Warning: This chapter contains strong language as well as violence involving street fighting and guns. Please use caution if you are triggered by character deaths or any of the above mentioned warnings.

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with BTS nor do I know them personally. I don't claim for this story to be the true meaning behind the band's MVs, simply my interpretation of events. This is just me letting my mind go wild a little. Please enjoy. :)

One

"You are always reading this morbid shit, Yoongi."

Jeong-guk snorted milk up his nose and then it spluttered all over the place. Just the sight of that face that Yoongi was currently giving Namjoon - a mixture of annoyance and possibly constipation - nearly made him drown in dairy. He quickly scrambled for a napkin to pat down his face. If he wasn't careful, Yoongi's constipation look would fire a direct hit at him pretty soon too. Though how could he hide his amusement behind his bowl of cereal? Some serious creative thinking was in order here.

The school cafeteria was bustling with all kinds of activity, filled to the brim with students and administrators alike in the process of getting some sort of nourishment or just to do the daily social networking gig. Nam and Yoongi weren't even fazed by the multitude of people in the vicinity. They went at it anyway, sometimes even for hours at a time. The usual consisted of Nam calling Yoongi out, or sometimes Hoseok would get in on the mix with his own wild antics. They were lighthearted jabs meant to make the others laugh, just your typical teenage boy shit.

"Look who's talking," Yoongi shot back, his piercing eyes burning a hole right through Nam's shirt. "You've been reading that one book over and over again since you got it. Do you fucking even understand it?"

"Uh…. of course I do. I read English, you know?" Namjoon wore a smug look on his face. The glare coming from his friend seemed to pass right over his head.

"Just because you read English doesn't mean you understand any of the words, dumbass." Now it was Yoongi's turn to wear a smug look, crossing his arms over his chest and lifting his chin up like it was a plane taking off from the runway. It was like this all the time - the back and forth, the silly remarks. They fed off of this and it helped them get through the days just being stupid punks to each other. How else were they supposed to survive high school? It was a pain in the ass to be locked up in the same place for hours with boring teachers and assignments. Sometimes, you just had to take matters into your own hands.

"Jeong…"

He glanced up at the sound of Seok's voice only to catch him motioning with his chin at something directly in front of them. When Jeong diverted his eyes, they immediately focused in on her. And suddenly the entire world stopped. Despite having the school uniform on just like all the other girls, he couldn't help but picture her as a model - long legs taking one calculated step at a time as she strutted over to the table in slow motion to greet her friends who were waiting for her there. She was a goddess, and the only thing missing from her was the celestial beam of light coming from above to illuminate the path before her. If he had noticed that his mouth was slightly open and that it would have been a good idea to swallow the bit of milk and cereal he had just stuffed into his mouth earlier, maybe it wouldn't be dribbling all down his front at the moment. But he simply could not control the way he stared. She was stunning and smart to boot, the one girl in the whole school who could capture his attention - the same one who starred in every single one of his daydreams. She had the voice of an angel and a name to match: Kim Ji-hye. It was like music to his ears.

"Earth to Jeong…. Come in, Jeong!"

"Huh?" He blinked over at his friends, and every single one of them suddenly burst out laughing. It was only then that he felt something moist on his crotch, and when he glanced down… "OH SHIT!" Three hundred napkins were nowhere near enough to soak up the puddle of milk mixed with cereal that had formed on his pants and had also trailed a path from his chin all down his shirt. The fabric itself had gathered it all up, and now it looked like he'd wet himself right there in his chair or perhaps he'd been through some sort of Exorcism scene. "Why the hell didn't you guys tell me something," he said as he tried in vain to pat down his crotch. The roars of laughter only intensified.

"You looked so peaceful staring off into space like that," Hoseok offered by way of explanation and then shrugged. "We just didn't want to interrupt you."

"He wasn't staring into space, you guys," Seok said quietly and once again nodded over to the table beside them. "He was looking at her."

"DON'T EVERYONE LOOK AT ONCE! GEEZ!" He wanted to hide under the table. Was it possible to just hide under there forever?

He heard Nam let out a low whistle and wondered if maybe the hiding place of the table just wasn't enough. Maybe he needed to dig a hole in the floor to crawl into and just die. "Whoa, she's a cutie. Nice one there, Jeong. Is she new?"

With a sigh, Jeong peeked out from under the table - yes he had actually tried to take refuge underneath there. Everyone was still with their eyes glued to Ji-hye's table, but luckily she and her friends hadn't noticed how completely ridiculous his friends were being right now. "She transferred last month. I'm surprised not one of you has tried to hit her up yet." He knew his friends well, and while he would trust them with his life, they could be pretty terrible when they wanted to be, especially when it came to girls.

