Chapter 7: Chance Encounter
The rain started as a fine mist, then hardened into a cold, relentless drizzle. Jimin didn’t bother to hurry. He just walked, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his thin sweater, the wool soaked through and heavy. Each step squelched in the ruined leather of his shoes, a gift from Jungkook in what felt like another lifetime. The city’s neon signs bled into the wet pavement, reds and blues smearing like watercolor paintings left in the rain.
He walked for blocks, maybe miles. The rhythmic swipe of the windshield wipers on the black sedan as it had slowly trailed him for half a block before giving up was the only send-off he’d gotten. He’d ignored it, and eventually, it had melted back into the traffic. Jungkook’s final courtesy. His phone, a dead weight in his back pocket, had buzzed once. He hadn’t looked. He knew it would be a text, perfectly punctuated, devoid of any real question. Did the car find you? Not Are you okay? Never that.
His feet carried him without conscious direction until a wave of dizziness forced him to stop. He leaned against a slick brick wall, the cold seeping through his sweater. He was shivering, his teeth chattering. The glow of a neon ‘OPEN’ sign across the street reflected in a deep puddle. A diner. It looked like a relic, tucked between a closed tattoo parlour and a vape shop.
The bell above the door jangled, a harsh, cheerful sound that felt like an accusation. The air inside was thick with the smell of old grease, coffee, and disinfectant. A few lone patrons were scattered in the vinyl booths—a night-shift worker staring into a mug, a couple not talking. Jimin slid into a booth at the back, as far from the light as he could get. The vinyl seat was cracked, the stuffing threatening to spill out.
A waitress with tired eyes and a name tag that read ‘Bev’ dropped a menu in front of him. “Coffee?”
He just nodded, his voice trapped somewhere beneath the lump in his throat. He looked at his hands on the Formica table. They were trembling. He curled them into fists, but the shaking just traveled up his arms. The elevator code’s been changed. The casual finality of it played on a loop in his head. He was an erased number, a deleted entry. A problem that had been efficiently solved.
He didn’t notice the man watching him from the counter until he was already sliding into the booth opposite him. Jimin flinched, pulling back.
“You look like you’ve had a worse night than me,” the man said, his voice a low, gravelly baritone. He was older, maybe late forties, with sharp, Slavic features and hair the color of steel wool. He wore a dark, expensive-looking coat, unbuttoned, over a simple black sweater. His eyes, a pale, piercing blue, didn’t miss a thing. They tracked from Jimin’s waterlogged shoes, up his trembling hands, to the tear tracks he knew were still visible on his cheeks.
Jimin said nothing. He just stared.
The man—Andrei—gestured with a slight tilt of his head. “Your clothes. Good fabric. Ruined now.” His accent was subtle, rounding the edges of his words. “And your face… you have the look of someone who just lost something very expensive.”
“I’m not in the mood,” Jimin managed, his voice rough.
“Obviously.” Andrei smiled, a thin, knowing curve of his lips that didn’t reach his eyes. He picked up a sugar packet from the holder, turning it over in his long fingers. “I am not trying to sell you anything. I am just having a coffee. You look like you shouldn’t be alone.” His gaze was fixed on Jimin’s mouth. “So. Was it money? Or was it a person?”
The waitress arrived with Jimin’s coffee, setting the thick ceramic mug down with a clatter. She glanced at Andrei, then back at Jimin, a flicker of concern in her weary expression before she moved away.
Jimin wrapped his hands around the mug, the heat a distant sensation. He felt laid bare, his pain dissected by this stranger’s calculating gaze. He wanted to tell him to fuck off, to get up and walk out, but his body felt leaden, bolted to the seat. The silence stretched, broken only by the hum of a refrigerator and the distant hiss of the coffee machine.
Andrei didn’t press. He just waited, his presence an immovable object.
“A person,” Jimin whispered finally, the admission torn from him. He looked out the window at the rain-streaked night. “It was a person.”
Andrei nodded slowly, as if this confirmed everything. “The worst kind.” He pushed the sugar packet across the table towards Jimin. “They are all the same, these beautiful, careless people. They think love is a transaction. They take the best parts of you and leave you with the check.”
Jimin’s head snapped up. How did he…?
Andrei’s smile was grim. “I have seen it before. The shoes, the sweater… the heartbreak. You are an artist, yes? I can see it in your hands.” He leaned forward slightly, his voice dropping. “He will not come after you. Men like that never do. They simply… acquire something new.”
The truth of it was a physical blow. Jimin felt the air leave his lungs. He stared into the dark pool of his coffee, seeing his own distorted reflection.
“What is your name?” Andrei asked.
“Jimin.”
“Jimin.” Andrei tested the name on his tongue. “You can sit here in the wet clothes, drinking bad coffee, feeling the world end. Or,” he said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, “you can let me buy you a real drink. Somewhere dry. Where we don’t have to talk about him at all.”
He placed a crisp hundred-dollar bill on the table to cover the untouched coffee. His eyes held Jimin’s, offering not comfort, but a distraction. A dangerous, sharp-edged one. The kind that could make you forget everything, for a little while.
Jimin looked from the money to Andrei’s unwavering face. The ache in his chest was a void, and he was terrified of what might fill it. This was a very different kind of danger.
He slowly, hesitantly, nodded.