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•••
"They call you a villain,
because they're scared of people who
save themselves,
and darling
you wear your scars higher
than any of their capes."

-l.z.
•••

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Cassia's POV

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The days up to Fashion Week passed by like sand running through Cassia's fingers. Taehyung got home late every day but he started to look better again. Cassia made sure he got enough sleep and with her in his arms he seemed to drift off almost immediately every night.

First thing in the morning Jimin and him went on a run and did their workout routine, after two days Jungkook started to join them. He was getting a bit bored just staying at the mansion with nothing to do all day. Nari wouldn't let him help in the house because she insisted him and Cassia were their guests.

Cassia talked to Yoongi and Leia every day and finally on a Wednesday afternoon she went back to work. She worked a full day shift with Leia and afterwards they went into the city and Leia helped her look for a side job for Jungkook. Cassia sent him pictures of shops and cafés that were hiring help. Jungkook had already started uni back in Korea but it was unclear how things were going to work from here.

They still needed to figure out if he could get credit for the courses he had already taken in Korea and how they would get him into art school. He wanted to dance. He had told Cassia this over and over again. She had seen him dance, nothing else awoke such deep passion within him. He was like a completely different person when he was dancing.

For now though he would have to work a side job and they'd figure things out from there. What was most important right now was that he was finally here and safe and that Cassia was getting back on track. As much as she loved staying with Taehyung and Nari, she missed her tiny apartment. It wasn't much but it had become her home. She also missed living next to Jin and living close to her college. From Taehyung's place the drive to her college was almost a full hour.

Knowing that Taehyung and Jimin would be out until late again Cassia agreed to go out for coffee with Leia.

Twisting a strand of her long blonde hair Leia let her eyes wander of Cassia's face trying to read her expression.

"You alright?" she smiled.

Cassia took a sip of her chai before looking up at her. "yeah, yeah. Just thinking" she mumbled.

" 'bout what?" Leia swirled the cream ontop of her latte around with a small silver spoon before bringing it up to her lips and licking it.

"um- it's just, uh" Cassia looked at Leia. It had been a while since they had last had a long conversation like this. "Fashion Week is in two days and I'm a bit nervous, I guess" Cassia decided on the truth.

"Oh" Leia licked her lips. "what are you nervous about? How Taehyung will do?"

"No, no- not at all! I've seen him model and he always gives it his all, it's just- I worry about getting photographed together" Cassia admitted. A look of confusion took over Leia's face.

"My father. I'm worried about him finding out" the words almost got stuck in her throat.

"Oh fuck him"

Cassia almost choked on her drink. "What?"

"Let him find out, what is he gonna do, huh? You've been here for two years, you have a place at college, you work, you have your own place.. seriously what is he gonna do?" Leia said, looking Cassia dead in the eye.

"I don't know what he could do, that's the scary part. What I know for sure is that he can damage Tae's career" Cassia mumbled. "and that is about the last thing I want..for him to find a new target to torment"

"Cassie" Leia sighed. "okay maybe it's shit that he's signed at your dad's company but Taehyung is so successful and well known, I doubt that at this point he could really damage his career that much"

Cassia had to think this through for a minute. Leia wasn't completely wrong, still Cassia knew just how wide the range of her father's influence and importance was, not just back in Korea.

"I don't even know what to think anymore" Cassia sighed. "I just want this to be over with and have peace again, I hate that I barely get to see him. His schedule is so packed that I don't even see him in the mornings, just at night when he gets home and that is usually so late that we go straight to bed"

"That sucks but I guess that's what you get when dating a celebrity"

Cassia blushed, trying to play it off by taking another sip and lowering her head.

"He's not a celebrity" Cassia mumbled.

"Are you kidding? I see his billboards every day, Cassia. I'm surprised you haven't been in all those gossip magazines yet, actually. Usually something like this spreads like wildfire" Leia told her.

"Don't tell me you read those trashy magazines" Cassia rolled her eyes. "You know most of the stuff they write is completely made up, right?"

