the bottom line [2 / 3]
title: the bottom line
pairing: kaisoo, kray, baekyeol [ot12]
rating: NC-17
genre: romance, action, angst
part: 2 / 3
summary: some secrets are better off kept, kisses undelivered, scars hidden.
part one; ground zero
one shot;
one kill
Staring past the stained windows of their living room, Yifan waits for whichever raindrop would slide down faster. Gray skies, striped roads complete the somber setting of an October afternoon. Yifan likes to think it’s summer’s way of saying farewell; washing away remaining dirt and grime to welcome the new season. He’ll miss the heat. More specifically, the memories he created with Lay during humid evenings, swinging in hammocks by the beach. He doesn’t have the luxury to ponder over their happy days because he spots one of the file Lay’s working on, resting atop papers on his desk.
Green, yellow, red; like the traffic lights. Lay categorizes his files by importance-red being top priority.
The one on Yifan’s hand is crimson, and Lay rarely leaves any important files behind. They contain results of vigorous investigation: regarding the masterminds behind illegal drug-trades, down to guilt-ridden prostitutes on filthy districts. Normally, Yifan would rush to hand it to Lay. But the rhythm of raindrops encourage his hands to turn it open.
The downpour does not provide comfort when his fingers started trembling.
༺
D.O is totally not what Kai expected. In the scope of his mind, Kai envisioned D.O to be this intimidating guy who could send shivers down your spine or make an adult man wet his pants with just a simple finger snap. D.O proves Kai wrong as the clock ticks, reminding him of his restrained time. The closer he gets to ending Lay’s life, the better.
Kai disappears as Jongin discards his clothes back in his apartment, taking with it the cigarette scent Kim Jongin can’t stand. The lights are off. He basks in the cold darkness because he sincerely believes it helps him think. Kim Jongin, half-naked and alone, closes his lids to saunter into a familiar pattern of concentration.
The traditional contract killing-murdering someone to prove loyalty or to join a greater familia-isn’t a surprise to Jongin. He plans for forty minutes: examining possibilities, covering blind spots, prioritizing weapons of destruction. He plans and devices, because what else can he do? Kim Jongin and Kai were both born and would probably die in this world. It's a curse dictated in the stars long before he came to earth, and will probably remain there long before he leaves this planet.
༺
“What do you think of him?” It’s Baekhyun and Kyungsoo knows even he’s right without looking up. Baekhyun is never quiet. His footsteps must be louder than necessary, as if he’s a sumo wrestler with blocks of concrete for legs and anchors for arms. But then again, Byun Baekhyun is in love with Chanyeol, so Kyungsoo doubts anything else about Baekhyun is normal.
Kyungsoo tilts the picture of Kai in his hand, holding it up against the light of his room. “Are you asking D.O or Kyungsoo?”
“You’re a weird fuck,” Baekhyun chuckles, occupying the rotating chair beside Kyungsoo. “It was D.O who met him, right? Then what does D.O think of Kai?”
“Kai doesn’t fear the right things to fear.”
“What do you mean by that?”
"Earlier, I got the feeling that he was indifferent to every thing. I’ve seen people, Baek. I could practically tell what a person does for a living within two seconds, but Kai... I can't place him. Not because we don’t know where he came from or why he was sent in an asylum in the beginning, but because Kai doesn’t even know himself. I know what he wants, but I doubt we both know who he is. If you ask me, that’s what makes him a great hitman.”
Baekhyun remains quiet-but not quiet quiet. Ragged breathing and fidgeting hands. That’s quiet for Baekhyun. “Do you think he’ll be able to finish the contract killing?”
“He will. He wants in, and nothing brings a determined person down.”
༺
“No Yifan, you just don’t understand! How could you be this twisted? I thought you became a policeman to fight for what is right!” Lay yells.
“Don’t you think I still have that dream? Lay, you know how many hours we spent talking about our future when we were kids. I wanted this as much as you do.” Yifan replies without raising his voice. One screamer is enough. “But this isn’t one of those games, Lay. We grow up and we see things that we have to be quiet about.”
“Listen to yourself talk! You’ve been to these places. You were friends with the people who were robbed, cheated, and goddamit killed! You’re a secondhand witness. But look at you, wearing a uniform while cowering in fear.” Lay has gone too far, but he knows he can’t gulp back words or halt a thrown arrow. The truth residing in Lay's words shuts Yifan. This is what he'd been trying to ignore for years.
Yifan looks at Lay’s eyes and finds determination. Lay stares at Yifan and sees a ghost of the young kid who kept on shooting plastic water guns while running through puddles of mud and blades of grass while screaming I’m gonna be a big man. I’ll get all the bad guys and everyone will be happy! Lay examines Yifan’s lips, wrist, arms, hoping to locate for proof that his body had once been a home for a boy who believed in doing what is right and just.
“I’m sorry,” Yifan says without a clue about what he’s sorry for. Whatever it was, apologies still fell short. Like trying to warm your whole body with a baby's blanket.
“It’s okay,” It isn’t.
Lay walks out of their building. Yifan follows, a few steps behind. Close but not too close.
Soles crunch against gravel. Burning autumn leaves swirl around these two lovers like helicopters. Yifan speaks because he simply can’t bear glancing at Lay’s tense back. “Do you know William Halsted?”
“No, but that name sounds familiar. Why are you asking me that?” When Lay turns, Yifan takes it as his queue to walk beside him.
“He was a great surgeon. I’ve read about him somewhere,” At this, Lay smiles slightly because Yifan always reads about things somewhere. Little things that make Yifan, well, Yifan. “There was this nurse whom he kind of fancied, sort of the way I feel about you, except that my feelings are stronger. Anyway, he’d see her around the hospital and he would notice the bad condition of her hands. All red and damaged because of performing surgeries. So he did something about it. He created rubber gloves, just for her. A labor of love. Of course it was a great help to the field of medicine, but you know what I think of it?”
Lay doesn’t answer, waiting for Yifan to continue.
“Hey! Ask me what I think of it!” Yifan stops walking and he’s all cherry cheeks and ruffled blond hair and flailing arms.
