses, catching sight of himself in the entryway mirror as he passes it. He's more disheveled than he was the last time he met with himself. His hair is in disarray and pink marks litter his neck, but, more than that, he looks hollow. As if he's been scraped empty like an ice cream carton.
Jeongguk shrugs his blazer off, tossing it onto the cream-colored chaise near the window. He lingers there for a few moments, taking a peek behind the curtains. The room is only on the third floor, so the view isn't like the one from Jeongguk's private suite.
"You never told me why you're here," he finally says, releasing the curtain and turning his attention back to Jimin. "Checking into a hotel room here isn't exactly something someone does on a whim."
"It wasn't. Zodiac told me to come here." Jimin watches Jeongguk's expression carefully as it shifts into uneasy confusion. "He said I was being stalked."
"How did you happen to meet him?"
"Dutch is an assistant manager at one of my jobs," Jimin replies. "Zodiac was just... there today. But he called while I was going home and said Allan Andersen—that guy, one of the guys who owed you money—was stalking me, and told me not to go home."
Jeongguk's brows knit together, and he tilts his head to the side. "I don't know anything about that," he says slowly. "You're being stalked?"
Jimin opens his mouth, then closes it again. Is he being stalked? He hasn't noticed anything out of the unusual. He isn't even sure how Andersen would manage to find out what University attended. "I... don't know," he admits. "I mean, he fucking t-boned the car behind me at an intersection, so I just... I just assumed..."
Breathing out a heavy sigh, Jeongguk approaches the bed and takes a seat on the edge of it. He stares down at his hands, folded on his lap, for several long moments while deciding how to respond. "I don't blame you for believing him," he says. "Especially when he pulls something like that. You'd think he wouldn't purposefully put someone else's life in danger if he wasn't serious, but he doesn't care. Anything is fine for him as long as he gets the result he wants."
"Taehyung told me a little bit," Jimin admits. "About him. About how you met."
Jeongguk forces out a dry chuckle. "I wouldn't say he's Zodiac's biggest fan."
"I gathered as much. I don't think he gets why you are," Jimin says, moving to take a seat beside him on the bed. "Honestly, I don't get it either."
Shrugging a shoulder, Jeongguk toys with the cuffs of his sleeves. His knee bounces like he's agitated, while the rest of his demeanor is relatively calm. It's an odd combination. "I was angry when we met," he replies. "Taehyung and I had fallen out, and he went to Haneul, and I—I didn't have anybody. I was a wreck the night I met Zodiac. Like, wasted out of my fucking mind, but he listened. And he kept listening. Drove me places, invited me out, fucked me... He made me feel safe and understood, even when I told him the fucked up shitty parts of me, because he's fucked up too."
