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The Beginning of the End

"Ladies and gentlemen!" The tuxedoed man shouted loudly over the chatter and pointless conversation that were going on in the ballroom.

"Welcome to Dongdae Central Hotel!" The man straightened his shirt cuffs before he continued.
"The game tonight is No Limit Hold Em. The bets are now closed and we are ready to begin. Players, please take your seats." The man straighten his bow tie and took his position at the dealers spot.

Jimin glanced down at Izzy, who was pressed tightly to his chest with Jimin's hands clasped around her waist. They were gathered at the corner of the ballroom; Namjoon's foot was tapping anxiously against the marble floor while the younger boys were speaking quietly to each other and casting glances around the massive room.

"We have to go," Jin put a comforting hand on Jimin's shoulder and another on Izzy's. Jimin nodded slowly, there was a far off look in his tired eyes that Izzy didn't like. He drew a deep breath and looked down at her.

"We won't be far, but just stay right here, stay where we can see you, alright?" Izzy stared up at him, and she saw how exhausted Jimin was. The skin beneath his chocolate eyes had darkened and their spark was now just a dim glow. So with a barely-there twitch of the head, she nodded.

Jimin's hands slid from her waist and the boys slowly inched away from her. Namjoon was the first one to sit at the game table, he still looked anxious and Izzy wished desperately that she could do something to fix it. Once their leader was seated the other boys followed after him. Their heads hung low and six sets of eyes were darting around the room, they were nervous; Izzy had never seen them nervous. Yoongi didn't follow after the rest though. He stayed right beside Izzy, leveling his steady eyes on her. His hand found hers and squeezed. Izzy's watery eyes jumped up to look at him.

"I'm not going to tell you that everything is going to be okay, because I don't know that it is," he whispered hurriedly since everyone at the table was waiting for him to fill his empty chair.
"But we're going to take care of you. Just give us some time," there was a sick feeling in his gut, like something bad was going to happen tonight. And he needed to assure Izzy that they could handle whatever the night decided to throw at them. Because even though she took too long in the bathroom and she made their laundry smell like flowers, she was still their Izzy, she was like a little sister to him, she was family. They were a family—a messed up, PG-13 version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, where the evil queen was actually an evil boyfriend—kind of family. But it was all they had and they would take care of each other. Yoongi had to let her know that.

Izzy's clammy fingers squeezed his hand back. She would take care of them too, as best as she could.

Their joined hands fell and Yoongi turned away and swiftly walked to the table where he took his seat. His face was a stone mask, just like the others. Every single person at that table was stone-cold and ready for a game that could cost then hundreds of thousands of dollars. The tension in the room hung heavy over everyone's heads like a giant bubble ready to burst at any second.

"Sorry I'm late!" The heavy wooden doors to the ballroom burst open and a man in a sleek black suit strode in like he owned the place—because he did.

"Somebody clear a seat, I'm playing tonight," Yongkyun smirked at the shocked faces of the players at the table. Nobody shifted a muscle.

"Move!" The second he screamed a balding man in a dull blue suit scrambled up from his seat and the tense bubble in the room had effectively burst.

Youngkyun's expensive leather shoes clicked against the marble flooring as he walked his way around the table and took the recently vacated seat. A seat that was right across from Taehyung.

"I believe I set the buy-in at fifty grand tonight, yes?" The tuxedoed dealer nodded urgently at him, his shaky hands knocked over a pile of chips and he scrambled to stack them back up.

"Well alright then, let's get this started." Youngkyun glanced up. His eyes widened just a bit before a sick glint lit up in them.

"Well what the hell are you doing here," it wasn't a question so much as it was a snide comment directed at the boys. They stayed calm, or at least they were very good at hiding their anxieties, but Izzy's fists clenched in anger. And in that moment her head was clear and she recalled every bad thing Youngkyun had ever done to her.

He had run a drug business without her knowing it. He'd left her lonely in his apartment without explanation more times than she could count. He ran a gambling ring without letting her. He apparently gambled her off to a string of sleazy men who'd finally come to collect their winnings. And he'd kicked her out of his apartment after cheating on her with some bleach blonde bombshell that Izzy knew she could never measure up to. Izzy was still furious about each and every one of those things. But the worst thing he had ever done was take advantage of her boys. He had pulled them into his dirty business with the lure of freedom and a better life and then he destroyed them. Youngkyun had put Izzy though hell but all she could think about was how much she hated him for hurting her boys. They were her family. Youngkyun was messing with her family and she wanted to rip his head off, but she would settle for seeing him lose this game tonight.

