(no subject)
[03] Of Syndicate and Authorities
Authors: nemesae & taylormercury
Rating: PG-13
Focus: Shiwon, Kibum
Summary: But something's wrong, something's terribly wrong, and the look of intense focus in otherwise emotionless eyes of the solemn figure across the ring tell Shiwon too much for his liking.
Notes: Archive. Different points of view.
He always sits next to Mr. Gong. It has become a habit ever since he met the man's fighter at the medical and psychological examinations to qualify him for the arena, years back, when he was guided in in a state of obvious sedation that told everyone that he was far from being under control yet. It's from the moment that the young fighter woke up and opened his eyes - they can't assess him if he can't show what he's capable of; fights are, after all, never fought drugged - that Shiwon has wanted Geng. For the Syndicate, or as a fighter for himself. There's something about him and he can't press his finger to it. He's powerful, there's no denying that, but he's human. So he sits with Mr. Gong and waits for that moment that he's told that he can buy. Has been doing so ever since they first met in the acquisition assessment unit.
"They say yer interest in 'im isn't professional," Mr. Gong mentions when the two fighters enter the arena. It's his property, against that of the Syndicate. But they're both hoping to witness victory on Geng's side. Even more so because Shiwon knows what he'll be up against.
"They say a lot, don't they?" He sits back into the seat and reaches inside his pocket to fish out a lighter, flips it open and shut several times before offering it to Mr. Gong, who titters and takes it to light the opium lamp on his side, blissfully sighing when the first smoke parts from his lips, equally unaware that Shiwon's expression darkens. "But they never say it to my face."
And then the announcer's voice is cut short, and Shiwon's on the edge of his seat when events progress too fast for him to grasp them and before they know it they're suddenly right in the middle of a fight and Kangin, one of the Syndicate's stronger fighters, is showing such visible hostility and such force to overwhelm his opponent down in the pit, that it leaves the other disoriented. Weakened. Shiwon has never seen him caught off guard so soon.
It all happens too fast. But that's when Shiwon loves the fight most - Geng's defences are continuously broken with blows that cost his opponent hardly any effort to throw, and then switches to an offence that hits Geng hard in the chest and nearly sends him tumbling - when he can taste the copper on their lips and when he can imagine the rush of adrenaline through his bloodstream to be theirs, even though he's got trouble keeping up with everything and he knows better than to blink his eyes at untimely moments.
But it won't be the day they will see their personal favourite fall. A maze of fire spreads out from nowhere, like a contraption of branches and veins, that spans half of the arena and conceals most of what happens inside, but eerily illuminates the bas-relief of hundreds outside. It's the strongest display of his strength that Geng has ever conjured up in one go, and the tension in the air is so powerful and so palpable that it chills Shiwon, regardless of the increasing heat, and silences the crowd. He's breathing hard, but so is Mr. Gong, who's already seeing the near dent to his pride restored in full glory. Bars of fire plunge into the gravel from being conjured up far above them. There's no way that he could lose. To think so, Shiwon thinks to himself in a moment of clarity almost lost in other less coherent thoughts, would be a folly.
He's too busy allowing himself to sit back and bring his breathing back under control, a fume of opium incensing the air next to him, when something happens. He can't press his finger on it. It's like a faint ringing in his ears, or the trace of having looked at the sun through squinted eyes too long before looking somewhere else and a black spot will still be there. Or simply the absence of one small detail that really should have been there. But something's wrong, something's terribly wrong, and the look of intense focus in otherwise emotionless eyes of the solemn figure across the ring tell Shiwon too much for his liking.
"Call your men in."
Mr. Gong stares up at Shiwon bewilderedly. "I don'-..." but Shiwon doesn't care that he doesn't understand. He doesn't have time. "Do it," he hisses, all formality lost, and pushes his way through the crowd outside. A quick look at the ring drains the remaining warmth in his body in the blink of a second. Geng is staring at something. He barely registers the shockwave that Kangin throws at him. He barely registers anything. But he stares.
He's losing control, Shiwon thinks. But it isn't Geng, and that's what alarms him most. Men that are in the way are shoved aside, half the distance crossed, and then there's a shout that unsettles everything and stirs the people around him into an immediate state of chaos. He doesn't know what's happening at first, caught off balance and off guard, when his primary target is still to first get to the other side.
And then, then it registers.
He needs to get away from here as fast as possible.
They've got squads. In truth, they've got several of them, and two were supposed to be outside guarding the entrance in, some in plain view, some in buildings on the other side of the alley behind stained windows bearing sniper rifles. So how they got in is something that Shiwon can not comprehend. Three of the four units that were supposed to be covering security from the inside are missing, too, and the one unit left - the unit responsible for fighter quarantine in the case of emergency - has to fill in for five absent squads in their wake. So nobody's paying any attention to the two men in the ring until a net of steel wire is shot into the arena from a few meters to his left, and another one some platforms higher. They're already all around him.
A shockwave sends Shiwon to his knees. It flattens the crowd in the way that the impact of an atomic bomb would, but only on the left side of the arena's fortified steel cage. Kangin's panting when Shiwon looks at them, and the nets lie in a spineless heap just next to Geng, who's sitting hunched over on the ground, still breathing hard with shock. The wire still emits a few sparks of electricity every few seconds at the pulse. Shiwon thinks that he can see a sheen moist on Geng's cheeks. What is keeping Gong's men?
It's hardly courageous, fleeing the scene, but it's hardly becoming to be a number on the body count later on just as well, Shiwon reckons. If there will be. He knows enough of these men to know that they don't care who they take down, or how many; they'll never have to justify themselves anyway. Upholders of the law, but ruthless in their pursuit.
When Shiwon turns, six of them are down, and a still, slender man smiles from under his tousled dark hair and even darker eyes. Although it isn't really a smile, Shiwon knows, and the empty shells of men on the floor around him tell their own story of his crooked sense of humour.
"Come on."
The man looks up. He shakes his head. No. Geng, he couldn't control. But these men are so easy to manipulate and wrap around his finger that clearly, Shiwon must be missing how with but a thought he can get them to turn their weapons on their colleagues. Just like that.
Shiwon ignores him, takes his hand and drags him along past people and people to the other exit. "I don't care," he hisses before Ryeowook can open his lips to tell that he can handle himself, "I don't care. I'm getting you out of here."
The Syndicate can't afford to lose him.
For a moment, time seems to stand still. It seems to heave a giant sigh, and simply stop. Time, the people and the chaos that had just been about to erupt - he’d felt the shaking in his legs, warning of the oncoming run and chase - and even himself. The breath sticks, stills, stops, inside his chest. He doesn’t even blink. The only thing that still continues in this pause of time are his thoughts.
He stares; he stares and stares down at that face, the face he’s seen only in memories, in dreams and nightmares and behind closed lids for years. The face he’s been striving to find, and now that he sees, memories bloom and burst across the screen of his mind. Warm, it’s always warm when he remembers. Warm smile, offered only to him; warm eyes, so many emotions hidden behind dark irises; warm skin, soft and smooth beneath his palm. And then the flames flare up through the memories, burn through the warmth and the smiles, and for a moment all he sees are flames, flames and smoke and accidents and blackness. A deep, deep blackness.
The memories hardly matter anymore, however. He can see him, now, right there, closer than he’s ever been in the endless expanse of those three years, and the memories he’s been clinging to, tightly like a stubborn child who simply won’t let go, finally slip from between his grasp. They don’t matter, now. Kibum smiles.
And suddenly, time slips back into place, creeps up between their stares and clicks. His heart skips, and resumes the race it had been starting to beat up inside his chest. He gasps, quietly, and heaves for air, as if he really hadn’t been breathing for those time-stilled seconds. Then chaos erupts. Everything is a hurried, massive motion of confusion and movement and trying to get away, around him. The ground trembles beneath his feet, and he hardly notices. Shouts and screams and noise and movement, but none of it registers to Kibum, he doesn’t care.
