Chapter Text
“What the fuck are we doing here, Chae?”
To the surprise of no one, Chaewon had got them in trouble. Yunjin really shouldn't be too surprised, Chaewon was always getting in trouble. Her best friend had a knack for not thinking and her need to rebel and stick it to her strict parents by getting into scandals and finding herself in compromising situations never failed to get them mixed up in tricky situations.
But this…
This might have been the stupidest thing Kim Chaewon had ever done. And might just lead to their deaths.
All because of one girl.
- A few hours earlier -
Refugia wasn’t just a normal club. It was a strip club said to be run by the Yakuza. It might as well have been a brothel if rumors were right. While seemingly well kept up, it was still located in the shadiest part of the city.
This is where Huh Yunjin found herself one Friday evening.
Chaewon had a tendency to drag Yunjin from club to club but this was the first time she’d dragged her to a place like this.
“How’d you even get us in? Isn’t this place like… super exclusive?” Yunjin leans in to ask as they walk in. Somehow, Chaewon managed to get them through the heavily secured door with no problem. While she was rich and had a powerful family, she doubted the Kim’s had much power in this place.
“I have my ways.” She winks, “C’mon! I need to find her.”
As for what they were doing here - Chaewon had met a girl.
By her descriptions, the soft spoken, funny girl with looks that rivaled Bae Suzy, was the love of her life. They’d met briefly at some cafe and hit it off. But before Chaewon could get her number she had left. In true fairytale fashion, Chaewon’s princess - or rather knight in shining armor by Chaewon’s descriptions - had dropped a business card for Refugia on her way out.
So here they were, in the Yakuza run club looking for her dreamgirl.
The strip club is exactly what you would expect it to be. Practically naked women and men and high baller patrons throwing cash their way. No matter how upscale and refined Refugia tried to sell itself as, a strip club was a strip club.
They take seats at the bar and order drinks. Of course not without hassle. They were two beautiful young women, of course the lecherous patrons would see them and want their attention. But they’ve been to enough clubs in their days to know how to avoid sneaky hands and ignore the catcalls.
“What should I get you beautiful ladies tonight?” The bartender asks. He’s got pretty boy looks with highlights in his hair and dark smokey make-up. He’s the most dressed here besides the customers but not without showing some skin as he wears skin tight leather pants and a black frayed vest that exposes well toned abs.
“One margarita and a whiskey sour, please!” Chaewon orders for them both.
Yunjin glances around, not really looking at anyone for too long in fear of catching the wrong eye. She mainly studies the dancers on stage and the waiters delivering drinks. Meanwhile, Chaewon investigates for her dreamgirl.
“Does a Kazuha work here?” She asks the bartender as he returns with their drinks.
Yunjin turns just in time to catch the slight pause before he slides the drinks over with a wide grin, “Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Hmm, I thought she might work here.” Chaewon pouts, sipping on her drink. “Guess she might be a customer.”
“We get a lot of those here.” He laughs, it sounds natural but Yunjin doesn’t miss the quick glance to the side of the club where tall men in suits stand, guarding a back door. In her watch, Yunjin had seen dancers walking past it.
“Guess I’ll wait and hope she shows up.” Chaewon turns in her chair, glancing out at the crowd.
“I’ll be over here if you need another drink.” He calls out as he makes his way to the other side of the bar. Yunjin watches as he calls over one of the bouncers.
“Hey, did you notice that?” Yunjin leans in and tries to speak as low as she could in the noisy club. The bartender speaks to the guard, glancing their way which puts Yunjin on alert.
“Of course, but we have to act cool.”
Chaewon may look like an idiot heiress sometimes and get herself into trouble often -- but she was smart when it came to situations like these. She could pick up on body language and people's emotions rather quickly. She was likely as suspicious of the bartender as Yunjin was and had probably come to the same conclusion.
There was no doubt he knew Kazuha. Or had at least heard that name before.
But the question was, why did he pretend he didn’t know her?
At the end of the bar, the two men finish talking. The bouncer walks away and disappears behind the door and the bartender returns to making drinks.
Yunjin contemplates asking Chaewon to leave. A few dancers were on stage putting on a show which had caught most of the club's attention. But Yunjin couldn’t focus on the provocative dancing, far too paranoid about what the bartender might have told the bouncer.
“Should we-”
“Hello.”
Just as she finally settles and begging Chaewon to get out of there, to try her luck finding Kazuha in the much safer cafe where they had first met, when a woman steps in front of her.
