❝and I couldn't stand the person inside me❞
justice: long-forgotten plea
──

Namjoon could only feel anxiousness and curiosity darting inside his nerves when he was intimated that Jin wanted to talk to him in private. It was out of the ordinary; receiving an invitation from the head of the council himself to have a personal chat isn't that fancy as it sounds. As they say, the prettiest roses have the deadliest thorns.

"I see you are punctual," the room's silence was displaced with Jin's sudden arrival. His heels hit the floor simultaneously as he walked closer to the giant window, with a wonderful view of his vicious jail of half-innocents and guilty with an alibi. A horror movie he directed and painted with his own blood-stained hands.

"Wonderful, isn't it? This school, its ideologies. With us as the gods of this sinful land, may we toast the blood of the sinners," he grinned, creeping the hell out of Namjoon.

A wave of disgust passed through his spine when Jin's eyes landed on him, planning out ways to peel the answers out of his tongue. Namjoon wasn't approximately a coward, he was being realistic to be afraid of Jin's thoughts. He would go to any extreme to get what he wants, and everything that stands in his way is a man blocking the future.

"Now tell me, how did the meetings go? I'm really curious," Jin had his entire concentration on Namjoon, waiting for an answer a little impatiently. Namjoon's stability stumbled pondering what white lies would he conjure up to feed Jin's insatiable hunger for a proper remedy.

Namjoon forced out yet another deep breath. "You wouldn't call me here for such a silly question, Jin. We all know lost time can be never found again," he stated rendering Jin's question meaningless in attempts to divert Jin's thoughts from this topic, like the sun rays diverging from a glass panel.

Jin malevolently smiled as his eyes dived inside a pool of blood. The chills cultivated in Namjoon's spine rose stronger and stronger with each eye contact he made with him, all he could sense from Jin's eyes was nothing but, bloodlust. "How did you attend meetings that never even existed, Namjoon?" He asked, his voice sedated with a different type of drug. A drug that doesn't feed you pleasure, but fear.

Namjoon winced at his tomb of lies crumbling into pieces, an expected day he never wished it would come. He believed he was always subtle in ways, putting on a filter that can be never looked through. This moment was too realistic that it twisted into an animated scenario.

Namjoon closed his eyes for a second, shutting it tight. This wasn't a stage playing drama where when the scene ends, people will stand and applaud for the realistic play. This was a moment where he could possibly close his chapters of life and that didn't settle well with him. Creating up a new formula to spin more lies wouldn't help him, with the monstrosity of facade judging him.

"I don't work for you, anymore," Namjoon answered and that didn't satiate Jin's curiosity enough.

"I have a new god," Namjoon's eyes shimmered when he said that, like a devotee helplessly devoted to his all-known god to attain inner peace.

Jin's smile receded when he heard someone was a better leader than him, someone so addictive that one would betray his own blood. "But, didn't I already make you one, Namjoon?" he bent his head a little sider, forming a betrayed expression on his face as he were innocent.

Namjoon looked away, not bearing the attempt of manipulation. "I'll give you one more chance, Namjoon. Join us," Jin said as he extended his hands for Namjoon to catch and accept, but rather Namjoon's dejected face gave it all away that his choice will never sway.

Jin pulled his hands back, his sinister smile cooling down. Namjoon's skin was under flames, an echo inside his heart screaming to run away. His immobile legs seemed to be anchored to the ground, watching the sunshine rays crumble into clouds of dust. Jin's fingers crept inside his packet and grabbed a Glock, the shrill machine sound resonated.

And at that moment he knew, even his death was a tragedy.

Namjoon was a person who never expected help even when he hit rock bottom because if they do so, they will be waiting for something in return as a wage and he was scared he would never meet their expectations. He never questioned or doubted anything, all he did was silently watch the atrocity, his fingers holding the very most end of the string about to fall down.

Gods should be worshiped, ghosts should be hated.

Heroes should be praised, villains should be criticized.

These were the fundamental laws, no one asked why they were created as the prodigies of evil and good, hell and heaven. People never had the need, because we all follow a rhythm cycle inside this battlefield called the earth, and its only law is to never care if their name is not comprised. Namjoon is just a fragment of this society, playing his part as a watcher.