“Okay, Mr. Yifan. What do you think of it?” Sunlight hits Lay’s dark eyes, adding emphasis to the chilidish humor in them. Being with Yifan claws the years out of Lay. When Yifan playfully tickles him, Lay is transformed back into a skinny and shy middle-schooler. When Yifan makes love to him inside cramped public stalls, Lay is forever a horny eighteen-year old. Hungry for lips, eager thrusts and skin he can't taste fast enough.
“I think that it was more than just labor. It was an inspired invention. What I’m trying to tell you is that I love you like that,” Yifan reaches out to take Lay’s hand in his. “I love you to the point of invention. But since we’re not doctors and all that shindig, I love you to the point of well, whatever you’d call fighting for what’s right.”
Lay leans closer to kiss Yifan, all the while thinking that kiss is such an insufficient word.
It doesn’t sum up the feel of Yifan’s fingers on his hair and the nape of his neck. Kiss can’t explain the way his heart convulses in his chest, beating its way out of his ribcage. Nor could that simple word summarize the need their lips and tongues can’t translate accurately. But kiss will have to do, because when Yifan ‘kisses’ him, Lay is a wrinkly, senior citizen who has experienced all the love there is in the world-and basked in them. Yifan wraps an arm around Lay’s waist and Lay understands.
Kiss is just a word and can be shared with one person after another and the trick isn’t about being the perfect kisser, but finding the person who would make you feel things that no rearrangement of twenty-six letters can ever explain.
༺
Kai slithers to and fro the corners of a certain luxury hotel. Purpose lingers on the hem of his shirt; determination trailing not-too far away. By each footfall subdued by the rug, Kai walks faster until it turns out to be a sprint and the golden light from the wall's lamps blurs behind him. He's been here before. He's been here a thousand times too much he could find his way to Ga In's suite in the dark. But he was Jongin then.
Ga In is 158 centimeters of pure bullshit and recycled sarcasm. Slimy gossip drips down the edges of her lips. As a person, Kai would have stuffed the blunt twenty-four year old in a garbage bin. But in this universe, Ga In isn't a person to Kai. She's a supplier and what she's smuggling underneath those leopard-pattered sheets is good enough to lure Kai time and time again.
Within three minutes, this man with a mission is in the confines of Ga In's room: tinges of heavy Arabian aromas, sprinkles of glitter over the marble floor, a vast area where a curvy woman waits by the end. Ga In covered in fur and trapped in golden chains proves to Kai how much two years doesn't change certain things, or people. The freak in gold opens her dark-velvet lips to welcome her customer, each syllable transmitting nostalgia into Kai.
"I'm gonna pull a dramatic act," Ga In's customer explains. The composed stance and unwavering look rekindles the respect Ga In previously harbored for Jongin. He continues as he occupies the comfortable couch. "You're aware, of course, of my love for the classics and passionate plays."
"Your last kill was done à la Romeo and Juliet, and it ended beautifully. I'll be more than happy to supply you with the props for this one. You reenact tragedies quiet well, Jongin."
Kai doesn't correct her about Jongin, and how he's as dead as the bones hiding in Ga In's closet. Discretion hides behind Jongin's lips as his eyes observe Ga In moving around, tendrils of fur grazing after her. Kai talks and Ga In listens without looking like she is. "In the play 'Arsenic and Old Lace', two women murdered old men by poisoning them with elderberry wine mixed with arsenic, strychnine, and just a pinch of cyanide. I want that."
"And that you shall have," Ga In, as ostentatious as ever, grins sluggishly under the orange lights. "When will you need it?"
"When can you finish it?"
"I could whip one out now, but I lack some ingredients."
"I don't need it now. Tomorrow will do. I'll come here before sunset to pick it up," with that, Kai begins making his way out to the door, only halting when Ga In brings him back with a few words.
"I can have someone deliver it to you. You don't have to go back here again. I hear that some of your family are getting cracked down."
Kai turns with images of the winking Minseok behind his iris, the ghost of Minseok's laughter ringing in his ears. Kai smiles, a seam-tugging smile that can pull anyone undone. "I'll come here before sunset to pick it up, like I said. Even the walls have eyes and the next thing we know, we're kissing muzzles and ammunition. Be careful of who you trust, Ga In. No, actually, don't trust anyone at all."
༺
He had been drinking bubbly champagne in the third floor of a building catered for private offices and a handful of bars when Kai approached him. Le petit is the name of the place and Kai thinks it's perfect: it's tiny, but elegantly so. There could only be a few people to bask in the porcelain, and ivories sprinkled in lieu of adorning the space. By the fourteenth of each month, Lay visits this place with a pocket bulging with his monthly salary and leaving with it half-emptied by the expensive cost of drinks imported from Barcelona, Milan and Lyon. Dark, fermented drinks coming from places with captivating histories and promising futures.
Lay meets Kai when the latter glides down beside the brass stool beside him. Seoul's muted yellow sunlight enthralls the dense investigator, the neat bartender, and the determined coffee-skinned boy, when its rays kiss the expanse of the place. Kai mutters it's so beautiful, under his breath before turning to the bartender whose hair is crimped in waves like they'd never been crimped before. "A whole bottle of elderberry wine, please."
The bartender nods, leaves, scampering through rows of glass and carafes aligned on the wall like books on library shelves. Lay speaks the moment the bartender's hands encircle the neck of a bottle. "Isn't it a bit too early for wine?"
Kai clucks his tongue, amused at the skinny man's curiosity. A piano piece plays in the background at a reasonable volume. He finds it soothing, perfect even. "I don't think so. Suppose something tragic will happen to me before evening comes, wouldn't I want to have a bottle of rich wine before that occurs? Why deny yourself the little pleasures available to you in the present?"
The lithe rhythm of the background music, the air conditioner's low rumble from above splits the silence into oblivion. Lay's lips are pressed in a thin line, gliding to a smile when the tall stranger beside him taps his fingers on the counter. "You sound stupid and logical."
"I'm what people make me out to be."
Lay leans in closer. "But you, what do you make yourself out to be?"