A head shorter than her with dark black hair and bangs that framed her face, cut short in a wolf cut. She had the biggest brown eyes Yunjin had ever seen. She was breathtaking with soft fair skin tinted pink in the apples of her cheeks and the tips of her ears that peeked out from the strands of her hair. A mole on her nose and smokey make-up, she was by far one of the most beautiful women she’d ever seen.
“H-Hi.”
She slides into the empty seat beside her with ease- smoothly, despite the super tight black cocktail dress hugging the curves of her body. Almost entranced, Yunjin spins in her direction.
She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and leans and Yunjin can’t help but follow her motion, like a woman entranced by a siren’s song, “I’ve never seen you here before.” She says it like a statement. Not a question.
“It’s my first time here.” Yunjin admits. Did that mean she worked here? Or was she a regular? Yunjin couldn’t tell based on her appearance alone. Besides the skin tight dress, she wore lots of gold- hoops in her ears, a simple chain with a feather charm and bangles on her wrist. Her nails were well manicured. She looked rich. Not at all like the dancers, bartender or waiters. But she didn’t carry a bag, which left Yunjin with more questions than answers. “I’m actually here with my friend,” Yunjin points behind her, “She’s looking for a girl.”
“Oh yeah? I know practically everyone here! Who are you looking for?” Her voice pitches with curiosity.
“Her name is Kazuha.”
“Zuha? I know her!” She claps her hands together, excitedly as she answers.
“Really?!” Chaewon, having been obviously eavesdropping, butts in.
The woman smiles and nods, “Yeah, she’s in the back. Want to go see her?”
Yunjin thinks briefly about the bartender and the bouncer and how he had lied about Kazuha not being there. Of course they had known he was lying but they didn’t know why. So maybe, they should have been a bit more cautious, thought about it for just a moment longer before they agreed. But Chaewon was desperate to see her and Yunjin was entranced by the beautiful woman.
They were too far gone to see the red flags waving right in their faces.
So instead of rejecting her offer, Chaewon says, “Yes!”
The woman grins widely, “Follow me.”
They follow her to the door where the bouncers don’t stop them as they pass through. The door leads into a dimly lit hallway full of doors.
As the woman leads them further in, she asks, “What’s your name’s by the way?”
“I’m Yunjin, this is Chaewon.”
“I’m Sakura, nice to meet you both!” She giggles.
“Do you work here?” Chaewon asks.
“Yup!”
“Do you know why the bartender lied about knowing Kazuha?”
“Who? Yeonjun?” She laughs, “He’s a bit paranoid. We always get people here asking about the girls. We get some real weirdos. But you two seem harmless.” She winks back at them.
“We are!” Yunjin almost shouts it but she holds herself back to a slightly raised octave.
“I trust you.” Sakura answers as they come to a stop at a door. She opens it and they follow her in.
It seems like a room meant for paying customers to spend private time with the dancers. It’s dimly lit with a Victorian style couch on the opposite side of a stripping pole that's centered in the middle of the room.
“Wait here, while I go find her.” Sakura says, gesturing to the room, “I promise the couch is clean. Feel free to relax. If she’s with a customer it might take a while.”
“Thank you.” Yunjin says genuinely with a soft smile.
She smiles widely, “I’ll be right back.”
As soon as the door closes, Chaewon elbows her, “Oh my god you’ve got a crush.”
“W-what?”
“You’re totally into her. You’ve got that dumb puppy love look in your eyes you get when you have a crush.”
“I do not!”
“So do! But I can’t blame you, she’s hot.”
To that, Yunjin grins, “Totally.”
“Looks like we both might leave here with dates.”
“Let's not jump to conclusions. She’s probably not into me.”
“Dude, she totally is. She literally came up to you.”
“Y-yeah but she works here. She probably was just doing her job.”
“She wouldn’t have offered to help me find Kazuha if she was just doing her job.”
“W-we don’t know that.” Yunjin splutters, sitting down on the couch. She hoped Sakura wasn’t lying when she said it was clean.
Chaewon flops down beside her, “Well, there’s only one way to find out. You’re going to ask her out when she comes back. And I’m going to ask Kazuha out. Then we’ll go on double dates. Just like we always dreamed of. I can picture it now!”
Yunjin laughs at her best friend's ridiculous ideas, completely off guard. So when the door bursts open, she thinks it must be Sakura with Kazuha.