He doesn’t care about whatever his side are trying to achieve, and he doesn’t care how it’ll affect the other side. He cares for nothing but Geng, down there in the arena, Geng, whom he hasn’t seen for far too long, Geng, who he needs to get out of this place, out of this thing.
He’s filled with the urgent desire to move, to push himself forward, to get down to him, and before Kibum can even think of demanding his body to start moving, he’s already off, shoves his way through people, their side, his side, anyone who gets in his way. He shoves past one man so hard, so thoughtlessly, but this man, unlike most of the others, pushes back, and they both tumble to the floor. Kibum hits his shin against something, but is up again before the pain can register. He has to get to Geng, he has to, because he can’t let the side he’s been working for get to him, he simply can’t. He knows what the authorities are like, what they want, and whilst Kibum hates the people who have Geng now, it would be so, so much worse if the authorities get hold of him.
They are the ones, after all, that were most affected by the incident, three years ago, and they know better than anyone what it would take to keep hold of Geng. An entire scientific research compound destroyed in hungry flames, and no survivors, is a lesson that did not go unlearned.
He gets closer, and Kibum can feel his heart swell with the anticipation to just get to him, get to him before anyone else can, but there’s so much going on and he pays no attention to any of it, focused solely on one thing, and he has no warning before someone knocks into him from behind, sends him crashing down to the ground for a second time; this time he bangs one of his legs and grazes the skin from a palm - a palm he distinctly recalls once upon a time being red and raw and tender and - and it’s only a few seconds before he’s up again, cursing silently, but when he looks over, Geng is nowhere to be seen. His leg throbs where he knocked it, chest aches from where he fell (aches from where it always aches) but he hardly notices; physical pain is nothing to him right now.
Kibum searches desperately, eyes tearing over everywhere he can see inside the building, but nothing, nothing.
So close. He was so very close. And still not close enough.
He has an office, just a small one. It's more like a desk, since the walls consist of windows that are only opaque at points where any privacy is already breached. Kibum used to think that it was odd of a military organisation like this to have the interior of one of their quarters made so fragile, but that only lasted until the shooting incident. Instead of collapsing like a labyrinth of mirrors only a small star had to be patched up when they cleaned the infiltrant's blood off the glass. But the fact remains that there isn't much privacy. Then again, most of the time Kibum can be found in the main conference room and he's learned the hard way that checking emails and things like that are best left for home.
It's the end of his day - close to nine in the evening; a fairly early one today - and he rubs his eyes to wake up a little. Another day of zero progress. He didn't accept to join them just to be stuck behind a desk or a computer with three screens in the conference room. So far he's learned of an organisation that they call the Syndicate, an underground circle with the monopoly on the fights between escapees that are organised, and of the escapees. Test subjects, that managed to get away at the discovery and dismantling of facilities similar to the one he used to work in, not very long after that one went up in smoke. Geng's one of them.
Kibum's only there to be in on the information. He knows very well that the authorities that he works for consider the escapees more of a threat to society than the Syndicate is. He knows it's dangerous. But he needs that information. They've got contacts that he hasn't.
There's one exception to that rule. Kibum's on his way home, hands tucked deep into his pockets and on his watch for anything suspicious - it isn't the best neighbourhood that he lives in - when it presents itself with a tapping of feet on cobblestone in unison, or just a little off, with his own. When Kibum turns around the shadow laughs quietly. Two of the adjacent street lights scatter. Kibum cringes.
"I find your lack of faith disturbing."
He steps out of the shadows with a joker's smile drawn on his face. It's more than a little mischievous, and it always leaves Kibum to guess why he's talking to him in the first place. His motivations are a mystery. For all he knows, he could be sleeping with the devil and dining with the gods. Although Kibum has long lost track of who is on the good side and who isn't. Experience greyed that all out.
"The same could be said for your love for sneaking up on people," he returns, halts, and then adds to that "My flatmate told me to tell you you could at least tell him your name, if your plan is to keep bothering him so much."
"You know what it is. Tell him yourself."
And Heechul, Kibum thinks, is for all his valuable information - information that the authorities won't get from him - a surprisingly big pest. "I'm not going to be the one introducing you," he says, "I think I've messed up enough already."
"Ouch," Heechul muses. He strolls like a skilful acrobat, gracious when he moves in towards Kibum, and satellites around him like a member of the inquisition, one that's having perhaps a little too much fun knowing things that no one else does. "I sense pessimism. And here I came hoping that what I had to tell you could bring a smile to that face. You haven't let your little prodigy of a flatmate hack his enthusiastic way into your employer's database for a while, have you?"
Then, whispering into his ear, he smirks "And boy, are they fucking you over."
When Kibum whirls around and stares at him, Heechul's five feet away from him and the embodiment of innocence, complete with hands on back and horribly batting eyes.
"What are you talking about?"
"Don't offend me with stupid questions."
And Kibum is pressed with his nose on the reasons why he doesn't like to be in the company of the man again. But he can't afford to be rude, because whenever he pops up - whenever he wants, apparently; Heechul's been on his rooftop once, and it remains a mystery how he got there in the first place, and he's even had the gall to visit the reception desk at his work on a particularly busy day to ask for him - the knowledge he brings is too valuable for it.
"What have you got?"
Heechul smiles and bows courteously. "Your authorities have planned a raid on an old storage facility a little out of town in a few days. Their inside man tipped them off. Says 'Gong's kid is going to play'. Which you know is just his own way of telling that it's on. They're putting eight units on it. I think you can figure out what that means yourself."
Kibum silences. Eight units. He smiles, because oh, he knows what that means.
Top priority.
"Fireworks," Heechul takes the liberty to freely translate Kibum's thoughts with a gesture of his hands, and an annoyed sigh at the way he spaces out. It would be appreciated if people listened, when he had something to say. It really would be. He juts out his hip defensively. "And I'd love to be there for the show but, unfortunately, I've got other arrangements."
Heechul smirks at Kibum. He considers his task here done.
"I heard their ID's aren't very difficult to fake, for someone with a bit of good old-fashioned talent," he entrusts him a last piece of information. Then he scrapes his throat, salutes him with a hint of playfulness, and is off. All that's left are a few new marks of corrosion around the spot where he stood, when Kibum sighs at Heechul's once again blink-of-an-eye departure. He would think it's rather rude. Today, though, he can hardly care. Fireworks and eight units. It looks like the newspaper horoscope that Heechul had ridiculously cited for him a couple of days back at a chance encounter - Kibum suspects it was boredom on the other man's behalf, and a need to bore someone else with it in the hopes of passing it on and being rid of it himself, or just to enjoy puzzling people before he'd vanish - might just be right for once.
There's a big change ahead.
Shiwon feels the headache, like a slow roll of thunder, start to build up in the back of his head. It’ll burst like a storm soon, but he’s not surprised. If any day has ever been a headache inducing one, this would be the day. Besides the approaching headache, tension lingers in his neck and shoulders, and a giant knot of frustration twists and churns inside his stomach.
He still doesn’t know exactly what happened earlier. There had been too much chaos, and it had been completely unexpected, unprepared for. It was simply too much to try and sort through everything to figure it all out. Six units, and somehow five of them had been taken down without so much as a stir. Even now Shiwon has no idea who, or how many people, might have been caught or injured, or killed, because he wouldn’t put that past the authorities; no idea how they had even gotten in, or if they now had whatever they had come for. As things were sorted out, the information and details would slowly fit themselves together, but it was going to be a giant mess of frustration for some time to come, and Shiwon didn’t want to deal with it, wished he didn't have to, but he did.
Oh yes, he certainly would, because apart from all of that, there was something that he was sure of had happened. There was no mistake about it - though he wished there had been. During check-up after the chaos and the mess, there had been one person missing. One who had not been there, and could not be found anywhere, by anyone.
Geng.
Geng was missing, and no one knew how or where. They had already questioned Kangin, the last person they assumed to have really seen him, but he told them nothing, nothing helpful, anyway. And Mr. Gong, oh he had not been pleased. Geng was his prize, his trophy, his piece of pride, and the thing he liked to dangle beneath Shiwon’s nose, to taunt and tease him with; look what I have, what you want and what I’ll never give you.