Maybe the world is evolving, but humanity? In this era, money is expensive than lives and no one dared question that, and even if someone does their screams are suppressed saying they are nuisances overreacting to reality. But overreacting is a cut above giving into this verity. And people call them villains, someone who doesn't abide by conservative morals.

Namjoon has never been a villain or a hero, he is stuck in between. And today he might not die as a hero who would be marked in history for sacrificing his life or a villain who betrayed his own blood, but maybe as a man who didn't give in to this gambling world.

The gun's bullet crawled its way through the wind and struck his forehead, within a split second he found himself as a corpse. A content sigh escaped his lips and a relieved smile slithered with blood rapidly gushing out of his wound. 

"What a pity party," Jin responded without remorse or any guilt clinging onto his heart.

A click of heels ringed obtuse after the blow of the gun, Jin turned his face towards the sillouhlet miraged by the sun rays. "Ah, Jisoo, perfect timing!" Horror and disgust were in a matrimonial, constructing a dreaded expression on her face. The sight of her contracted brother's fresh blood rooted to the wooden floor and seeping through the smallest of the holes made her nauseous, the urge to throw up filling her taste buds.

"You called me here to talk about something important, not see the body of my brother floating on his own blood!" She spoke, the scent of the corpse poking her throat like needles.

"Sorry, should have been more specific," he shrugged nonchalantly not impacted by the man he killed lying down on the floor, with eyes open glaring at him horribly. He was used to people looking down on him, offensively facing him as if he was a rat infesting their sweet home. He was a kid, he shouldn't have experienced it.

Anger bubbled inside Jisoo, even though he wasn't the dearest to her, at least he was an important piece of glass belonging to her shattered glass of past. Her teeth slashed against each other in cider, "Why would you even?"

Jin was unconventionally calm, "He betrayed us, Jisoo. He deserves this, turning back on who raised him, who made him who he is now." He further explained inside the solitude, her eyes spiraling inside the deepest of oceans.

"Who are you to judge his crime, Jin? You weren't the only one deceived!"

"I am the only rational person, I can't always execute a result you expect." His reply only crumbled her more. 

He walked closer to her. Jisoo's body was shivering under the intensity of this moment like a needless shower of arrows raining upon a defenseless soldier. "You do understand he participated in the death of Lilian right? The one who didn't create your flesh and bones, but your heart and soul," his tone were low as he muttered near her ears. 

With the goosebumps spreading all over her body like a wildfire, Jisoo denied embracing yet another black lie Jin weaves for his own benefit. "H- He would never kill his own sister!" Jisoo defended the dead man with sweet residual memories written on beach sand about to get washed away by the salt waves.

"He did, Jisoo. He knew Lilian would get murdered if she proceeds to be adamant in this matter. Their family will choose money and reputation over blood and family any day, Jisoo. He knew that from the start. He watched her die. He watched the goons kill Lilian and never spoke a word about it to you, the one who longs for her to return. He hid her death from you, Jisoo. He deserved something worse than death and yet, I showed him my mercy."

Jisoo's eyes shimmered in tears after a long hold of silence. Her knees hit the ground with her hands gripping dearly to her mouth, an irresistible attempt to weaken her strong emotions. Lilian wasn't just any angel or savior taking mercy on a stray child and raising them out of pity, but she was rather a person who accepted Jisoo as a part of her reality, a part of her whole, and died for her cause. Every time she questioned the whereabouts of Lilian and her wellness Namjoon would always respond with, 'she is pursuing her higher studies in the Netherlands, do not disturb her.' Lilian was the only connection that glued Jisoo and Namjoon together as siblings, even though most of the time it was not mutual.

"L-Lilian is dead?" Jisoo said it out loud, and it hurt her even more than the words she built in her mind. 

"Yes," Jin bluntly replied, his cast unaffected as if he was just watching an average angst movie.

"The world is filled with all these liars and manipulators, Jisoo. Rejecting to be the one who they actually are. But, I am not. I am the only one true to myself. I am the only one who made my dreams a reality. Surrender to me, work for me! Our revenge doesn't end here." Jin extended his hands, watching the tear-stained Jisoo look above him.

"Join me and justice will be served in a gold platter!"

──

❝ i jumped at the slightest of sounds❞

+ i hope the one invented exams gets rickrolled on their birthday :D