But it’s not.
The last thing she sees before losing consciousness is two large men sprinting towards them.
“Yunjin?”
When Yunjin comes two, she’s not in the dimly lit room anymore. Instead of velvet upholstery and Victorian furniture, she seems to be in a warehouse of some type. Her heart begins to race as she realizes she can’t move her arms or legs. They’re tied to the chair she’s strapped to.
“Chaewon?” She blinks, frantically looking around. She finds Chaewon tied up similarly right next to her.
“Oh thank god you’re awake!”
“What the fuck are we doing here, Chae?”
To the surprise of no one, Chaewon had got them in trouble. Yunjin really shouldn't be too surprised, Chaewon was always getting in trouble. Her best friend had a knack for not thinking and her need to rebel and stick it to her strict parents by getting into scandals and finding herself in compromising situations never failed to get them mixed up in tricky situations.
But this…
This might have been the stupidest thing Kim Chaewon had ever done. And might just lead to their deaths.
“I don’t know, I just came too a few minutes before you.” Despite being tied up, she sounds no different than when she can't decide on what pair of shoes to wear - as if being kidnapped was just a minor inconvenience. But of course she’s not freaking out. Her family was rich with a huge empire. Chaewon likely thought she was immune to death as long as she had her family title.
Meanwhile Yunjin is freaking out completely. She felt sick, her mind thinking about all the different ways she could be tortured and killed. All because Chaewon wanted to find a girl. A girl that must be in the Yakuza. Yunjin knew those rumors about Refugia had to be true.
“Calm down, it’s going to be fine.” She says as the silence in the warehouse is cut with the sound of a large steel door opening.
They watch as men in black suits walk in, surrounding them in a circle. They look like your stereotypical group of henchmen. And then behind them, a different set of people walk in.
Yunjin immediately recognizes Yeonjun, the bartender. He’s out of the clothes he was wearing earlier, replaced is the frayed open vest with a silk tight blouse, popped open collar and a gold chain around his neck. He has his arms around a blonde boy who is taller than him. That’s when she realizes the new group of people who enter are young, at least as old as her, and definitely not the kind of people she’d expect to be in a Yakuza gang.
As she glances at them approaching, laughing and conversing no different then if they were entering a club, she sees her.
She’s hidden in the back. Yunjin’s not sure how she didn’t notice her first, because when she does, she’s immediately aware of the presence she carries.
There’s a young looking red-haired girl hanging off her shoulder but the rest of the party keeps their distance despite having all walked in together. It’s clear that she’s in some kind of leader position by the way the group moves around her.
She’s changed out of the tiny cocktail dress and stepped into a skirt and a tight black one piece and thigh-high boots. A coat hangs off her shoulders and it blows with the wind of the outside breeze before the door shuts behind her. However, the gold accessories remain in their place.
The group silences as they step in front of them as Sakura takes the center. The girl on her shoulder releases her hold and steps behind her.
“Hello, again.” She greets; however this time, that friendly smile is replaced by something more mischievous. Yunjin is reminded of a cat, right before it snaps at a mouse.
“What do you want with us? If you want money, my father would be more then-“
Sakura holds up a hand, shaking her head with a smirk, “I don’t need your father’s money, Kim Chaewon. I have plenty of my own.”
“T-then what-“
“I’m going to ask you a simple question. If I like your answer, then the two of you will leave without harm, but if you don’t… well.” One of the suited men that walked in first steps forward and hands Sakura something long and thin. Yunjin’s stomach drops as Sakura unsheathes the silver shiny sword. She hands off the sheath back to the guard and steps forward with it.
Pointing it directly towards Chaewon.
Yunjin begins to panic, seeing the pointed blade so close to her best friend. She’s no sword expert but it wasn’t hard to see that the sword was real. While Sakura held it with ease, it looked heavy and sharp enough to cut through bone.
That’s when it hits Yunjin who she’s standing in front of.
The feather charm hanging off the gold chain isn’t a feather. It’s a leaf. The notorious mark for the most powerful family in Asia, the Nakamuras.
Yunjin’s seen on tv and social media all the terrible things this gang was capable of and now she was trapped in front of them.
The Nakamura’s were a deadly and powerful gang. Untouchable by law. They had their hands in politics and the police and even powerful families like the Kims were suspected to be on their payroll. But even more frightening were the ghost stories she’d heard about the section gang leaders that didn’t carry guns or knives but swords.