Kai takes the filled wine glass between his index and middle finger, and with a flick of his wrist, he tilts it to his left until the dark liquid is a few millimeters away from spilling over. Then he does the same to the right. Towards and away from him. His dull eyes examining it intently, a jeweler scrutinizing a portion of diamond. "What I make myself out to be. To be frank, I'm still trying to figure it out. Yet I seem to have lost a vital piece of myself along the way and I can't locate it again even if I retrace my footsteps."
"I'm impressed by your words. Have you ever considered slam poetry? Your voice is really powerful," Lay compliments, giving Kai a smile that caused the latter to inwardly chuckle because some people are just so simple-minded. They accept whatever's there for the taking. No questions, just grab and run and get everything over with. Too bad that what Lay acquired was a lethal grenade with a removed safety pin. The countdown to his seconds begins when Kai offers him a drink which he accepted.
Coupled by practice movements, the bartender pours the rich liquor into another sparkling glass. He hands it to Lay.
"Let's toast to this," Kai suggests.
Lay glances quizzically. "For what?"
"For the present," Behind the raised glass, Kai's smile is warmer and harmless enough that Lay lets his guard sink down to the polished floor. "For the tomorrows that might never come, and for the yesterdays that will never come back. For the present because it's all we have. Cheers."
Those odd and subtle words echo as the surface of their glasses click against each other. The novel-like setting of two strangers sharing opinions and humorous misfortune over a few drinks occurs to Kai and Lay. The man with deep dimples however, misses the gleam in Kai's eyes every time he gulps down his wine. Fitting the role quite well with their homely conversation, Kai notices the liquor's effect on Lay. They were discussing about literary masterpieces when Lay's eyes widen and he coughs in the middle of asking Kai about his favorite quote.
Through the way Lay clutches his throat using both hands, wheezing for air through hollowed mouth and bloodshot eyes, Kai understands what the poison is doing to him internally. The cyanide mixed in the liquor has molecules which act like a monkey wrench. Looking similar to oxygen molecules, the cells responsible for respiration will grab onto the cyanide molecules first and attempt to use them. But, like trying to run a car with peanut butter instead of gasoline, it will only clog up the fuel system.
Unwavering, Kai observes how Lay succumbs to death from the inside out. His gaze follow Lay's hands as they tremble to touch the gun obviously placed behind his back. Hands that slowly hung limp along with his whole body within the course of a few seconds. Lay goes down with the thud of his head and the shattered glass that fell off the counter.
"My favorite quote?" Kai talks to the dead. "Would be Shakespeare's 'We know what we are, but know not we may be.' Such raw and honest words, don't you think?"
"It's enough. That was a splendid show." The bartender, alive and able, replies.
Kai smiles at him: empty eyes serving as windows for a vacant soul. "I always put on a good act, Mr. Byun Baekhyun."
༺
From: My Lay
Sent: 4: 23 P.M 19 / 02 / 13
'Le Petit' the bar your lover frequents. What a picture-perfect snow white he makes. Pale skin. Tinted red lips. Oh yes. But too bad the seven dwarfs were missing in action and prince charming is probably stuck in traffic. Tick toc, goes the clock.
༺
Five pairs of eyes are glued on the scene unveiling before them. Parallel to the third floor of the building where Kai and Baekhyun had been a few minutes earlier, Luhan and his companions stand behind the glass walls of the neighboring skyscraper. Kai blends in with the familia: steady gazes, semi-formal clothing, hearts as cold as fingertips that had only been familiar with the curve of triggers and pins of bombs.
What laid before them was an act without mandated scripted lines or rehearsals. The main attraction was the looming figure of a man with bright blonde hair, whose face morphed into an expression of disbelief upon seeing his lover's slumped body drenched in some dark liquid. D.O is engrossed in studying this stranger--Police officer Yifan, as Kai addressed him.
This is what losing someone you love looks like, D.O measures Yifan as he shakes his head, steps back, and abruptly lounges to the rows of bottles on the wall only to throw them one by one everywhere. Maybe he thinks that if he smash the pieces until there's nothing left to break, Lay would be revived, powered by the pulverized shards. D.O is transfixed by Yifan's hands as they destroy everything they touch. He takes delight in the growing insanity.
"Splendid. Splendid indeed, but how did you had these all set up?" It's Luhan; messy brown hair, childish features, hardened jaw as he looks at Kai from across the room.
And Kai shifts in the couch before narrating the earlier part of his story; how easy it was to discover Lay's habits, questioning the right people behind the right gun model, having the bar cleaned out beforehand, adding bitter emphasis to how they disposed of the real bartender. "He should be floating somewhere in the South China sea." Kai mentions with a marginal wave.
Approaching footsteps, a welcoming smile, and a soft, pale hand is placed in front of Kai. Chanyeol, Baekhyun, and D.O automatically stiffen as they felt their pulse leap in the walls of their veins. Luhan, with his rolled-up sleeves and eyes as wrinkled at the side like his collar, beams at Kai. When Kai reaches out for Luhan's hand and shakes it, it appeared as something light. What you'd see newly formed friends do with each other as a sign of mutual trust and hope.
And hope, Kai thinks, is another fickle word. But feeling Luhan's tender yet steady hands around his, Kai hopes for all the good things to come his way and follow after his every step into the abyss of this new family. New people, new faces, new targets, new atmosphere. Old goals and old vendettas. Luhan's lustrous eyes contains the avalanche of Kai's motives.
"Kai, welcome to the family."
༺
Seven hours later, Kai established that Luhan is the opposite of Oh Sehun.
Actually scratch that, Luhan's ostentatious mansion--ringed by a variety of greenery, tinged with millions' worth of paintings and china-- is the negative version of Sehun's modest house. The different sides of the same coin. Kai imagines that if Sehun were to throw his riches into the sunset, it would transform into Luhan's haven; the total inversion. Luhan is soft-spoken, generous with words and ideas whereas Sehun is calculative, measuring and weighing sentences before sharing them.
The difference didn’t just end there. Luhan’s whole family is distorted and wacky and that’s just putting it mildly.
