Finger's Slicker Than Sin

The air between them was thick—oppressive—with the scent of gunpowder and something far crueler: memory for Junseo. Something sweeter, too. Bitter-sweet like scorched sugar. Something buried deep in the wreckage of his past, clawing its way back with jagged fingernails.

Taeyang cast one last lazy glance at the fallen queen before casually wiping the blood off the blade and snapping the knife shut. Without a word, he tossed it straight at Hyunjae's chest. Typical. Taeyang never handed things over like a normal person—he threw them. And he never asked for anything either. He'd just take it—stealthy, smooth, and you'd only realize it was missing when he returned it like a damn gentleman thief.

Classic shadow assassin behavior.

Because, of course, the knife Taeyang had used in that brutal dance wasn't even his. It was Hyunjae's—the very same knife he'd been sharpening this afternoon in the meeting room, right when Helena's arrival had sent a ripple through their ranks.

Hyunjae caught the knife with a deadpan expression, sliding it back into his pocket like it had never left.

"When was it this time?" he muttered, not sparing a glance at the stunned bartenders or the terrified crowd packed like sardines in the far corner of the room.

No one had been allowed to flee. Not a single soul. Red Dragons didn't do witnesses. They weren't amateurs.

Taeyang's eyes crinkled with a lazy grin, the only visible part of his face under that black mask. "When you were talking to Helena."

So he'd been here the whole time? Before he ambushed?

Hyunjae's jaw tightened.

'Of course. Of course he had.

And of course, despite having a perfectly good blade hidden up his own damn sleeve, he had to take mine'—Hyunjae thought, rolling his eyes internally.

Shadow assassin or not, his younger brother had fingers slicker than sin and a habit of making things vanish with style.

Finally, Hyunjae turned to the crowd—most of them shaking, pale, and huddled like frightened deer in headlights. His signature smile returned, smooth as silk and twice as dangerous, that tempting glint back in his eyes.

"Don't worry, ladies and gentlemen," he said with an almost soothing charm. "You won't be harmed. After all, you're our valued customers. How could we ever hurt you?"

A few people looked slightly reassured. A few.

"But," he added, smile sharpening just slightly, "we do need to make sure none of you breathe a word of what happened tonight."

Before the silence could grow thick with questions or panic, Taeyang's low voice cut in, calm and matter-of-fact—like he was announcing the day's specials.

"And so," he said, "each of you will undergo a little hypnotic session. Don't worry—it's painless. Our finest negotiator and hypnotizer, SJ, will handle it himself. One of the Seven."

He gave a small, almost polite nod, while already signaling the guards stationed at the exits.

"Until then, cooperate and let the guards do their job. They'll guide you."

He paused. His eyes, still half-hidden under the mask, lost their humor now.

"And just to be clear—this isn't a request. Or a suggestion. You don't have a choice. So... cooperate."

A beat.

"Unless you have a death wish," he added with a lazy grin that made a few people visibly shiver.

The guards began to move efficiently, some ushering the crowd, others beginning the silent, swift work of cleaning up the chaos that had erupted in Brews & Sips—the Red Dragons' most infamous and ironically elegant little bar.

To Junseo, none of the chaos unfolding around him—the threats, the crowd, the aftermath—mattered.

He was somewhere else entirely.

Trapped in the gravity of a memory.

Helena's lashes had fluttered once—just once—before falling shut again. Soft. Almost imperceptible. Like dusk quietly swallowing the last sliver of sunlight.

It was nothing. Barely a flicker. The kind of moment most people would miss.

But not Jungkook.

Not the boy who had once memorized the way someone else's lashes fell right before they leaned in to kiss his bruised cheek.

Not by the boy who once clung to breathless seconds the way drowning men cling to air.

That second—barely a heartbeat—cracked something. Something primal. Something he thought he had bolted shut long ago.

Because in that breath of silence, in that barely-there pause, she didn't look like Helena.

Not the sovereign of shadows.

Not the ruthless, brutal queen of Black Panther.

Not the woman whose name made even seasoned gangsters check their backs twice.

She looked like—someone else.

She looked like her.

The girl he wasn't allowed to think about.

Not here. Not now. Not ever.

But memory, traitorous and wild, didn't obey rules.

A flicker of something older and aching crawled up his spine like a shiver that didn't belong to this moment.

The memory of her.

The girl who used to crouch beside him on rainy nights, beside dustbins and busted lampposts, while he trembled so hard he couldn't keep his jaw still. His shoulders wrecked under the weight of his father's belt. His lip split so wide he tasted copper for days.