There had been a huge fuss from Mr. Gong, rather understandably so, and it had been very difficult for Shiwon to be at all understanding when there had been ranting and raving and shouting and cursing right in his face, demands to go find my fighter right now you assholes, how could you let him get away and other things that Shiwon wished he hadn’t even had to listen to the first time, let alone remember for a rerun. It made the frustration knot twice as hard inside him.
Though part of him, just that small, selfish part of him had been almost sadistically pleased that Gong had lost his prize, the man he had paid so much goddamn money for, you have no idea. But Shiwon was not pleased that Geng was still missing, and that no one knew where. He was off their radar.
It’s evening, sky already full of thick darkness, but even the streetlamps Shiwon passes beneath seem to bring no relief to the slow but steady building up of a headache, throbbing and going for an uncalled for quality check of what is left of his nerves. He pinches the bridge of his nose and breathes deeply for several seconds, just wishing he could fall into bed and forget about this entire mess. He can’t, though, he has to get home, but there’s no bed waiting for him yet. There are phone calls to make, things to be done, people yet to be questioned. He had left Mr. Gong in the care of other hands, hands that weren’t close to just throttling the ranting man like Shiwon had been wanting to.
His mind is so full of the things he has to do, so saturated with the mess that he’s going to have to sort through when it isn't even his task, that he doesn’t realise at first, doesn’t take much notice at all of the man walking in his direction, head down, paying no special heed to his surroundings other than it not being the best of places to be. They both aren't. It’s such a normal setting, so unexpected, that it doesn’t quite click in Shiwon’s head until they near each other, until he feels the chill of the evening fade, until he feels a sudden pocket of warmth.
And then it clicks.
He gasps silently, mouth gaping open in utter surprise, but only for a moment, and then Shiwon pulls himself back together, surprise and all; he’s always been good at that, putting on a front. “Geng?” He questions, and then before the other man can quite respond - and before he can do anything, Shiwon hopes, prays - he takes hold of his hand and pulls him quickly into the space between two buildings. Dark, with one wall shading the glow from the nearest streetlamp, but he can still clearly see that this is Geng, that he wasn’t captured and caught by the authorities. That he is unharmed, and seems to physically be in good shape, although the look in his eyes is slightly different from what he can remember it to be like. There’s a strong sense of relief. It’s all a little mixed up, and it doesn’t even occur to Shiwon, but there’s something very wrong about being relieved that a kept man hadn’t been caught by someone else, and something even more wrong about the wish to take away his so suddenly found freedom.
But this doesn’t occur to Shiwon, not now, and probably not later. He doesn’t think like that, or tries not to.
There’s a sudden build up of heat, as eyes look up and seem to recognise through a connection of bad memories and warning experiences, and Shiwon is instantly brought back into reality, reminded of just why this man is so dangerous.
“Wait! Wait!” he says quickly, softly, holds up his hands immediately to prove that he's no harm. He’s afraid, and the realisation startles him. He doesn’t usually feel fear, and it's been a while since he last tasted it. But right now, knowing Geng is free and quite capable of anything (and he knows, he’s read and heard all about it), it is fear more than anything that makes Shiwon aware of the knowledge that Geng is more than capable of handling him, if he wants to.
“I’m not going to hurt you, I don’t have anything on me. I’m just walking home, alright?” He waits, counting the seconds silently in his mind, and lets out the quietest sigh of relief when he feels that sudden influx of heat start to abate a little. There’s still some there, a warning promise of what could happen, but not as imminently dangerous as several seconds ago.
Shiwon tries to think quickly of how best to handle this. Careful, of course. Cautious. He doesn’t want to appear as a threat because he needs, he needs, to try to convince Geng to come back with him. He’s the most popular of them all, and he, they, can’t lose him. But Shiwon is also starkly aware that his chance and his time is rapidly dwindling with every second; Geng isn’t going to stand here forever.
“I... we,” Shiwon corrects, wets his lips almost nervously with his tongue, “worried, about you. No one saw you after what happened. We thought they might have taken you.” He can feel his skin starting to perspire a little in the warmth around him, but tries to ignore it. There’s a sizeable space between them, and still the warmth manages to crawl in between it. “It’s not safe for you out here. They’re looking for you, and if they find you-“
Geng quickly cuts him off, voice soft but his words sharp, “I can take care of myself. I’m sure you know all about it.”
“And so do they, but they know all the precautions to take. You don’t want them to find you.”
Geng says nothing, his words conveyed more clearly in the glare he gives Shiwon, than if he’d said them out loud; and I really wanted you to find me instead?
Beads of perspiration line his temple, and Shiwon is almost sure the warmth has increased; he’s running out of time, out of chance, here. He tries a different tactic. “What did you see?” The rest of the question goes unspoken, but it’s clear enough what he means. When everything went crazy, when Geng lost his control, when he stared and stared and no one knew what was happening. “What happened?”
Shiwon wants, more than anything in this moment, just to bring Geng back (and, though he tries not to just then, but in the depths of his mind thinks that he’d like to keep him for himself, this time, not return him in that bastard Gong's possession).
Geng looks at him, a long, hard look, and for a moment Shiwon feels as if he's scorching his very soul, with that glare in his eyes. Sweat starts to build on his upper lip then, too.
A long, hard silence, before Geng finally whispers a single word. And then, before Shiwon can move (although he feels almost frozen to the spot, or melted perhaps), before he can even say anything or call out, Geng turns, vanishes into the darkness, and all he can hear is the quick retreat of running footsteps, and the echo of that one word whispered, bouncing through the dark of the alley and spilling from his own lips as if pronouncing it would give him a better grasp at it.
“Freedom.”
"Report."
He's not amused. His entire delegation is not amused, but they've been told to stay outside and not come in, so they won't. Spatters of blood are scattered haphazardly across the rough concrete floor, and half of the steel frame surrounding the arena has been taken down. They can never go back here again, once they've investigated the site; it's known to authority intelligence now. It took half of the night to clear the place and rid it of hidden espionage equipment. Time Shiwon had spent managing things and making sure that every line out of the arena, that could possibly be linked to any of their people, was cut dead.
Ryeowook holds his head up high in a statuesque defiance. His cold eyes glance at Shiwon once before they turn their focus on the lifeless shape of a man tied to a chair in the middle of the remnants of chaos.
"Lost the firestarter, he said."
Shiwon ignores his words. He didn't ask Ryeowook to explain, and he knows that Ryeowook is well aware of that, too. But the man's proud of what he can do. Proud of his strength. So Shiwon gives him his moment, before he stands up, stubs out the cigarette that had been the only thing capable of calming his senses on the railing, and states "You lost control over him."
A shadow passes over Ryeowook's face. The light filtering through the hole in the roof above them that gives the place an ethereal look is a beautiful mockery to balance it. They both could have been in bed now, hoping for a chance to catch up on sleep, yet they both aren't, and they're both not amused with it. All is silent, if they ignore the fluttering of moths and smaller insects in the dark of what was only a day ago one of the better arenas. Before it was discovered.
"He changed."
Shiwon looks at him with anger reflected in the depth behind his pupils. "He changed and we lost him!" he hisses, all furrowed eyebrows and threatening pose. "How did he change? What happened?" And more importantly, "What did he see?"
Ryeowook isn't angered. It's an emotion, and it's not his fault he's incapable of feeling any. He merely looks at the man - authority soldier, one of the few they managed to take captive - and echoes back "Something he wasn't supposed to see. He holds plentiful hurt, your fighter does. You wouldn't have been able to get him into the ring to fight, if we hadn't been able to use that to tune him." It's what he does. He searches for a strong emotion, a weak spot - it's like looking for something unfamiliar to Ryeowook, really, but he knows when he finds it - and turns it around. Messing with people by whispering manipulative little thoughts into their mind. And unless they're aware, they always think they are their own. With Geng there had been enough to work with. But the strongest feeling, and along with that the guilt and sorrow that it had spurred, something about that had altered.