Baekhyun and Chanyeol are lovers, casually holding hands while showing Kai around the mansion’s labyrinth and not-so-casually- began eating each other’s faces in front of the embarrassed Kai and D.O after they trudged past Luhan’s study where some cheesy music plays on the vinyl record. Plus, Chanyeol says ‘I have a knife’ every three minutes, at least.
Kai settles on dubbing D.O as a clean freak, Baekhyun as a softie, and Park Chanyeol as an extra terrestrial being who somehow managed on tumbling down to earth and into Baekhyun’s arms. Their dinner consists of sitting down in a spacious banquet hall, in a long table made pristine by the bright chandelier hanging above. Maids and men in uniform heads toward them with hands carrying silver platters. Under the covered table, Kai pinches his left forearm to confirm that he isn’t time traveling back a few decades ago when this was fashionable. It seemed like Luhan appreciated the quaint and antique.
Whatever Kai was expecting about the mannoia’s bond, it certainly wasn’t this; light conversations regarding the current news over smoked salmon. Baekhyun and Chanyeol acting like proper comedians, equipped with endless punchlines and knock knock jokes.
“Hey Kai, knock knock,” Baekhyun elbows Chanyeol on his ribs for talking while his mouth is full.
“Who’s there?” Kai goes along, much to D.O and Luhan’s amusement.
“Certainly not Baekhyun because he doesn’t knock,” Chanyeol states. Baekhyun reddens. D.O and Luhan shoots Kai an apologetic glance simply because there’s nothing they can do about Chanyeol.
They continue like that; knives cutting through fish, silence punctuated by little sentences that draw out laughter. And with eyes wandering around him, Kai thinks that this is the appropriate adjective to describe the feeling; homely.
༺
Grief comes in all shades and form. There are possibly two hundred ninety-seven ways in which a soul can bruise. Pain branches out, entwining its venom for others to feel. Other times it caves in, destroys the insides of its host until it nibbles everything down to mini-strips. But if you're Yifan and the rigid body of the person you loved lies between the walls of a morbid morgue, you'll begin to nurse a new creature fueled by your desire for revenge, to retaliate for the unfairness cast upon you.
Yifan mourns by sloshing puddles of water on the side of the road. Lights move around him; red, green, and yellow flickering warnings for pedestrians, orange and bluish headlights blurring along with the speedy cars. A quarter of Yifan hopes for the ground to open up and swallow him whole, or for the heavens to part and carry him into its realm, to wherever Lay's spirit is, just so Yifan could whisper 'I love you'.
Ironic how Lay has to be poisoned before the words spills from his lips like an antidote.
Yifan won't cry. He'll go home, despite the absence of warm hugs waiting for him, devoid of the comfortable silence he and Lay shared. An empty house furnished with little things that Lay had touched, loved, and treasured. Gone was his dream of growing old with Lay, sipping coffee from mugs they've picked out for each other, hearing Lay talk of things he's afraid of; the future and robots. In its place was the rekindled dreams of his childhood; hand-cuffing bad guys, jailing criminals, sitting in the podium of justice.
He reaches out for his pistol, walks forward, never looking back.
༺
“You called for me, sir?” Kai’s figure is half-swallowed by the room’s darkness.
“Please, call me hyung. We don’t have to be so formal at home,” Luhan replies. Kai walks inside Luhan’s large study, smelling of vanilla and old books and something tender. Tender, like how Luhan turns to face Kai, light blond hair haloed by the moonlight slipping through the windows. Everything appears old; the stack of books, the mahogany table, the heavy velvet robe in which Luhan is snuggled into. Everything except Luhan himself who seemed to be frozen in a certain time; eternally youthful. Luhan points to one of the empty love seats, “Please, sit down and loosen up.”
Kai’s solid doubts about the situation vanished into a puff of smoke once Luhan recounts tales about himself; his childhood, the father who went through a lot under another family’s vile hands, how his passion for pretty things led him to collect antiques and paintings, about the boy who like playing hide and seek, whose fingers find comfort on piano keys and harmony. Luhan laughs when he noticed the creases between Kai’s brow. “Wondering why I’m telling you all this?”
Kai nods, his gaze following Luhan as the latter gets up to grab something from his table. He throws it to Kai’s agile hands. It’s a bottle of milk. Luhan continues, “Milk is good. Milk is good. Too much liquor isn’t good for us. I try to encourage others to take it easy on the whiskey and vodka and all those provocative drinks.”
Kai opens his bottle, taking a long gulp. When he brings it down, a smile goes up Luhan’s child-like face. Under the lamp’s glow, Luhan looks more inexperienced than ever. Luhan doesn’t look like a leader of a syndicate whose deadly tentacles are widespread throughout Seoul. “Oh well, oh well. There’s still a question without an answer. Talking to people calms me down. I call D.O, or Baekhyun, or sometimes Chanyeol over here for some milk and bonding time.”
Luhan rolls his eyes when Kai chuckles. “That’s very mature of you Kai. Very mature.”
The younger’s eyes are fixed on his feet, a smile still plastered on his lips. “You should be careful on what you say next time, hyung.”
Freely, like water running down the stream, the word glides out of Kai’s mouth for the rusted furnitures of Luhan’s study room to hear. Hyung, Kai repeats three times in his head for it to sound relaxing.
“I will, Kai. I will.”
༺
In the two weeks that Kai has known D.O, he’s taught himself to avoid having any expectations about that certain wide-eyed killer. D.O takes Kai by surprise. When Kai thinks he’s got D.O all figured out, the latter twists the path of Kai’s imagination with his spontaneous attitude and quirky remarks. Trying to analyze D.O. is like trying to skim through the dictionary while holding it upside-down; you might get the gist of it but it would be better to read it the way it should be read. But D.O. isn’t made up of words, and Kai doesn’t like reading.
And just when he thinks he knows D.O, he meets Kyungsoo and really, all that killer does is to tangle the tissues of his brain against each other. To Mindfuck, as kids these days would call it.
Kai meets Kyungsoo when the latter knocks on his door with a paintbrush on his hand and Kai’s sanity on the other. The awakening color of the skies outside his window tells Kai it’s probably about six in the morning, the pounding feeling on his head tells him it’s too early to function, but the smile of the man before him tells Kai that he doesn’t care. He probably came here for a specific purpose.