“Why were you looking for Kazuha?” Gone is the mischievous and taunting smile - it’s replaced by straight pursued lips. Her warm brown eyes turn cold, burning into’s Chaewon’s with such intensity that Yunjin feels goosebumps bloom across her skin.
Seconds feel like hours as Chaewon struggles to speak. Clearly too frightened, Yunjin worries that Sakura will strike the blade down before she could reply.
“She likes her!” Yunjin shouts, “Chaewon likes her! They met at a cafe and flirted and Chaewon really liked her but she forgot to ask for her number! Kazuha dropped a business card for Refugia so we thought we could find her there!”
Despite her fear and the tears leaking from the corner of her eyes, Chaewon’s face glows red with embarrassment. In any other situation, Yunjin would apologize for outing her like that but this was life and death.
“You expect me to believe that?” Sakura scoffs after a moment of stunned silence. Pressing the tip of the blade just below Chaewon’s chin.
“It’s the truth! You could ask Kazuha yourself!” Chaewon cries out. “I swear I didn’t know she was a Yakuza member. Do you think I, the daughter of The Kim family, would have gone to a place like that for any other reason?!”
Sakura pauses. Yunjin feels herself holding her breath in the seconds it takes Sakura to decide between believing them or killing them. Finally, after what feels like hours of agony, she calls back to her gang, “Eunchae, go call Kazuha. Tell her about what’s going on.” And then addressing them again, she warns, “If you’re telling the truth, she’ll run here but if she denies it…” The blade inches closer.
“Unnie… are you sure…”
“That was an order, Eunchae.”
The wine haired girl that doesn’t look old enough to drink let alone be in a gang, doesn’t wait for another word as she sprints away.
Yunjin prays that Chaewon hadn’t exaggerated or misread the “good vibes” she’d gotten from Kazuha. Because her terrible judgment would decide their fate.
It seems like hours pass before Eunchae returns.
“She’s on her way, unnie.”
Yunjin has never felt more relief in her life. The tension seems to also ease as Sakura processes her words. She steps back, bringing the sword to her side.
“Untie them.” Is all she says as she hands off the sword and walks into the dark abyss of the warehouse. Her friends follow her into the dark. Leaving Chaewon and Yunjin with the henchmen that move to untie them.
As their hands are freed, Yunjin instantly reaches for Chaewon. She grasps her hand, squeezing it tightly.
They were safe, for now.
It doesn’t take Kazuha more than thirty minutes to arrive.
Dressed in sweats and a large hoodie, she sprints into the warehouse, panicked.
Yunjin is surprised by the genuine worry etched on her face as she glances around the warehouse.
“Chaewon!” She cries out upon noticing her, sprinting on long legs over towards her. She embraces her tightly, surprising them both as she does, “You’re okay, right? They didn’t hurt you?” Kazuha asks worriedly, stepping back from their embrace and studying every inch of Chaewon.
“I’m fine.” Chaewon giggles. Easily easing back into her adorable flirty self despite the terrifying situation they had been in no longer than thirty minutes earlier.
“Zuha.”
Both outsiders freeze as Sakura steps back into the light. She’s alone this time. She stares at Kazuha with what Yunjin would describe as almost remorse.
“Kkura… did you really have to take it this far?”
“You were careless Ha. I had to be sure they didn’t mean harm. You’re lucky this was the worst of it.” She says, crossing her arms sternly.
“I know-but… you could have called me first-“ Kazuha frowns.
“The deal was no contact.”
“But you called me anyways… why? You normally would have just…” Kazuha’s eyes flicker to Chaewon as she trails off.
Yunjin is surprised when she catches Sakura’s eyes flit her way before they’re back on Kazuha, “I had a hunch is all.” She sighs, “It doesn’t matter. Just promise you’ll be more careful from now on.”
“I will, I swear.”
“Good. Now take them. Make sure they never step foot in Refugia ever again.”
Kazuha nods, taking Chaewon’s hand. Chaewon takes Yunjin’s.
“Bye, unnie. Thank you for calling me.”
Sakura’s face softens and Yunjin feels herself mesmerized by her beauty despite what she had done to them.
“Take care.”
As Kazuha pulls them away, Yunjin thinks she saw her look her way when she said it but Sakura’s has already disappeared back into the dark.
She can’t tell if she had spoken to Kazuha or her.