Years ago if you took a look at Cassia's room, her desk would've been covered in all those gossip magazines. They had sometimes even written about her. The rich girl. Only now did she see how horrible they truly were. Feeding on every saucy detail of a celebrity's private life they could get their hands on. Starting fake drama, revealing scandals that never happened or were overly dramatized. And of course all the dating rumours... Who was dating who?

"They're entertaining though" Leia shrugged.

Yeah, entertaining and toxic as hell..

"By the way thank you for covering some of my shifts too, Yoongi told me about it" Cassia smiled, thankful to have something to change the topic for.

"Oh, no problem at all" Leia waved her hand. "just glad you're back and well"

"How are things with Yoongi?" Cassia decided against subtly letting it flow into the conversation and instead just bluntly asked. What could go wrong anyway, right?

"Um, good. Why?" Leia looked down. Oh, oh..

"Are you two talking again?" Cassia raised an eyebrow up.

"We never stopped talking" Leia huffed. Not this again..

"You know what I mean" Cassia bit her lip.

"Honestly, what do you want me to say Cassia?" Leia spat. "I was drunk, okay? I thought I felt something more for him and when I was stupid enough to tell him, he made it clear that those feelings weren't mutual. That's all there is to it. I should have just kept my dumb mouth shut. Now he always has this look of pity in his eyes when he looks at me. Do I look like I need his damn pity?"

"Woah" Cassia's eyes widened. "I'm sorry, Leia. I didn't mean to- uh- I'm sorry. Again that's none of my business, I just wanted to see how you're dealing with it an-"

"Dealing with what? He ended things before something happened, okay?" she hissed, face hardening.

"I'm sorry- I"

"Fuck off" with that Leia slammed down the money for her latte onto the coffee table and walked off, not giving Cassia another single glance or aknowledgement.

Cassia watched her flowing long head of hair dissapear around the corner, completely stunned. How had things gone so wrong so quickly?

It took her a while to register what just happened before she could pull herself together and leave the café as well. Expression pulled into a frown.

Cassia felt like there was a lot more to this story than what she had just witnessed. She felt like she was just scratching the surface of Leia and Yoongi's relationship. She must feel a lot for him. There was no other explaination for how sensitively she had reacted to the mention of him.

With a sigh she dialed in Jungkook's new number. They had recently gotten him a new phone, well Taehyung had gotten him a new phone, a very expensive one at that and Cassia had told him off for it and sworn to pay every penny back. She wanted Jungkook to like Taehyung for who he was and not for what he posessed or how much money he had. Even though she knew her brother wasn't shallow she wasn't okay with this. She didn't want it to look like she was using Taehyung.

"Hi Kookie" her voice softened when her brother picked up the phone. "What are you up to right now, did you look at the job offers I sent you?"

"hey, Cassie. Yup, I did. Just briefly though, thanks again. I'll decide on one later on, don't worry. I'm just playing wii with Nari right now. Where are you? You're already off work, right?"

She played with the keys of Jin's car, jingling them in her fingers, he had lend her his car for now. The sky was a clear light blue and rays of sunshine were warming her face. She took a deep breath. The knot in her stomach Leia had left slowly unfolding.

"Yes, it ended about two hours ago. I'm on my way back now, ask Nari if we need anything at the house I'll drop by the grocery store anyways" she hummed, drumming her fingers against the steering wheel once she got in the car.

Jungkook read her a list of things Nari needed, Cassia gave up after the third thing on the list and started writing the things down.

"Okay, I'll be with you guys in a bit, byee" she called into the phone. Jungkook already had his attention elsewhere, she could hear him cursing at Nari. Mario Kart again..

With a smile and the shake of her head she hung up and started driving to the store, turning the radio up to numb her mind. Was it too early to text Leia? Probably, maybe it was best to give her some time..

Cassia couldn't help but wonder what Taehyung was doing right now. She knew he had another round of press interviews today, those seemed to tire him out the most.