“Good morning, D.O,” Kai mumbles, eyes half opened.
“I’m Kyungsoo. Whenever we’re at home, call me Kyungsoo,” Clean guy explains and Kai starts closing the door slowly.
“Okay Kyungsoo, nice to meet you. See you around,” he slams the door shut and jumps back to his bed, only to find out that getting rid of Kyungsoo takes more than just a door-slam. Keys rattle and knobs were turned open. Kai groans because he decides he doesn’t like Kyungsoo and if punching this man would bring D.O back, then Kai would happily oblige.
“Is your Kai spelled as k-a-i or k-a-y?”
“Did you just wake me up just to ask me that?”
“Just answer,”
“K-a-i, now leave me alone,” Drowsy and half-asleep, Kai understood nothing from their conversation. All he can scratch from his memory of that morning is Kyungsoo leaving his room with a smile and a whispered ‘go back to sleep, may you have happy dreams.’ And a certain, foreign sensation creeping from Kai’s fingertips up to his veins and heart because no one has ever wished him to have happy dreams.
Living in the shadows, there was simply no room for those fluffy crap about safety. For him, if you really wanted to keep someone safe, you try your best to not get them killed.
But after nine or twelve more replays of Kyungsoo’s ‘go back to sleep, may you have happy dreams‘ in his mind, Kai understood what the fuss was all about, and he doesn’t think that parents aren’t that stupid anymore. It must be because everyone would love to feel like someone cares about them, even to go as far as to hope they’ll be protected while asleep.
Kim Jongin or Kai has never been tucked to bed with a bedtime story, never experienced what it’s like to drift off to wonderland after having a hot mug of milk, or have someone wish him goodnight. So Kyungsoo’s little whisper touched a sensitive corner of Kim Jongin’s heart in more ways than he’d like to admit. He goes back to sleep, thinking that maybe he’d come to like this Kyungsoo, after all.
༺
It’s impossible for Kai not to remember his new identity.
The letters ‘K-a-i’ are written, painted, and sewn on notebooks, cups, and towels respectively. Kyungsoo had proudly showed him his ‘works’ as Kai groggily walks around the house. Kyungsoo talks and talks and uses his hands to paint pictures in the air. Kai is captivated as Kyungsoo holds up another ma-fucking-roon colored towel with his name sewn on the bottom right side in fu-fucking-schia.
“You’re really good,” Kai compliments, avoiding to get closer to Kyungsoo because, hello he didn’t brush his teeth yet.
“I know right! I’m happy that you liked it. I like naming and organizing,” he slowly brings the towelette down, a smile rising from those pink lips.
“I like doing that, it gives me some sense of order and power over things.”
“Why? Isn’t being D.O enough? D.O pretty much kills people, isn’t that enough power?” Kai blurts out and by the not-so-surprised look Kyungsoo gives him, Kai knows Kyungsoo didn’t detect the clear-cut hate interlaced in his tone. The suspense flits in the air before swatting it off with a reply.
“D.O? I don’t know a D.O,” and that’s how Kai knew the topic was sealed to be thrown to some far-off place. Kyungsoo shows him around the large mansion, talking animatedly until Kai finds himself walking and leaning closer beside the shorter guy, just so he could hear him better; how Kyungsoo’s voice would raise an octave when he’s excited about something, like preparing dinner every night for the family, or the way Kyungsoo slightly scrunch his nose when he finds a topic displeasing, such as Chanyeol’s habit of licking Baekhyun’s earlobes. In public.
“That’s Luhan’s rose garden. He had that greenhouse made just to cater to his beloved red roses,” Through the window, Kyungsoo’s ivory skin tilts to the direction of a large structure with clear, transparent glass trapping what looked like young green leaves and blood-red roses. They ring bells leading to Sehun. But then sunlight hits Kyungsoo’s teeth and all Kai could think about were toothpaste commercials and those Japanese mangas Minseok likes to read; the male leads there has sparkles on their teeth when they smile.
“I think that’s pretty much it,” Kyungsoo turns to him and Kai doesn’t deny himself the pleasure of wiping a smudge of dirt on Kyungsoo’s cheeks. He’s as soft as he looks. Soon, faint red spots bloom from where Kai’s fingers met Kyungsoo’s skin. Kai discovers his favorite color, as of today.
“You, uh, had some dirt on your face.” Kai stutters and bites his lower lip because Kyungsoo’s flesh stirs Jongin awake. The Jongin that’s deprived of affection and Kai doesn’t like that.
༺
“I don’t trust that Kai person,” Baekhyun leans against the snow-white wall of his bedroom. His window provides an eagle’s viewpoint of the cobbled grounds where Kai and Kyungsoo are chafing target points with their pistols. Holes on red dots symbolizes the pair’s shooting accuracy. Yet the uplifted lips, the calm stance, suggests something different. Serenity, is the word Baekhyun would have used to describe these two, but it still insufficient.
“He’s a cool bro. A really cool bro. Don’t worry, I have a knife. You might be on edge because Luhan took him in at once?” Chanyeol. Creeping up behind him as usual. Lengthy arms embrace Baekhyun’s waist from behind. Homely heat feeling more comfortable than Baekhyun’s own flesh. Chanyeol’s breath spirals on Baekhyun’s neck and shoulders, bringing with it the memories of last night. His train of thought takes a detour.
“Luhan,” Baekhyun muses. “I feel like he’s in a hurry lately. Like he’s waiting for something big to happen. Something he can’t control.”
Chanyeol’s hands travels south of Baekhyun’s waist , alerting bare skin with tingles and undeniable heat. Pink blotches appears on Baekhyun’s cheeks. Chanyeol licks Baekhyun’s earlobes. He takes delight in the slight shiver from his lover. Wandering fingers and palms hover over the obvious bulge in Baekhyun’s boxers. “Can’t control? You mean something like this?”
Rational and responsible, that’s what Baekhyun’s known to be. But caged in Chanyeol’s arms and tongue, his identity seems to blur behind his primitive desire to knock the tall man senseless. “No, I meant something possibly dangerous that can pose as a threat for- Oh fuck you Chanyeol.”