"Whatever he saw changed him. Hope." Ryeowook's features twist into a disgusted visage. If there's one emotion he doesn't like the feel of, it's hope. Love, he can deal with. It's remarkably easy to change it into a deep, profound hatred, with just the right touch. But hope, hope doesn't let itself be mangled so easily, and he despises it. Shiwon knows that, too. Ryeowook can see him sit down again and run his hand through his hair before it actually happens. He knows all about people and their little habits, quirks, automatisms. But he doesn't expect a sudden electric tune to scatter through the empty space and further define the hollow.
Shiwon pushes the phone against his ear with frustration and utters a sharp "What?!" He really can't have anyone calling him now.
"Hey," a happy voice titters on the other side of the line, "I meant to call you sooner, but then my boss caught me and nearly moved me to another booth, and you know how it is at work, boring all the way, and I didn't want to get moved because see, I'm next to my best buddy and if I had to move I'd just die of boredom. So what's up?"
Frustration. Ryeowook can tell by the way Shiwon's thumb ghosts over the button to end the call immediately, and the way his eyebrows are drawn together in a frown.
"How'd you get this number?"
"Well, you know. I thought you were going to ask me how I was first. Or tell me about your day," the voice pauses, then corrects itself, "Yesterday, technically. Since I just shared mine. You know, you don't sound very happy. You want to hang out some time again and get a cup of coffee?"
Shiwon doesn't have the time for this. Or rather, he has the time for it, but not the patience. There are things to be done, people to be traced, and leaks to be patched up - ironically it's always a bullet that's best fit for that kind of job - and he can't be bothered to be having a careless chat with a guy that he used to know from university.
"I'm going to have to call you back."
And he cuts the line, shuts down his cell phone. Taking out the battery is something he always considers too much trouble, and something only people in dramatic roles on television do.
"Private life?" Ryeowook inquires.
"What private life?" Shiwon hisses back. There's a fighter on the loose. A fighter that he ran into only hours earlier, for a bare two minutes - although it felt much, much longer than that - and that the Syndicate is trying to track down with all their might while he's stuck rounding up investigations as to how this could have happened in the first place. "You listen to me," he points, "I want everything you have on him. I want his dreams, his fears, his freaking first childhood memory. I want to know how he got out of that facility. And don't give me the summary. I want names, dates, sedation schedules. Everything you can find on him."
Ryeowook gives Shiwon his best copy of a humourless smile - the humourless works, but the smile does not. He knows him inside out. Obsession, cloaked as fascination and hidden under the illusion of professionalism, is an interesting thing. Frustration is too.
Donghae stares, and stares, and stares some more at the screen of his cell phone, trying to will it with his mind to ring. Except he doesn’t actually have any mind powers, so of course it doesn’t ring just because he wants it to. He still tries, though. It’s been ages, and ages and ages, since Shiwon had promised ‘I’m going to have to call you back’. What’s taking him so long, anyway? What could be so much more important than talking to his good old buddy Donghae again?
Well, a lot of things. He hasn’t spent the entire time just staring at his cell phone, only some of the time, only whenever Donghae felt that perhaps these latent mind powers were going to wake up and make his phone ring. But the time spent not trying to will it to beep into life with a call, Donghae has spent mentally making up lists. What Shiwon might be doing, why he hasn’t called back, and why he’d sounded so…weird, on the phone before. Frustrated, annoyed, and Donghae, of course, didn’t think that the annoyance had been aimed at him in any way, but simply assumed he’d called at a bad time.
Maybe Shiwon has a sick relative. Maybe he’s at the hospital with this sick relative. Or friend, Donghae amends, because friends are important too. That would explain the frustration, because really, hospitals were not fun. Especially if you were there with a friend, or a relative, and they were sick.
He glances at the little digital numbers on his phone and huffs a disappointed little sigh; it’s been hours. And he hates waiting, really, really hates waiting. Donghae isn’t very good at it, which is quite obvious by the way he’s slouched down on the couch, stares at his cell phone anxiously.
“You’re not harassing him again, are you?” The sudden voice startles Donghae, makes him jump a little; he looks over only to see Hyukjae in the doorway, a teasing little smile on his friend’s face.
Donghae huffs again, frowns at him. “Shut up. I’m not harassing him. Calling a friend up is not harassing.”
Hyukjae raises an eyebrow and sniggers as he steps into the room. He drops himself down on the other end of the couch, and for a moment he appears to be distracted from his teasing by an unusual looking stain on one of the couch cushions (which is pretty old and threadbare by now, and doesn’t even match the couch, or the other chair). Shrugging to himself, he seems to remember why he’s even there in the first place; to tease Donghae. It’s a lot of fun, really.
“No,” Hyukjae agrees, grins and adds, “but, tracking down his number online, and calling him repeatedly, is.”
Donghae gives his friend - who isn’t being much of a friend right now, he thinks - a glare. “Go away. It’s not harassing.” And really, it’s not! He doesn’t think so, anyway, because really, what’s wrong with calling up an old friend and wanting to go have coffee, or something? And really, there was nothing wrong with doing a little harmless hacking to find out his number; Shiwon would have given it to Donghae anyway, so what was wrong with being pre-emptive and finding it himself? It showed initiative, after all.
“Oh look, look,” Hyukjae suddenly points at the phone in Donghae’s hand, and Donghae looks quickly, heart jumping into his throat in anticipation-only to find the screen is still dim, and no one is calling, “nothing’s happening!” Hyukjae finishes. Donghae grabs the nearest cushion and smacks Hyukjae in the face.
“Not funny! You’re so not funny, Lee Hyukjae. Go torment someone else. Kibum’s in the bedroom, bother him for a bit.”
Hyukjae only laughs. Though actually, Kibum has been a little too unhappy - well, more so than he usually is, anyway - for real lately to tease like this. Plus, Donghae’s just too easy. And deserves it, for all the things he does to torment Hyukjae at work. Why is he living with the guy, again?
“What was it I was reading earlier at work? It was fascinating, really, very insightful. I just can’t remember…” his voice is thick with teasing sarcasm, “oh, yeah. Your old blog, from university. There was this one particular entry, all about this guy-“
Before Hyukjae can say anything else, Donghae attacks him with the cushion, repeatedly, enough to shut Hyukjae up. Well, about the teasing anyway, but it doesn’t stop him from squawking in protest to the attack. “You suck!” Donghae informs him between beatings, and in the process of him attacking Hyukjae and Hyukjae trying to defend himself, the cell phone slips, unnoticed, to the floor.
Perhaps it’s the irony of it, that the moment Donghae is not looking, not waiting for it, that the phone chooses that moment to light to life and start up with some pop tune Donghae has for his ringtone. Donghae stops mid-attack, stunned, before gathering his wits together again, and in a flash he drops the cushion, climbs off of Hyukjae and the couch, and is answering his phone with a far-too-cheerful (if not somewhat breathless) “Hi! I didn’t mean to call at a bad time if I did, earlier, but I’m really glad you called back! So what’s up?”
He shoots a warning glare at Hyukjae before making his way over to one of the bedrooms, chatters cheerfully into the phone all the while. There’s a loud resounding slam as Donghae closes the door behind him, a signal that no one is to bother him why he’s on the phone. Hyukjae can only shake his head a little, somewhat amused, as he tries to straighten his clothes and hair out after that malicious and evil attack.
“What’s going on? Who’s he talking to?”
It’s the first time in several hours Hyukjae has actually seen his second roommate today, Kibum seems to have been hiding from them both, so his sudden presence is just a little surprising, but not at all unwelcome after the beating from Donghae.
“Oh, just that guy he’s been stalking. You know, the one he likes.”
Kibum groans quietly, sits himself down on the couch. Glancing over at Hyukjae, he says in a voice of impending doom, “He’s going to be unbearable for the rest of the night.” He makes it sound as if some natural disaster is approaching.