She pulled a few tote bags out of the back of the car and plugged some in-ear headphones in to distract herself. She used to do this a lot more when she had firsted moved here. Go everywhere with headphones in, hope people won't talk to you that way. Back then she had done it because she was still a stranger to this big city and didn't want to feel so alone, now she did it to have her peace and distract her own never-ending string of thoughts.

Cassia had never been diagnosed because her parents didn't believe in mental illness but Cassia knew she was suffering from anxiety and panic attacks. It had gotten much better recently. Her last panic attack was weeks ago, she still felt anxious from time to time but she had learnt to deal with it a lot better. Cassia felt like she was finally learning to get to know herself.

One upbeat song that randomly came on shuffle which she had never heard before, caught her attention. The bright lights of the super market with all its neon price tags and long, packed isles blurred into the background. Sounds around her dissapearing. For a moment she let herself completely drift off, fingers brushing against cartons of orange juice.

"Cassia?" A hand was placed on her shoulder. With a soft plop she pulled the headphones out of her ears and turned around to be met with the most gorgeous green eyes. Familiar ones.

"Amara?" Cassia remembered the tall blonde from Taehyung's fitting. Amara nodded, blonde hair tied up into a ponytail. She was dressed in a neon pink sports top and tight black leggings, her hands were clasped around a water bottle.

"I wasn't sure if it was really you at first" Amara smiled. "we only met very briefly, I wanted to come talk to you some more but you and V just dissapeared that day."

"Oh, I remember. I'm sorry about that, we were really hungry. Aren't you running in Fashion Week as well?" Cassia smiled.

"Yes I am, my flight leaves tomorrow morning, I have another fitting right beforehand. Are you coming to Paris?" Amara asked, eyes holding a kind expression.

"I am actually" Cassia nodded. Their flight was leaving tomorrow night. Only her and Tae, everyone else was staying behind.

"Oh that's so exciting!" Amara clapped her hands. "Lukas?" she called out and another blonde head of hair appeared around the corner.

Lukas' eyes lit up with joy once he recognized Cassia, he came running towards them. He was dressed in workout clothes as well, pearls of sweat still dancing on his forehead.

"Cassia!" he excitedly called out, his embrace knocked the air out of her lungs but it made her laugh.

"Nice to see you again as well" she chuckled.

"Cassia's coming to Fashion Week" Amara cheered and Lukas' eyes widened, mouth falling open.

She could still remember how hard he had tried to make her change her mind the day they had first met.

"No way! What made you change your mind?" he asked.

"Tae. I wanna show my support, be there for him" Cassia said, telling the truth. Well, a summary of the truth bit still.

"That's so awesome! We're gonna have so much fun" he laughed, high-fiving Cassia.

"When's your plane leaving?" he asked.

"Tomorrow night" Cassia said. "Yours?"

"Five hours" Lukas grinned, dimples showing up on his cheeks.

"What?" Cassia laughed. "And you're still here working out?" she laughed.

"We really need to get going" Amara's eyes widened when she checked the time. "did you even finish packing yet?"

Lukas sighed but the grin stayed on his lips. "Girls" he smirked. "I'll be fine! You'll see, things will go smoothly like always. We really need to get back now though" he agreed with Amara.

With an apologetic smile he turned to Cassia. "Sorry it was so short lived, love but we'll see each other soon, right?"

"Right" Cassia smiled and hugged both of them again goodbye. She didn't say anything about the nickname.

It had just been a playful moment.

Once she had carried the bags of groceries back to the car and was on her way back to the house she attempted calling Tae. He didn't pick up.

Cassia knew he was busy but there had still been a glint of hope that he'd pick up. Meeting Amara and Lukas face to face again, the reality was slowly sinking in.

Fashion Week was in two days and Cassia's throat was closing up again. Something didn't feel right. Her gut was telling her something would happen in Paris and Cassia wasn't ready to drown again..

...she had just started learning to swim.

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A/N: I imagine Amara and Lukas as Blake Lively and Lucky Blue Smith by the way but of course you are free to imagine them however you want.

I hope you enjoyed this, get ready for more updates the next days, I love you all so so much! Like always TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK AND TAKE CARE❤️❤️❤️

Ily, xx

Umi