Much to his irritation and Chanyeol’s delight, Baekhyun turns and kisses Chanyeol’s lips. A kiss that required tiptoes and eager fingers to be followed by sprinkles of rehearsed licking and sucking. The routine of scattering love bites on each other has been going on for years but-like everything else with Chanyeol and Baekhyun-each sensation hit them harder than the first or trillionth time. Chanyeol leans down, wraps an arm around Baekhyun’s hips and carries them back to Baekhyun’s bed which has bore enough traces of their previous love-making. Each footstep is echoed with shredded moans. By the time the bed creaks with their weight, Baekhyun is fully naked and torn, “I need to be in Gangnam in thirty minutes. Luhan would castrate me if I don’t collect the monthly vigs from those druggies.”
And Chanyeol laughs because, well, this is so Baekhyun. Careful and measured, tender and defiant. A sheep in a wolf’s clothing, definitely not the other way around. “Half an hour, let’s make it quick then because I also need a few more minutes to tell you how much I love you.”
༺
“Where are you now?”
“At some park,”
“Are you alone?”
“I’m by myself in a bench, if that’s what you want.”
“Let’s not waste time. How are things there going?”
“Great. So far I got to meet the ones in the important circle. There are a lot of men working under them, as you said, but there are only three aside from Luhan who matters.”
“Names,”
“Park Chanyeol. Byun Baekhyun. Do Ky-Kyungsoo,”
“And they matter, because..? Jongin, you’re twenty-two, not three. I don’t have to spoon feed you the follow up questions.”
“D.O here is sort of like me. A killer. Baekhyun and Chanyeol performs the same tasks as Jongdae and Minseok. The only difference is that they’re both alive.”
It turns out that sound waves or lack of, aren’t the only thing that mobile phones can transmit. Jongin and Sehun are quiet on both ends. Tens and hundreds of miles and the heavy, phantom weight of the words Jongin just let go occupied the distance between them. The rustling of fallen leaves before Jongin’s eyes had him concluding about the wind, and its power to move things just by pressure. How something so tender can whisper on branches, yet at the same time, drive tsunamis toward coasts. Sehun inhales. Unlike before, Jongin doesn’t have the desire to take Sehun’s breath away with a kiss.
“Jongin, listen. This might be difficult for you, but I wouldn’t have given you this mission if I didn’t think you were capable enough.” Sehun instructs on the other end, because really, that’s all he ever does: instruct. “Don’t lose sight of what you have to do. Get their trust. When you’re valuable enough for more information about their various syndicates, inform Jongdae at once in order to have him sabotage their plans before they even get started.”
“I know what I should do. I know better,” The words come out with a groan from someone who’s already had enough. Jongin runs a hand through his raven hair. Hanging up after murmuring ‘I’ll call you later or something’, Jongin leisurely stretches his limbs, battered from three hours sparring with D.O earlier.
A picture of large, dark eyes accompanied by plump lips imprints itself on Jongin’s memory. He smiles and feeds it by reminiscing about Kyungsoo; ivory-skinned and sharp witted, someone who could flip eggs sunny-side up while blindfolded (He challenged Kyungsoo yesterday and lost miserably).
༺
Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap.
“Bravo bravo,” Kai’s unique, husky voice resonates inside the dim auditorium. The sound adheres to the wall, recoiling to the standing figure of D.O whose way of replying was to turn to the source of the sound. With measured movements, he swings a Manurhin MR-73 in Kai’s direction, its barrel gleaming silver under the theater’s lights. Kai sinks deeper into the cozy maroon chair, looking like an emperor entranced by a palace performance. The heated metal in D.O’s hand all but forgotten. Delirium thickens the atmosphere by each second.
D.O stands a few meters in front of him. The stage’s elevated surface providing him an advantage as he points the muzzle parallel to Kai’s face. If Kai was threatened, he did a good job at hiding it behind a carefree smirk and a posture. “Relax, I was just congratulating you on the wonderful show. Do you know how much people would pay to see this kind of acting on Broadway? Certainly more than what we earn for each dead body, I tell you.”
D.O doesn’t waver and Kai knows it’s D.O because Kyungsoo manipulates pancake recipes in his hands, not heated cylinders. “Why are you here? I’m doing some spring cleaning. I don’t need your help.”
“Help? Good lord, no. I’m Kai. Kai doesn’t do ‘help’”
“Then why are you here?” D.O brings down his arm.
“I got bored back in the casa. So I asked Chanyeol where the fuck you flied off to. He told me you were out to slaughter some officials,” Kai replies, indifference coating his syllables. “I was nearly mad at you, you know. Why is it that you get all the fun? But it’s cool man, since I get to see you in action and can I say that you were great up there? You should be shoved under the limelight.”
Then Kai cocks his head to the left, clucks his tongue, raises an eyebrow. “Too bad I can’t say the same thing to your co-stars.”
He gets up, shuffles closer, and jumps on stage. Bodies are sprawled on the ground. There are more or less twelve men in blood-smeared uniforms lying around D.O. Kai thinks this is like the Grimm’s version of a garden. The thorns were bullets nestled in flesh. No roses either, just the crimson liquid seeping from limbs too impaired to be considered limbs. Certainly, there isn’t any eyelash-batting happening around here.
In his dark jeans and even darker loose sweater, D.O appears to be a lost boy. With a mere shrug, a casual smile, he proves to Kai how multi-dimensional people are. What's on the surface could never reflect what lies underneath. Warm smiles nurse a splintered history, dark eyes are home for all the wrong truths and the right lies, words are twisted to the point where they sound true.
Without even thinking, Kai closes the gap between them and encircles his hand around D.O's wrist. Tightly. In the same way a child clings to a steady post after madly spinning in circles for a minute. D.O remains frozen. Maybe he sees how Kai's skies and clouds rotate rapidly in his eyes. Maybe he doesn't. Either way, Kai smiles at the shorter boy when his fingers found D.O's pulse. D.O grins back because Kai has him thinking about the blood in his veins, not the cold steel nestled on his hand D.O believes he can brave gunshots and tides.