“Yep.”
Authors: nemesae & taylormercury
Rating: PG-13
Focus: Shiwon, Kibum
Summary: But something's wrong, something's terribly wrong, and the look of intense focus in otherwise emotionless eyes of the solemn figure across the ring tell Shiwon too much for his liking.
Notes: Archive. Different points of view.
He always sits next to Mr. Gong. It has become a habit ever since he met the man's fighter at the medical and psychological examinations to qualify him for the arena, years back, when he was guided in in a state of obvious sedation that told everyone that he was far from being under control yet. It's from the moment that the young fighter woke up and opened his eyes - they can't assess him if he can't show what he's capable of; fights are, after all, never fought drugged - that Shiwon has wanted Geng. For the Syndicate, or as a fighter for himself. There's something about him and he can't press his finger to it. He's powerful, there's no denying that, but he's human. So he sits with Mr. Gong and waits for that moment that he's told that he can buy. Has been doing so ever since they first met in the acquisition assessment unit.
"They say yer interest in 'im isn't professional," Mr. Gong mentions when the two fighters enter the arena. It's his property, against that of the Syndicate. But they're both hoping to witness victory on Geng's side. Even more so because Shiwon knows what he'll be up against.
"They say a lot, don't they?" He sits back into the seat and reaches inside his pocket to fish out a lighter, flips it open and shut several times before offering it to Mr. Gong, who titters and takes it to light the opium lamp on his side, blissfully sighing when the first smoke parts from his lips, equally unaware that Shiwon's expression darkens. "But they never say it to my face."
And then the announcer's voice is cut short, and Shiwon's on the edge of his seat when events progress too fast for him to grasp them and before they know it they're suddenly right in the middle of a fight and Kangin, one of the Syndicate's stronger fighters, is showing such visible hostility and such force to overwhelm his opponent down in the pit, that it leaves the other disoriented. Weakened. Shiwon has never seen him caught off guard so soon.
It all happens too fast. But that's when Shiwon loves the fight most - Geng's defences are continuously broken with blows that cost his opponent hardly any effort to throw, and then switches to an offence that hits Geng hard in the chest and nearly sends him tumbling - when he can taste the copper on their lips and when he can imagine the rush of adrenaline through his bloodstream to be theirs, even though he's got trouble keeping up with everything and he knows better than to blink his eyes at untimely moments.
But it won't be the day they will see their personal favourite fall. A maze of fire spreads out from nowhere, like a contraption of branches and veins, that spans half of the arena and conceals most of what happens inside, but eerily illuminates the bas-relief of hundreds outside. It's the strongest display of his strength that Geng has ever conjured up in one go, and the tension in the air is so powerful and so palpable that it chills Shiwon, regardless of the increasing heat, and silences the crowd. He's breathing hard, but so is Mr. Gong, who's already seeing the near dent to his pride restored in full glory. Bars of fire plunge into the gravel from being conjured up far above them. There's no way that he could lose. To think so, Shiwon thinks to himself in a moment of clarity almost lost in other less coherent thoughts, would be a folly.
He's too busy allowing himself to sit back and bring his breathing back under control, a fume of opium incensing the air next to him, when something happens. He can't press his finger on it. It's like a faint ringing in his ears, or the trace of having looked at the sun through squinted eyes too long before looking somewhere else and a black spot will still be there. Or simply the absence of one small detail that really should have been there. But something's wrong, something's terribly wrong, and the look of intense focus in otherwise emotionless eyes of the solemn figure across the ring tell Shiwon too much for his liking.
"Call your men in."
Mr. Gong stares up at Shiwon bewilderedly. "I don'-..." but Shiwon doesn't care that he doesn't understand. He doesn't have time. "Do it," he hisses, all formality lost, and pushes his way through the crowd outside. A quick look at the ring drains the remaining warmth in his body in the blink of a second. Geng is staring at something. He barely registers the shockwave that Kangin throws at him. He barely registers anything. But he stares.
He's losing control, Shiwon thinks. But it isn't Geng, and that's what alarms him most. Men that are in the way are shoved aside, half the distance crossed, and then there's a shout that unsettles everything and stirs the people around him into an immediate state of chaos. He doesn't know what's happening at first, caught off balance and off guard, when his primary target is still to first get to the other side.
And then, then it registers.
He needs to get away from here as fast as possible.
They've got squads. In truth, they've got several of them, and two were supposed to be outside guarding the entrance in, some in plain view, some in buildings on the other side of the alley behind stained windows bearing sniper rifles. So how they got in is something that Shiwon can not comprehend. Three of the four units that were supposed to be covering security from the inside are missing, too, and the one unit left - the unit responsible for fighter quarantine in the case of emergency - has to fill in for five absent squads in their wake. So nobody's paying any attention to the two men in the ring until a net of steel wire is shot into the arena from a few meters to his left, and another one some platforms higher. They're already all around him.
A shockwave sends Shiwon to his knees. It flattens the crowd in the way that the impact of an atomic bomb would, but only on the left side of the arena's fortified steel cage. Kangin's panting when Shiwon looks at them, and the nets lie in a spineless heap just next to Geng, who's sitting hunched over on the ground, still breathing hard with shock. The wire still emits a few sparks of electricity every few seconds at the pulse. Shiwon thinks that he can see a sheen moist on Geng's cheeks. What is keeping Gong's men?
It's hardly courageous, fleeing the scene, but it's hardly becoming to be a number on the body count later on just as well, Shiwon reckons. If there will be. He knows enough of these men to know that they don't care who they take down, or how many; they'll never have to justify themselves anyway. Upholders of the law, but ruthless in their pursuit.
When Shiwon turns, six of them are down, and a still, slender man smiles from under his tousled dark hair and even darker eyes. Although it isn't really a smile, Shiwon knows, and the empty shells of men on the floor around him tell their own story of his crooked sense of humour.
"Come on."
The man looks up. He shakes his head. No. Geng, he couldn't control. But these men are so easy to manipulate and wrap around his finger that clearly, Shiwon must be missing how with but a thought he can get them to turn their weapons on their colleagues. Just like that.
Shiwon ignores him, takes his hand and drags him along past people and people to the other exit. "I don't care," he hisses before Ryeowook can open his lips to tell that he can handle himself, "I don't care. I'm getting you out of here."
The Syndicate can't afford to lose him.
For a moment, time seems to stand still. It seems to heave a giant sigh, and simply stop. Time, the people and the chaos that had just been about to erupt - he’d felt the shaking in his legs, warning of the oncoming run and chase - and even himself. The breath sticks, stills, stops, inside his chest. He doesn’t even blink. The only thing that still continues in this pause of time are his thoughts.
He stares; he stares and stares down at that face, the face he’s seen only in memories, in dreams and nightmares and behind closed lids for years. The face he’s been striving to find, and now that he sees, memories bloom and burst across the screen of his mind. Warm, it’s always warm when he remembers. Warm smile, offered only to him; warm eyes, so many emotions hidden behind dark irises; warm skin, soft and smooth beneath his palm. And then the flames flare up through the memories, burn through the warmth and the smiles, and for a moment all he sees are flames, flames and smoke and accidents and blackness. A deep, deep blackness.
The memories hardly matter anymore, however. He can see him, now, right there, closer than he’s ever been in the endless expanse of those three years, and the memories he’s been clinging to, tightly like a stubborn child who simply won’t let go, finally slip from between his grasp. They don’t matter, now. Kibum smiles.
And suddenly, time slips back into place, creeps up between their stares and clicks. His heart skips, and resumes the race it had been starting to beat up inside his chest. He gasps, quietly, and heaves for air, as if he really hadn’t been breathing for those time-stilled seconds. Then chaos erupts. Everything is a hurried, massive motion of confusion and movement and trying to get away, around him. The ground trembles beneath his feet, and he hardly notices. Shouts and screams and noise and movement, but none of it registers to Kibum, he doesn’t care.