Tae was literally standing on his chair looking over at their table, and Jeong tugged on his pant leg to get him to sit down. "Whaaaaat? I can't see from here cause Jimin's huge head is in the way."

"I do not have a huge head," protested Jimin. "You're just short."

"Hey, who are you calling short?!"

Jeong just rolled his eyes at them, because this was going to start yet another pointless banter between the two of them that would somehow encompass all of them before too long. Someone slid up beside him though and draped his arm around his shoulders. It was Nam, and he had that wise look on his face that said he was about to drop some serious wisdom and that he should listen up cause this shit only happened like twice a year at most. "You need to go talk to that girl, Kookie," was his serious philosophical conclusion in a matter-of-fact sort of way. "What's the worst she could say? No? Or what? Laugh at you? So what?! You got us with you, right?"

There was still some aftermath of the bickering going on between Tae and Jimin, but for the most part, the others were paying attention to the legit wisdom Nam was throwing down. Jeong felt something in his stomach contract - no lie, the cereal he had just eaten was probably stuck somewhere in his esophagus still. The thought of going up to that girl scared him more than anything, the fear of rejection presenting self-doubt in his mind, and it was a very real fear. The egos of teenage boys could be very fragile, though they had to make it seem as if everything was cool when something happened. Could he do that? Could he pretend to be alright when the one girl he had ever even had any remote feelings for would reject him? One look over at Nam reflected a dubious expression.

"If anything, just sing to her, Jeong. Everyone likes to be serenaded, especially girls." Seok smiled at him - that calming, wise-beyond-his-years tug at his cheeks that served to put Jeong at ease for the time being. Right. If all else failed, he could use his voice to get him out of anything. And after a moment, he too smiled back at his friend.

"Alright… I think I'm gonna do it!" A rush of adrenaline flooded his veins as he stood suddenly, his eyes fixed on Ji-hye's table like it was a bullseye. Though as fate would have it, at that exact same moment her friend sitting across from her spotted him staring and signaled Ji-hye to look over at him. Jeong's eyes went wide when Ji-hye turned to look at him, a moment of pure and utter terror icing his veins and freezing him up right in his spot as those big gorgeous eyes fell upon his. His entire world was over. Luckily, Nam acted fast and pulled him back down, the others crowding around him to block the view.

"That's great, buddy, but uhm…. You might wanna change your pants before you do that, ya think?"

Nam was right. He had totally forgotten about the stain on his crotch, and he wanted to smack himself in the forehead repeatedly. Why did he have to be such a total loser?

"I think I'm gonna throw up."

"But you barely even touched your cereal!" Tae was lightly combing his fingers through Jeong's hair as he stood in the middle of the bathroom. Not that his hair was particularly messy or anything, but it served as a calming effect, or so Tae hoped. Meanwhile, Jeong was in the process of flat ironing his shirt by stretching it as much as possible and sticking it under the hand drier. So far, success continued to elude him. Behind them, one of the toilets flushed and out strolled Yoongi, just taking one glance over at them and snorting.

"You make it sound like she's going to kill you, Kookie. Stop being so dramatic." To be an ass, he began deliberately combing back his hair, and of course, he looked like some regal statue only found in the classiest of museums. He just had to rub it in Jeong's face that he was better looking and about a hundred times more confident.

He shook his head, casually swiping Tae's hands away from him as he slid back over to the mirror to give himself another look over. "I'm not being dramatic," he replied in a low, unconvincing voice. "I'm just nervous. You've never gotten nervous before talking to a girl?"

Yoongi smirked into the mirror as he put his comb away, posing like some sort of Abercrombie and Fitch model with his arms crossed. "You know me. I-"

"He doesn't even like girls," Tae chimed in before he could finish and then proceeded to swan dive inside a stall to avoid certain death.

"EY! Fuck you. I do too like girls." He narrowed his eyes at the stall where Tae had just dived into as if he was considering the odds of getting caught if he tried to kill him right now.

"It's okay if you don't, you know," Jeong added. He exuded a voice-of-reason sort of tone, but it still made Yoongi roll his eyes and push his way past him toward the door.

"Just don't fuck up, Kook," he said as he exited the bathroom with a dramatic flair of sorts.