In a hidden pocket probably, inside their minds, they question the why of the present situation. Here they are, two men breathing in the oxygen that the corpses around them can't. But guilt doesn't seep through their pores or tighten around their throats. The ghosts haunting the air remains unnoticed as these two hang onto each other; hangs onto what’s stable in a galaxy of constant motion.
༺
The city is brimming with life and surprises; strangers appearing at every turn, people walking beside him. People with somewhere and no where to go. People with someone waiting for them, and others with hollow echoes welcoming them home. Oh Sehun doesn’t know what he is; lonely or alone. All he knows is that when a handful of leaves cascade before his eyes-of dry reds and golds-it extracts a carefully hidden memory.
Five years ago, in an autumn day such as this, he’d been with a boy whose golden locks where identical to the sunlight peeking through the brown branches. Twin laughter danced in the roads they’ve been walking on together. We were happy then, Sehun recalls with a sad smile. They’ve braved the loops of roller coasters, twirled on teacups and hollered at each other after winning a large, fluffy teddy bear from one the booths. The teddy bear, unfortunately, was brutally damaged after Sehun used it to protect himself from a pillow fight they had that night.
Cushioned by the sheets and white feathers, the bear’s button-eyes survived. Sehun had unconsciously kept it in his pocket-and it stayed there since then, even if the boy who owned the bear with him didn’t. The leaves turned darker until they gave up and let themselves fall to the ground, undressing the trees. Winter left. Spring bloomed. Summer heightens. By the time autumn came back, Sehun grew up, wondering about the boy with soft features and carefree laughter.
Sehun is taken back to the present when he spots him: ruffled hair, light clothing, tender shoulders, walking inside Joonmyun’s shop. Sehun’s headed there, too. He nearly trips on a stone in his hurry to follow him, but then Sehun completely halts when he laughs. Luhan.
Years and feuds and family ties had them drifting apart. But there are still pieces of Sehun scattered throughout his lifetime-the Sehun with chipped front teeth, the diligent Sehun who waters his beloved roses, the Sehun who tattooed his family’s emblem on his hips along with Minseok, Jongdae, Tao and Jongin as a sign of loyalty, the Sehun who haunts like a prey-pieces that Luhan could sew together without even trying. And Sehun hated him for that.
Sehun observes Luhan through the windows, hating those golden locks Luhan liked to keep uncut, hating those compassionate eyes. Sehun walks away, touching the bear’s button-eyes on his pocket, hating the ruin they made out of each other.
༺
The moon glows brightly despite the clinging darkness of the evening skies. Almost naked branches cast their shadows upon unsuspecting damp soil. Earth's own scent and the nights calmness permeates the atmosphere. Somewhere between Luhan's mansion and his greenhouse, Kyungsoo and Kai are lying down on the ground; heads cushioned by tired arms and elbows whispering against elbows. The glowing white circle hanging above allures Kai, but the grinning Kyungsoo catches his attention.
"Have you ever thought of it?" Kyungsoo's words shatters the neighboring silence. "Of steel?"
Kai bites his lower lip. "What about steel?"
"They never asked to be forged into guns. Lethal guns. Or lead. They never asked to aid senseless murder."
Kai turns and looks at Kyungsoo, lips pressed together because no answer would ever slip out of them. Kyungsoo doesn't groan or press for any words, so he thinks this must be one of those inquiries that never required particular replies. Questions buried in the crevices of our mind for so long we have to shove them out into the air before they rust. Kai studies Kyungsoo; an equation Kai's sharp wit can't comprehend. And it's only when Kyungsoo stares at him with moonlit eyes when the sentences starts forming in his mouth, springing out into the open, gliding into Kyungsoo's ears.
"Why should they be asked when we don't? No one has ever went up to me and asked if I was doing fine. If I wanted this life. I think it's okay fair that weapons don't have the same privilege." He huffs. "Let's talk about something different. Something normal. Tell me about yourself."
Kyungsoo chuckles and they both could tell his laughter pleases Kai when his tanned fingers graze against the shorter boy’s throat. Fingernails on Kyungsoo’s neck. Warm hands on Kai’s hips. Kyungsoo begins sharing and Kai listens as if each syllable would save his life. Their similarities lie on the ground of Kyungsoo’s words. Tainted pasts to be followed by combats and escapades, killing people to survive, learning how to live the hard way.
“And Luhan, he’s this live-action male doll that you can’ help but admire, right? But that’s all bluff. When he’s agitated enough, he delivers some butcher-knife jab and combined with airmail-your-jaw-back-to-Beijing punches,” Kyungsoo purses his lips. “We’re all grateful for Luhan, though. Without him, I’d probably be rotting on some farm where buffaloes and cows shit. Isn’t it a good thing I’m not underneath manure?”
Kai agrees, holding up Kyungsoo’s fingers against the moonlight, having difficulties deciding which one is more ethereal. “You’re too good to rot and-”
“Are you happy?” Kyungsoo asks in the middle of listening to Kai talk.
“What a feeble question.”
“Just fucking answer it. Are you happy?”
Kai doesn’t find happiness in any of the intersections of his lifetime; so he settles for inhaling a lungful of damp air and looking at Kyungsoo. What he finds in those curious eyes and plump lips isn’t happiness-it’s something infinitely bigger than that. “Yes. Now. I’m very happy now.”
༺
A lot happens in three weeks. Normal people leading normal lives fade into the background of Kai’s adventures. The hours of his days stretch into the blooming horizon, endings punctuated by the rumble of luxury cars and custom made shoes stepping on bleeding bodies. Five days trailing after D.O’s meetings and missions, Kai could already maneuver his way to the casinos and clubs after making the world hundreds and hundreds of pounds lighter by shooting, cutting, slicing, poisoning the weight.
Hectic, cramped, one target after another, sometimes he has to take them down simultaneously. Kai’s never been so occupied and thrilled before. In the middle of pulling triggers, Kyungsoo and his dishes would come to mind. When that happens, Kai can clear a roomful of thugs in less than three seconds, then disappear into the sunset in a minute. By each kill and threat, he proves his worth to Luhan and the rest.