He doesn’t care about whatever his side are trying to achieve, and he doesn’t care how it’ll affect the other side. He cares for nothing but Geng, down there in the arena, Geng, whom he hasn’t seen for far too long, Geng, who he needs to get out of this place, out of this thing.
He’s filled with the urgent desire to move, to push himself forward, to get down to him, and before Kibum can even think of demanding his body to start moving, he’s already off, shoves his way through people, their side, his side, anyone who gets in his way. He shoves past one man so hard, so thoughtlessly, but this man, unlike most of the others, pushes back, and they both tumble to the floor. Kibum hits his shin against something, but is up again before the pain can register. He has to get to Geng, he has to, because he can’t let the side he’s been working for get to him, he simply can’t. He knows what the authorities are like, what they want, and whilst Kibum hates the people who have Geng now, it would be so, so much worse if the authorities get hold of him.
They are the ones, after all, that were most affected by the incident, three years ago, and they know better than anyone what it would take to keep hold of Geng. An entire scientific research compound destroyed in hungry flames, and no survivors, is a lesson that did not go unlearned.
He gets closer, and Kibum can feel his heart swell with the anticipation to just get to him, get to him before anyone else can, but there’s so much going on and he pays no attention to any of it, focused solely on one thing, and he has no warning before someone knocks into him from behind, sends him crashing down to the ground for a second time; this time he bangs one of his legs and grazes the skin from a palm - a palm he distinctly recalls once upon a time being red and raw and tender and - and it’s only a few seconds before he’s up again, cursing silently, but when he looks over, Geng is nowhere to be seen. His leg throbs where he knocked it, chest aches from where he fell (aches from where it always aches) but he hardly notices; physical pain is nothing to him right now.
Kibum searches desperately, eyes tearing over everywhere he can see inside the building, but nothing, nothing.
So close. He was so very close. And still not close enough.
He has an office, just a small one. It's more like a desk, since the walls consist of windows that are only opaque at points where any privacy is already breached. Kibum used to think that it was odd of a military organisation like this to have the interior of one of their quarters made so fragile, but that only lasted until the shooting incident. Instead of collapsing like a labyrinth of mirrors only a small star had to be patched up when they cleaned the infiltrant's blood off the glass. But the fact remains that there isn't much privacy. Then again, most of the time Kibum can be found in the main conference room and he's learned the hard way that checking emails and things like that are best left for home.
It's the end of his day - close to nine in the evening; a fairly early one today - and he rubs his eyes to wake up a little. Another day of zero progress. He didn't accept to join them just to be stuck behind a desk or a computer with three screens in the conference room. So far he's learned of an organisation that they call the Syndicate, an underground circle with the monopoly on the fights between escapees that are organised, and of the escapees. Test subjects, that managed to get away at the discovery and dismantling of facilities similar to the one he used to work in, not very long after that one went up in smoke. Geng's one of them.
Kibum's only there to be in on the information. He knows very well that the authorities that he works for consider the escapees more of a threat to society than the Syndicate is. He knows it's dangerous. But he needs that information. They've got contacts that he hasn't.
There's one exception to that rule. Kibum's on his way home, hands tucked deep into his pockets and on his watch for anything suspicious - it isn't the best neighbourhood that he lives in - when it presents itself with a tapping of feet on cobblestone in unison, or just a little off, with his own. When Kibum turns around the shadow laughs quietly. Two of the adjacent street lights scatter. Kibum cringes.
"I find your lack of faith disturbing."
He steps out of the shadows with a joker's smile drawn on his face. It's more than a little mischievous, and it always leaves Kibum to guess why he's talking to him in the first place. His motivations are a mystery. For all he knows, he could be sleeping with the devil and dining with the gods. Although Kibum has long lost track of who is on the good side and who isn't. Experience greyed that all out.
"The same could be said for your love for sneaking up on people," he returns, halts, and then adds to that "My flatmate told me to tell you you could at least tell him your name, if your plan is to keep bothering him so much."
"You know what it is. Tell him yourself."
And Heechul, Kibum thinks, is for all his valuable information - information that the authorities won't get from him - a surprisingly big pest. "I'm not going to be the one introducing you," he says, "I think I've messed up enough already."
"Ouch," Heechul muses. He strolls like a skilful acrobat, gracious when he moves in towards Kibum, and satellites around him like a member of the inquisition, one that's having perhaps a little too much fun knowing things that no one else does. "I sense pessimism. And here I came hoping that what I had to tell you could bring a smile to that face. You haven't let your little prodigy of a flatmate hack his enthusiastic way into your employer's database for a while, have you?"
Then, whispering into his ear, he smirks "And boy, are they fucking you over."
When Kibum whirls around and stares at him, Heechul's five feet away from him and the embodiment of innocence, complete with hands on back and horribly batting eyes.
"What are you talking about?"
"Don't offend me with stupid questions."
And Kibum is pressed with his nose on the reasons why he doesn't like to be in the company of the man again. But he can't afford to be rude, because whenever he pops up - whenever he wants, apparently; Heechul's been on his rooftop once, and it remains a mystery how he got there in the first place, and he's even had the gall to visit the reception desk at his work on a particularly busy day to ask for him - the knowledge he brings is too valuable for it.
"What have you got?"
Heechul smiles and bows courteously. "Your authorities have planned a raid on an old storage facility a little out of town in a few days. Their inside man tipped them off. Says 'Gong's kid is going to play'. Which you know is just his own way of telling that it's on. They're putting eight units on it. I think you can figure out what that means yourself."
Kibum silences. Eight units. He smiles, because oh, he knows what that means.
Top priority.
"Fireworks," Heechul takes the liberty to freely translate Kibum's thoughts with a gesture of his hands, and an annoyed sigh at the way he spaces out. It would be appreciated if people listened, when he had something to say. It really would be. He juts out his hip defensively. "And I'd love to be there for the show but, unfortunately, I've got other arrangements."
Heechul smirks at Kibum. He considers his task here done.
"I heard their ID's aren't very difficult to fake, for someone with a bit of good old-fashioned talent," he entrusts him a last piece of information. Then he scrapes his throat, salutes him with a hint of playfulness, and is off. All that's left are a few new marks of corrosion around the spot where he stood, when Kibum sighs at Heechul's once again blink-of-an-eye departure. He would think it's rather rude. Today, though, he can hardly care. Fireworks and eight units. It looks like the newspaper horoscope that Heechul had ridiculously cited for him a couple of days back at a chance encounter - Kibum suspects it was boredom on the other man's behalf, and a need to bore someone else with it in the hopes of passing it on and being rid of it himself, or just to enjoy puzzling people before he'd vanish - might just be right for once.
There's a big change ahead.
Shiwon feels the headache, like a slow roll of thunder, start to build up in the back of his head. It’ll burst like a storm soon, but he’s not surprised. If any day has ever been a headache inducing one, this would be the day. Besides the approaching headache, tension lingers in his neck and shoulders, and a giant knot of frustration twists and churns inside his stomach.
He still doesn’t know exactly what happened earlier. There had been too much chaos, and it had been completely unexpected, unprepared for. It was simply too much to try and sort through everything to figure it all out. Six units, and somehow five of them had been taken down without so much as a stir. Even now Shiwon has no idea who, or how many people, might have been caught or injured, or killed, because he wouldn’t put that past the authorities; no idea how they had even gotten in, or if they now had whatever they had come for. As things were sorted out, the information and details would slowly fit themselves together, but it was going to be a giant mess of frustration for some time to come, and Shiwon didn’t want to deal with it, wished he didn't have to, but he did.
Oh yes, he certainly would, because apart from all of that, there was something that he was sure of had happened. There was no mistake about it - though he wished there had been. During check-up after the chaos and the mess, there had been one person missing. One who had not been there, and could not be found anywhere, by anyone.
Geng.
Geng was missing, and no one knew how or where. They had already questioned Kangin, the last person they assumed to have really seen him, but he told them nothing, nothing helpful, anyway. And Mr. Gong, oh he had not been pleased. Geng was his prize, his trophy, his piece of pride, and the thing he liked to dangle beneath Shiwon’s nose, to taunt and tease him with; look what I have, what you want and what I’ll never give you.