This finally brought a smirk out of Jeong, whose nerves had him so frayed he hadn't been able to muster a decent smile since lunch. "He's going to kill you one of these days, you know." Messing with Yoongi never yielded very good results. Just because they were casually teasing each other didn't mean Yoongi didn't take things to heart. It was often hard to tell what set Yoongi off and what was just him perpetuating the tsundere persona he was famous for. Nothing seemed to bother him more than someone suggesting he had a heart or even normal feelings. Those sort of things seemed to be beneath him.

"Eh, I'm not scared of him," said Tae as he reemerged from the bathroom stall and came back over to finish combing out his hair. "So are you ready, Kookie? This is it."

Jeong took a deep breath and let it out slowly, giving himself one last look in the mirror before nodding. "Fuck my life. Why do these things happen to me?" Despite that though, he reached out and took Tae's hand, giving it a reaffirming squeeze. "Yes…. ready as I'll ever be."

"Think you can talk to my little sister like that, you little shit?"

Colors danced all around Jeong's vision. The empty alleyway was coming in and out of focus, and he was pretty sure one of his ribs was broken. The pain was unbearable. Yet, they continued to hurl kicks in his general direction. Five against one. How fair was that even? Did fairness even matter in this situation? Clearly, all logic had gone out the window, and no amount of explaining could possibly get him out of this now. He could still see his phone some distance away from him, strewn on the floor of the alley and possibly vibrating with a text from one of his friends. If he could just reach for it…

"Answer me, bitch!"

A punch to his throat forced a gasp out of him, and he went spiraling forward into a puddle. That drip-drop sound he kept hearing appeared to be close, and he only just discovered that it was blood trickling out from a wound on his forehead and falling like raindrops into the puddle in front of him. The iron of it made a sort of kaleidoscope swirl in the puddle, which made him even dizzier than he was before. His hands were shaking as he tried to push himself up, but it was getting harder and harder to breathe. How did he not see this coming? If only he could have known that he was going to get the shit kicked out of him just for talking to girl, he probably would have thought twice about it.

No… no, he wouldn't have.

"Get wrecked, asshole," was the only thing he could get out in a hoarse whisper. This elicited a surge of laughter from the thugs and gained him several more kicks to the abdomen. Maybe he had lost his voice for a reason. Maybe he just needed to be quiet, just shut the hell up and they would stop destroying his body like this. Maybe they would even let him live.

The kicks subsided almost too quickly, and while it gave him a moment's reprieve, it was far too short-lived. Someone yanked him up roughly by the scruff of his neck and held him in a headlock. It was Ji-hye's brother, the one who had organized his band of goons to come out here and beat the shit out of him for just talking to his sister. The whole thing felt sort of ridiculous really, but his arm around his neck was very much real. Breathing was impossible, but it was the click of a gun that caught his attention and forced him to stop struggling for the moment. Fuck. It was at this exact moment that he knew he wasn't going to make it out of this alleyway alive. He was going to die here one way or another, and the thought made tears prickle behind his eyes.

"Please…. Please, it was a mistake! I just…" There he went talking again, and it turned out that that was a mistake too. The gun was pointed at his forehead, and his body started to shake. It was incredible the sort of innate reaction a human had to knowing that his life was coming to an end, and he struggled fiercely in order to stay alive. "Please, no… Please don't do this! Please!" Tears were streaming down his face now as he watched in horror as the gunman pulled the trigger. Click.

Wait, click?

Click, click, click.

He hadn't realized that he had shut his eyes, but when he opened them again he saw the gunman trying to figure out why his gun wasn't firing. A strange sense of relief washed over him in that moment. Not that he didn't think any of the others had guns or anything, but at least he would get to live for a few seconds more, right? Just a few more seconds to think about his parents and his big brother, about his friends, about… the girl he would never get to love and go out on dates with. He had somehow come to terms with the fact that he was dying, because if he didn't die from a gunshot wound to the head then he would surely bleed out here in this alleyway. He was already feeling lightheaded as the goons all tried to figure out ways to fix the gun. That was when he heard a bored sigh coming from behind him, from the guy who was holding onto him by the neck, from Ji-hye's brother. Something seemed to gleam from his wrist, and it was only now that he caught sight of a tattoo: four circles all colored in and three of them with artistic designs on them. Why was he only just now noticing a tattoo? Was he really that delirious?

"Do I have to do everything myself?"

It happened so quickly, his head turning to the side and he barely even had time to hear the snap. Darkness enveloped him fast, though it was actually not the image of the alleyway of his demise that remained in his mind as the last vestiges of his mortal life.

It was her.