Neurolace

(Melantha's POV)

The keyboard clicked beneath my fingers with a rhythm that resembled breath — measured, sharp, alive.

Most people romanticized hacking. Neon lights. Clacking keys. Chaos.

For me, it was a ritual.

Precise. Quiet. Surgical.

I didn’t crack systems. I undressed them.

And Jungkook?
He was the most interesting machine I’d ever taken apart.

I leaned back in my black leather chair inside the hidden lab, deep under Moscow’s bones. Smoke curled from my cigarette as I watched line after line of surveillance glitch into nothing — wiped clean. Not even Yoongi’s encrypted backups could trace my pulse.

Sasha watched from across the room, lips curled around her own cigarette, legs stretched over Boris’s lap.

“You really went in his head, didn’t you?” she asked, half-smirking.

I didn’t answer.

She already knew.

It wasn’t a dream I gave him. It was an override. I planted the vision through a neuro-spike I’d built two years ago — hidden in the same private line his tech company used for encrypted backups. A vulnerability even his own programmers didn’t know existed.

All it took was one sleep-deprived window.

One vulnerability.

One open channel.

And I entered.

Not just his system.

His cortex.

He felt my touch.

He burned when I touched him. Because I wanted him to.

“I left a scar,” I said softly, flicking ash into the tray.

“Why?” Boris asked, frowning. “We don’t usually play like this.”

“Because he’s used to blood,” I whispered. “He needed something worse.”

“And that was?”

“Intimacy.”

I watched the footage again.

His body convulsing when he woke.
His pupils dilating.
His hand pressed to the ghost of my fingerprint.

He was unraveling.

And I hadn’t even told him my name yet.

I opened the messaging tunnel I’d left dormant in his firewall.

Time for a reminder.

Time for him to realize the dream wasn’t fiction.

Time to crush the idea that he was in control.

I wrote slowly.

No signature.

Just code.

Encrypted in poetic fragments only I understood.

But he would feel it.

Because it would burn like truth.

(Jungkook's POV)

It was 2:17 a.m.

Jimin, Yoongi, V, and I sat around the penthouse war table, eyes bloodshot and nerves stretched thin. A week had passed since the “dream.”

I hadn’t told them everything — only that she touched my mind.

That she might’ve been there.

Now I wasn’t so sure anymore.

Because I could still feel her.

Somewhere beneath my skin.

“You sure you're okay?” Jimin asked, carefully.

“I’m fine,” I muttered.

I was lying. Obviously.

Suddenly, the lights dimmed — not a power failure. A flicker. Intentional.

The monitors in the war room whined alive.

Denis swore, nearly dropping his tablet. “What the hell?”

“No alerts were triggered,” Yoongi said grimly.

The screens turned black.

Then white text began to form.

This time, not a taunt.

A message.

Beautifully, painfully constructed.

She had written it like poetry:

"You thought you dreamt of me, King.
But dreams don’t leave bruises on the soul.
You felt the pressure. The touch. The spark.
Your cortex opened like a cracked vault.
You let me in.
I didn’t knock."

"You see, fire doesn’t need permission to burn.
And gods don’t ask mortals for invitations.
You saw me — because I showed you
exactly what obsession tastes like."

"You can trace my fingerprint under your heartbeat.
It’s still there.
It always will be."

"Sleep tight."

The room went silent.

The text flickered once.
Then vanished.

I sat frozen, every muscle locked, jaw clenched.

Denis whispered, “...This can’t be real.”

Yoongi’s fingers danced across the controls, trying to trace the origin.

“There’s no signal. Nothing left,” he muttered. “It’s like she wrote it from inside your head.”

“She did,” I said quietly.

Jimin leaned forward. “What does it mean?”

“It means,” I growled, standing, “she was inside my mind. And it wasn’t a dream. She entered my consciousness.”

“Is that even possible?” V asked. “This is... sci-fi shit.”

“She bypassed all neurological firewalls,” Yoongi said, voice thin. “This isn’t hacking. This is... cybernetic warfare.”

“No,” I whispered, eyes burning.

“This is personal.”

I could still hear her voice from that vision. Still feel her breath against my neck. Still feel that touch—

“You’ll burn for me, King.”

God, she was right.

I was burning.

Every second without her was a cage. Every moment I wasn’t pulling her apart to find her secrets was a failure.

“Send everything we have to every top notch hackers in our world,” I ordered.

Yoongi hesitated. “That's fucking dangerous.”

“I know.”

I walked to the window, staring out at the Moscow skyline.

“I want her to know I’m coming.”

But the truth was — she already knew.

She was always five moves ahead.

And now we had confirmation.

It wasn’t a dream.

It was a demonstration.

To be continued...