There had been a huge fuss from Mr. Gong, rather understandably so, and it had been very difficult for Shiwon to be at all understanding when there had been ranting and raving and shouting and cursing right in his face, demands to go find my fighter right now you assholes, how could you let him get away and other things that Shiwon wished he hadn’t even had to listen to the first time, let alone remember for a rerun. It made the frustration knot twice as hard inside him.
Though part of him, just that small, selfish part of him had been almost sadistically pleased that Gong had lost his prize, the man he had paid so much goddamn money for, you have no idea. But Shiwon was not pleased that Geng was still missing, and that no one knew where. He was off their radar.
It’s evening, sky already full of thick darkness, but even the streetlamps Shiwon passes beneath seem to bring no relief to the slow but steady building up of a headache, throbbing and going for an uncalled for quality check of what is left of his nerves. He pinches the bridge of his nose and breathes deeply for several seconds, just wishing he could fall into bed and forget about this entire mess. He can’t, though, he has to get home, but there’s no bed waiting for him yet. There are phone calls to make, things to be done, people yet to be questioned. He had left Mr. Gong in the care of other hands, hands that weren’t close to just throttling the ranting man like Shiwon had been wanting to.
His mind is so full of the things he has to do, so saturated with the mess that he’s going to have to sort through when it isn't even his task, that he doesn’t realise at first, doesn’t take much notice at all of the man walking in his direction, head down, paying no special heed to his surroundings other than it not being the best of places to be. They both aren't. It’s such a normal setting, so unexpected, that it doesn’t quite click in Shiwon’s head until they near each other, until he feels the chill of the evening fade, until he feels a sudden pocket of warmth.
And then it clicks.
He gasps silently, mouth gaping open in utter surprise, but only for a moment, and then Shiwon pulls himself back together, surprise and all; he’s always been good at that, putting on a front. “Geng?” He questions, and then before the other man can quite respond - and before he can do anything, Shiwon hopes, prays - he takes hold of his hand and pulls him quickly into the space between two buildings. Dark, with one wall shading the glow from the nearest streetlamp, but he can still clearly see that this is Geng, that he wasn’t captured and caught by the authorities. That he is unharmed, and seems to physically be in good shape, although the look in his eyes is slightly different from what he can remember it to be like. There’s a strong sense of relief. It’s all a little mixed up, and it doesn’t even occur to Shiwon, but there’s something very wrong about being relieved that a kept man hadn’t been caught by someone else, and something even more wrong about the wish to take away his so suddenly found freedom.
But this doesn’t occur to Shiwon, not now, and probably not later. He doesn’t think like that, or tries not to.
There’s a sudden build up of heat, as eyes look up and seem to recognise through a connection of bad memories and warning experiences, and Shiwon is instantly brought back into reality, reminded of just why this man is so dangerous.
“Wait! Wait!” he says quickly, softly, holds up his hands immediately to prove that he's no harm. He’s afraid, and the realisation startles him. He doesn’t usually feel fear, and it's been a while since he last tasted it. But right now, knowing Geng is free and quite capable of anything (and he knows, he’s read and heard all about it), it is fear more than anything that makes Shiwon aware of the knowledge that Geng is more than capable of handling him, if he wants to.
“I’m not going to hurt you, I don’t have anything on me. I’m just walking home, alright?” He waits, counting the seconds silently in his mind, and lets out the quietest sigh of relief when he feels that sudden influx of heat start to abate a little. There’s still some there, a warning promise of what could happen, but not as imminently dangerous as several seconds ago.
Shiwon tries to think quickly of how best to handle this. Careful, of course. Cautious. He doesn’t want to appear as a threat because he needs, he needs, to try to convince Geng to come back with him. He’s the most popular of them all, and he, they, can’t lose him. But Shiwon is also starkly aware that his chance and his time is rapidly dwindling with every second; Geng isn’t going to stand here forever.
“I... we,” Shiwon corrects, wets his lips almost nervously with his tongue, “worried, about you. No one saw you after what happened. We thought they might have taken you.” He can feel his skin starting to perspire a little in the warmth around him, but tries to ignore it. There’s a sizeable space between them, and still the warmth manages to crawl in between it. “It’s not safe for you out here. They’re looking for you, and if they find you-“
Geng quickly cuts him off, voice soft but his words sharp, “I can take care of myself. I’m sure you know all about it.”
“And so do they, but they know all the precautions to take. You don’t want them to find you.”
Geng says nothing, his words conveyed more clearly in the glare he gives Shiwon, than if he’d said them out loud; and I really wanted you to find me instead?
Beads of perspiration line his temple, and Shiwon is almost sure the warmth has increased; he’s running out of time, out of chance, here. He tries a different tactic. “What did you see?” The rest of the question goes unspoken, but it’s clear enough what he means. When everything went crazy, when Geng lost his control, when he stared and stared and no one knew what was happening. “What happened?”
Shiwon wants, more than anything in this moment, just to bring Geng back (and, though he tries not to just then, but in the depths of his mind thinks that he’d like to keep him for himself, this time, not return him in that bastard Gong's possession).
Geng looks at him, a long, hard look, and for a moment Shiwon feels as if he's scorching his very soul, with that glare in his eyes. Sweat starts to build on his upper lip then, too.
A long, hard silence, before Geng finally whispers a single word. And then, before Shiwon can move (although he feels almost frozen to the spot, or melted perhaps), before he can even say anything or call out, Geng turns, vanishes into the darkness, and all he can hear is the quick retreat of running footsteps, and the echo of that one word whispered, bouncing through the dark of the alley and spilling from his own lips as if pronouncing it would give him a better grasp at it.
“Freedom.”
"Report."
He's not amused. His entire delegation is not amused, but they've been told to stay outside and not come in, so they won't. Spatters of blood are scattered haphazardly across the rough concrete floor, and half of the steel frame surrounding the arena has been taken down. They can never go back here again, once they've investigated the site; it's known to authority intelligence now. It took half of the night to clear the place and rid it of hidden espionage equipment. Time Shiwon had spent managing things and making sure that every line out of the arena, that could possibly be linked to any of their people, was cut dead.
Ryeowook holds his head up high in a statuesque defiance. His cold eyes glance at Shiwon once before they turn their focus on the lifeless shape of a man tied to a chair in the middle of the remnants of chaos.
"Lost the firestarter, he said."
Shiwon ignores his words. He didn't ask Ryeowook to explain, and he knows that Ryeowook is well aware of that, too. But the man's proud of what he can do. Proud of his strength. So Shiwon gives him his moment, before he stands up, stubs out the cigarette that had been the only thing capable of calming his senses on the railing, and states "You lost control over him."
A shadow passes over Ryeowook's face. The light filtering through the hole in the roof above them that gives the place an ethereal look is a beautiful mockery to balance it. They both could have been in bed now, hoping for a chance to catch up on sleep, yet they both aren't, and they're both not amused with it. All is silent, if they ignore the fluttering of moths and smaller insects in the dark of what was only a day ago one of the better arenas. Before it was discovered.
"He changed."
Shiwon looks at him with anger reflected in the depth behind his pupils. "He changed and we lost him!" he hisses, all furrowed eyebrows and threatening pose. "How did he change? What happened?" And more importantly, "What did he see?"
Ryeowook isn't angered. It's an emotion, and it's not his fault he's incapable of feeling any. He merely looks at the man - authority soldier, one of the few they managed to take captive - and echoes back "Something he wasn't supposed to see. He holds plentiful hurt, your fighter does. You wouldn't have been able to get him into the ring to fight, if we hadn't been able to use that to tune him." It's what he does. He searches for a strong emotion, a weak spot - it's like looking for something unfamiliar to Ryeowook, really, but he knows when he finds it - and turns it around. Messing with people by whispering manipulative little thoughts into their mind. And unless they're aware, they always think they are their own. With Geng there had been enough to work with. But the strongest feeling, and along with that the guilt and sorrow that it had spurred, something about that had altered.