The anger was consuming but it made Izzy see clearly. She saw the clench of Jungkook's hand. She saw how horrible Youngkyun clearly was. She saw her fathers stern face at the far end of the table, and she saw that he was looking at her.

This could not be happening right now. Izzy couldn't have her horrible ex-boyfriend and her hateful father in the same room as the people she loved. She couldn't do this right now, she couldn't do this at all. Her anger dissolved into panic as Izzy's breath came in erratic bursts, her heart was pounding in her ears, and she clutched onto her dress with sweaty palms, wrinkling the black fabric in her shaking fingers. And even through the shuffle of cards and scattering of poker chips around the table, Jimin somehow heard her and he glanced up. He shouldn't have glanced up.

Youngkyun's unwavering glare followed Jimin's line of sight and his eyes zeroed in on the girl who was hyperventilating in the corner. The smirk on his face widened and Youngkyun pushed his seat back. His shoes clicked against the floor once again as he made his way over to Izzy.

"I've been looking for you," and that simple sentence, which spilled from Youngkyun's mouth with an unprecedented amount of arrogance, that sentence made Izzy stop breathing altogether.

She turned to glare at him, "And for what possible reason would you be looking for me?" Izzy was seriously and genuinely confused now.

"I want you back."

"No!" The word didn't come from Izzy's mouth.

"You can't have her!" Jimin was out of his seat and at her side in a split second, his protective arms pulled Izzy by the waist until she was standing half-hidden behind him.

"I don't believe I ever asked you to join this conversation," Youngkyun sneered at him as the boys rushed to the corner of the ballroom.

"You're not taking her anywhere," Namjoon stated. He stood firmly at the head of their group. He'd let Youngkyun screw with his family once before, he wouldn't let him do it again.

"This matter is between Izzy and me. You and I have another issue to take care of but we can discuss that later," he turned to Izzy before he got a second wind. "And I do intend to talk about this. You boys owe me a lot of money and I want it back."

"No!" Hoseok screamed at him. The boys' heads whipped around to stare at him in shock. Hoseok didn't yell a lot, actually he didn't yell at all—at least not out of anger—but he was yelling now.

"We don't owe you a damn thing! You ruined our lives. And you ruined Izzy's. You're not taking her from us, you're not taking anything from us ever again," Hoseok's hand held tightly to Izzy's shoulder, partly to comfort her and partly to comfort himself.

"You screwed up our lives and you hurt our friend. We're not letting you do any more damage," Jungkook fumed. He didn't talk about it but living in that railway station and scrounging for years to make a living hadn't been easy for him.

Youngkyun cocked his head, "Who said anything about damage? All I want is my ex-girlfriend and my money back, now is that so hard to understand?"

"What do you really want Youngkyun?" Izzy finally spoke up. "Because I believe that you want your money, but I know for a fact that you don't want me. So what do you want?"

"I want exactly what I said, Izzy. You may not believe me but it's the truth." It was a lie. "How about we kill both of these birds with one stone?"

"What?" Namjoon growled at him.

"I'll make you a deal—all of you," he glanced at Jimin's hands on Izzy's waist. Youngkyun wasn't concerned that an entire room full of rich businessmen waiting to start a poker game was watching this whole interaction with morbid curiosity; he just kept talking.

"We play this game," he nodded his head towards the table of men who were pretending like they weren't watching them. "And if you win, you all get to walk away. You can forget about the debt, you won't owe me a thing."

"And if you win?" Yoongi questioned.

"If I win," he smirked, "then Izzy leaves with me."

The room fell silent. It wasn't all too loud before but now crickets could be heard from a mile away. Jimin wasn't even breathing. Namjoon was trying to keep from choking Youngkyun while Hoseok's hand tightened even more on Izzy's shoulder. Jin, Taehyung, and Jungkook stood shoulder-to-shoulder, forming a solid wall at the rear of their group and were trying not to snap like they so desperately wanted to. Yoongi was the only one who looked like he was holding it together—but he wasn't. On the inside he was just as shocked and scared and furious as the rest of them. But somebody had to speak. Somebody had to tell Youngkyun that they didn't want any part of his stupid gamble.

"No—"

"Deal."

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