Stronger || NCT mafia au

Chapter 44 | "changed my life"

Lucas, Sungchan, and Jihyun went into the kitchen, volunteering to clean up after Kun and Taeyong had kindly cooked for all of them. Jihyun laughed, putting away the dishes as the two tall boys splashed water at one another.

"Dry yourselves off before leaving!" She called, throwing a towel at them as she walked out of the kitchen. She closed the kitchen door, entering the main room to see Jaemin sitting there, waiting for her.

"Hey, we didn't get to finish talking earlier." He said, standing up once he saw her.

"Yeah I wanted to apologize about earlier, I don't know what I was doing. Sorry if it made you uncomfortable or anything, I wasn't really thinking." She says with a shy smile, shaking her head at her previous actions. She doesn't know why it felt so wrong to say that but she pushes away the feeling. He looks at her, a frown momentarily appearing on his face before he wipes it away.

"No no it's fine. We're good." He says with a small smile.

"Hmmmm, has anyone given you an official tour of the headquarters yet?" He shook his head no. "Then come on, I'll show you around and we can talk." He smiled and followed her out of the main room.

- - -

"And this is the door to my room. The four of you will take the four rooms next to the right of mine, we just have to move your stuff out of the guest rooms." He nodded his head, inspecting a carved design on her door.

"What is this?" He said, tracing his fingers over the delicate wood. "The other doors had carvings too." He turned to look at her.

"My symbol." She responded, holding up the corner of her jacket. "It's like our name in NCT. It goes on our jacket, carved into our bullets, it's on all of our weapons" she pulls out her knife, showing him the carving on the hilt, "we even get it tattooed on us." He nods his head in understanding.

"So I'll get a symbol too?"

"You get to choose yours. You obviously can't have the same symbol as another member, but your symbol represents you, so it's got to feel right." He nods, turning back to the carving on the door.

"It's a rose. Your symbol's so different." He breathes out.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I saw that most of the other have animals or things like that, like Taeyong's dragon, Yuta's lion, or Mark's Tiger. But you're a rose. Why?"

"Well, there's a lot of reasons for that. Ever since I was a kid, my parents said I'd be a perfect mafia leader because I was like a rose. So unassuming on the outside, I mean what man would expect a small girl to be coming to kill him?" She said simply, smiling at him. He raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

"You're not telling me the whole story. From the way I've heard you talk about your parents, you wouldn't let them influence your pick that much." She let out a sigh, knowing he had seen right through her.

"Fine. Yes, there's more." She opens the door to her room, gesturing him inside then going to sit on the side of her bed.

"This life that I live, it's not easy. You know that if I had the choice, I wouldn't ever kill people. But at this point, there's nothing I can do, I just have to push it away. When I was younger, though, it was hard. I couldn't pull the trigger when I looked at someone, because when I looked into their eyes, I saw life. I saw the life I was going to take away. Everyone they love, everyone they've cared about. I couldn't strip people of that, no matter how hard I tried. But that's when the beatings started."

She paused, turning her head to the side and lifting up her hair. Jaemin looked at the back of her neck, seeing what looked like a deep gash running across her neck.

"If you slash someone in the same place enough times, it's bound to leave a scar. Everytime I failed, I was hit since the age of 7 until it eventually became numb. Everytime I successfully pulled the trigger, they gave me a rose. It made me happy at the time, getting a rose meant no beating, no failure. It meant making the 'right' decision." She let out a bitter laugh.

"I chose it as my symbol to remind me of the consequences of my actions. To remind me that I cannot afford to choose wrong, to show me what my training has made me become so that I don't ever falter. It also reminds me to be different. I will never become a leader like my parents were. I never want someone to go through that."

She stands up, Jaemin following her as she approaches a large paining on one of her walls. It's a beautiful night sky filled with small white stars, beneath the sky is a field of red roses.

"Every star you see on this painting represents another kill. I add one every time someone loses their life at my hand." She says, tracing her fingers along the small white stars.

"The roses are for every innocent who I kill. Whether it collateral damage or just unfortunate association, I remember all of them." She stares at the roses, a pit in her stomach as she realizes for the first time just how many there are.

Jaemin observes the painting, seeing the familiar symbol drawn in the top corner.

"There's a heart. It's small but there's a heart." He points at the small heart next to the rose.

"Love. It's you guys. Something I was never allowed to feel until I met the rest of NCT. The rose is a reminder of my past, to be ruthless and decisive. The heart is for my present, my family, to remind my of who I'm protecting and why I do what I do." She turns to him with a small smile.

"Well I already know what I want my symbol to be then." He returns her gaze.

"What is it?"

"An arrow. A feathered arrow." He says happily.

"Why?" He takes a deep breath, closing his eyes momentarily.

"That first day that I really met you, when we practiced with each other. It was the first time I had seen you as anything other than terrifying. I remember watching you shoot and thinking it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. That day when you helped me and we became friends, it was then that I decided that I wanted to be on your team. Train with you. Fight beside you. Be part of your family. That decision changed my life." He gazes at her, an intensity in his eyes that almost scares her.

"Well I'm glad that you made that decision, I wouldn't want anyone else on my team." Despite the building tension, she can't force herself to break his gaze, the two staring at one another as the intensity between them builds.

The sound of a closing door in the hallway snaps Jihyun out of her trance, a small laugh escaping her lips as she backs away from him, walking towards her door.

"Well now that you've chosen your symbol, I guess it's time to go get it tattooed. Are you ready?" She asks, a redness on her face as she tries to calm down her erratically beating heart.

"Y-yeah, sure. Let's do it." He stutters out with a flustered smile, following her out of the room.

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I'm in a double update kinda mood, yay!
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