"Whatever he saw changed him. Hope." Ryeowook's features twist into a disgusted visage. If there's one emotion he doesn't like the feel of, it's hope. Love, he can deal with. It's remarkably easy to change it into a deep, profound hatred, with just the right touch. But hope, hope doesn't let itself be mangled so easily, and he despises it. Shiwon knows that, too. Ryeowook can see him sit down again and run his hand through his hair before it actually happens. He knows all about people and their little habits, quirks, automatisms. But he doesn't expect a sudden electric tune to scatter through the empty space and further define the hollow.
Shiwon pushes the phone against his ear with frustration and utters a sharp "What?!" He really can't have anyone calling him now.
"Hey," a happy voice titters on the other side of the line, "I meant to call you sooner, but then my boss caught me and nearly moved me to another booth, and you know how it is at work, boring all the way, and I didn't want to get moved because see, I'm next to my best buddy and if I had to move I'd just die of boredom. So what's up?"
Frustration. Ryeowook can tell by the way Shiwon's thumb ghosts over the button to end the call immediately, and the way his eyebrows are drawn together in a frown.
"How'd you get this number?"
"Well, you know. I thought you were going to ask me how I was first. Or tell me about your day," the voice pauses, then corrects itself, "Yesterday, technically. Since I just shared mine. You know, you don't sound very happy. You want to hang out some time again and get a cup of coffee?"
Shiwon doesn't have the time for this. Or rather, he has the time for it, but not the patience. There are things to be done, people to be traced, and leaks to be patched up - ironically it's always a bullet that's best fit for that kind of job - and he can't be bothered to be having a careless chat with a guy that he used to know from university.
"I'm going to have to call you back."
And he cuts the line, shuts down his cell phone. Taking out the battery is something he always considers too much trouble, and something only people in dramatic roles on television do.
"Private life?" Ryeowook inquires.
"What private life?" Shiwon hisses back. There's a fighter on the loose. A fighter that he ran into only hours earlier, for a bare two minutes - although it felt much, much longer than that - and that the Syndicate is trying to track down with all their might while he's stuck rounding up investigations as to how this could have happened in the first place. "You listen to me," he points, "I want everything you have on him. I want his dreams, his fears, his freaking first childhood memory. I want to know how he got out of that facility. And don't give me the summary. I want names, dates, sedation schedules. Everything you can find on him."
Ryeowook gives Shiwon his best copy of a humourless smile - the humourless works, but the smile does not. He knows him inside out. Obsession, cloaked as fascination and hidden under the illusion of professionalism, is an interesting thing. Frustration is too.
Donghae stares, and stares, and stares some more at the screen of his cell phone, trying to will it with his mind to ring. Except he doesn’t actually have any mind powers, so of course it doesn’t ring just because he wants it to. He still tries, though. It’s been ages, and ages and ages, since Shiwon had promised ‘I’m going to have to call you back’. What’s taking him so long, anyway? What could be so much more important than talking to his good old buddy Donghae again?
Well, a lot of things. He hasn’t spent the entire time just staring at his cell phone, only some of the time, only whenever Donghae felt that perhaps these latent mind powers were going to wake up and make his phone ring. But the time spent not trying to will it to beep into life with a call, Donghae has spent mentally making up lists. What Shiwon might be doing, why he hasn’t called back, and why he’d sounded so…weird, on the phone before. Frustrated, annoyed, and Donghae, of course, didn’t think that the annoyance had been aimed at him in any way, but simply assumed he’d called at a bad time.
Maybe Shiwon has a sick relative. Maybe he’s at the hospital with this sick relative. Or friend, Donghae amends, because friends are important too. That would explain the frustration, because really, hospitals were not fun. Especially if you were there with a friend, or a relative, and they were sick.
He glances at the little digital numbers on his phone and huffs a disappointed little sigh; it’s been hours. And he hates waiting, really, really hates waiting. Donghae isn’t very good at it, which is quite obvious by the way he’s slouched down on the couch, stares at his cell phone anxiously.
“You’re not harassing him again, are you?” The sudden voice startles Donghae, makes him jump a little; he looks over only to see Hyukjae in the doorway, a teasing little smile on his friend’s face.
Donghae huffs again, frowns at him. “Shut up. I’m not harassing him. Calling a friend up is not harassing.”
Hyukjae raises an eyebrow and sniggers as he steps into the room. He drops himself down on the other end of the couch, and for a moment he appears to be distracted from his teasing by an unusual looking stain on one of the couch cushions (which is pretty old and threadbare by now, and doesn’t even match the couch, or the other chair). Shrugging to himself, he seems to remember why he’s even there in the first place; to tease Donghae. It’s a lot of fun, really.
“No,” Hyukjae agrees, grins and adds, “but, tracking down his number online, and calling him repeatedly, is.”
Donghae gives his friend - who isn’t being much of a friend right now, he thinks - a glare. “Go away. It’s not harassing.” And really, it’s not! He doesn’t think so, anyway, because really, what’s wrong with calling up an old friend and wanting to go have coffee, or something? And really, there was nothing wrong with doing a little harmless hacking to find out his number; Shiwon would have given it to Donghae anyway, so what was wrong with being pre-emptive and finding it himself? It showed initiative, after all.
“Oh look, look,” Hyukjae suddenly points at the phone in Donghae’s hand, and Donghae looks quickly, heart jumping into his throat in anticipation-only to find the screen is still dim, and no one is calling, “nothing’s happening!” Hyukjae finishes. Donghae grabs the nearest cushion and smacks Hyukjae in the face.
“Not funny! You’re so not funny, Lee Hyukjae. Go torment someone else. Kibum’s in the bedroom, bother him for a bit.”
Hyukjae only laughs. Though actually, Kibum has been a little too unhappy - well, more so than he usually is, anyway - for real lately to tease like this. Plus, Donghae’s just too easy. And deserves it, for all the things he does to torment Hyukjae at work. Why is he living with the guy, again?
“What was it I was reading earlier at work? It was fascinating, really, very insightful. I just can’t remember…” his voice is thick with teasing sarcasm, “oh, yeah. Your old blog, from university. There was this one particular entry, all about this guy-“
Before Hyukjae can say anything else, Donghae attacks him with the cushion, repeatedly, enough to shut Hyukjae up. Well, about the teasing anyway, but it doesn’t stop him from squawking in protest to the attack. “You suck!” Donghae informs him between beatings, and in the process of him attacking Hyukjae and Hyukjae trying to defend himself, the cell phone slips, unnoticed, to the floor.
Perhaps it’s the irony of it, that the moment Donghae is not looking, not waiting for it, that the phone chooses that moment to light to life and start up with some pop tune Donghae has for his ringtone. Donghae stops mid-attack, stunned, before gathering his wits together again, and in a flash he drops the cushion, climbs off of Hyukjae and the couch, and is answering his phone with a far-too-cheerful (if not somewhat breathless) “Hi! I didn’t mean to call at a bad time if I did, earlier, but I’m really glad you called back! So what’s up?”
He shoots a warning glare at Hyukjae before making his way over to one of the bedrooms, chatters cheerfully into the phone all the while. There’s a loud resounding slam as Donghae closes the door behind him, a signal that no one is to bother him why he’s on the phone. Hyukjae can only shake his head a little, somewhat amused, as he tries to straighten his clothes and hair out after that malicious and evil attack.
“What’s going on? Who’s he talking to?”
It’s the first time in several hours Hyukjae has actually seen his second roommate today, Kibum seems to have been hiding from them both, so his sudden presence is just a little surprising, but not at all unwelcome after the beating from Donghae.
“Oh, just that guy he’s been stalking. You know, the one he likes.”
Kibum groans quietly, sits himself down on the couch. Glancing over at Hyukjae, he says in a voice of impending doom, “He’s going to be unbearable for the rest of the night.” He makes it sound as if some natural disaster is approaching.
“Yep.”