Today tugged the strings of his adrenaline, sharpened his instincts. Kai is a child trapped in Disneyland because he was working side by side with D.O-who usually liked to keep himself mostly to himself. The rush of feelings warned his heart when D.O pat his back and muttered ‘you did well.’ Kai grinned, hoping that praises are solid so he’ll be able to hang up those words in a frame.
And soon enough, Kai stopped calling Luhan’s haven as a mansion and referred to it as a home. Kai is familiar with Kyungsoo and D.O, and is fond of both equally. Serious instructions and lame jokes, neat and accurate, handles pots and operates time bombs. Kyungsoo is a spectrum of colors-majestic no matter what angle Kai catches him in.
Kai flips through the pages of a manga, thinking of lines he can recycle while he’s on a mission because, really, these characters are bad ass and resembles D.O. Kyungsoo enters his room and Kai also stopped being surprise because Kyungsoo doesn’t know the meaning of ‘privacy’ sometimes.
He guesses it’s flour that’s smeared on Kyungsoo’s upper lip and nose. The powder catches his attention and Kai leans to clean it off Kyungsoo while he’s talking. Clean it off with his tongue. His room, like all the rooms in this house, is spacious. And it serves as an advantage as Kai drags Kyungsoo closer to him by gripping his hips, deeper into his room. It’s Kyungsoo who kissed him and Kai who slid a hand inside Kyungsoo’s shirt. Who did what after wards was hard to differentiate.
Both of them are caught and trapped: lips on tongues, hair between desperate fingers, heavy breathing against jaw lines, arms tangled in each other, heat, tension and a fucking galaxy’s worth of electrifying molecules fill the spaces where skin doesn’t meet skin. The fact that Kyungsoo can barely see anything in the room’s darkness doesn’t hinder him from pushing Kai to his bed.
Kai lands, the mattress groaning under him and Kyungsoo examining him with hungry eyes above. Kai doesn’t think that lack of water is the only reason for his parched tongue. Kyungsoo isn’t as tame in bed as he is in the kitchen. Kyungsoo in bed is like a lion; intimidating with his touches and manipulating fabric off them using experienced fingers. One minute he’s kissing Kai and the other flicking Kai’s chest and nipples with his tongue. Their synchronized groans and whimpers just might have been the sweetest sound next to Kyungsoo moaning out Kai’s name when the latter touched him where it hurts.
Kyungsoo rubs their crotches together, Kai digs his fingernails into Kyungsoo’s arm. Looking at each other’s eyes, they both understand that this is what they need. So Kai hurts Kyungsoo by licking, sucking the flesh of his throat down to his chest. Kyungsoo pleasures Kai by pumping him. Hands curled in just the right way it makes Kai see stars and all the good things in this world. Still kissing Kyungsoo’s puffy lips, Kai fumbles for the bottle of lube inside his bed-side table (and no, he is so not prepared for this).
“Give it to me,” Kyungsoo instructs, but takes it from Kai’s hand anyway. Kai closes his eyes to catch a breath, and the next thing he knew, Kyungsoo’s fingers are inside him. Wet, slippery, penetrating harshly. “Please,” Kai asks, his voice huskier. “Fuck me.”
D.O grins as he positions himself between Kai’s sweat-drenched thighs. Who would have thought that this Kai would be begging lewdly like this? Kai murmurs at last once Kyungsoo nudges his entrance and slowly slides in. Kai shouldn’t have, but he finds it touching how Kyungsoo handles him carefully. And if he wasn’t this horny, he’d have appreciated it more.
Jongin emerges somewhere between Kyungsoo thrusting and groping his ass. Sheets crumple along with Jongin’s clenched fingers. Reasons, feelings, common sense are all in knots, and the only thing that make sense is having Kyungsoo inside him. Moving fast like a drag racer, getting closer to the end by each plunge. Jongin groans loudly as if he can never have enough. D.O obviously got fueled enough to start jerking Jongin off and words started to scramble themselves in Jongin’s mind-oh-my-god, more-please, fuck-me-harder, is that all you got? Agony and delight turned out to be a brilliant combination.
This is what happens if fire fuses with fire, it’s an inferno. Kai brings light in Kyungsoo’s shadows, turning the places he never even knew existed to flames. Scorching joints and lips it feasts upon itself and subdues into ashes.
Kyungsoo came in Jongin’s ass shortly after the younger. He fixes their bodies, sinks down into the bed and inhales. Sweat, sex, and need permeated the air. Jongin lies down beside Kyungsoo, their tired limbs bathed in golden light. “Kyungsoo, why didn’t you tell me guns weren’t the only thing you could shoot well?”
Despite Kyungsoo facing the other way, he raises his hand to flip Jongin off. Jongin laughs, kisses the back of Kyungsoo’s hand and holds it in his before murmuring, “Good night, Kyungsoo. May you have happy dreams.”
༺
Early morning, to Kyungsoo, is the most romantic time of the day. It’s when the reborn sun kisses everything on earth in yellow, when the skies aren’t as harsh as they usually are. Dawn brings with it a fresh start and a smile on Kyungsoo’s face-especially when Kai’s sleeping face is the first thing he sees. There’s something magical about watching someone sleep; a spell cast for only your eyes to witness.
Kyungsoo observes Kai intently, since he didn’t get a proper chance last night. Warmth spreads to Kyungsoo’s fingers as they glide over Kai’s forehead, the bridge of his nose, lingering for a while over his pink lips. A flurry of feelings swarming his heart and throat, he continues tracing Kai. The curve of his jaw, his Adam’s apple, the dent between his collarbones as if Kyungsoo is a blind man and Kai’s bones and crevices were the Braille.
“I’m so glad I know you. You understand me, in more ways than one. Thank you, Kai.” He whispers, comforted by the knowledge that Kai’s fast asleep to catch his quick confession. He looks to his left, then right, before pecking Kai on the lips. Kai’s protruding ribs are the piano keys for Kyungsoo’s fingers, playing a melody only his soul can hear. Kai shifts under Kyungsoo’s fleeting hand, bringing the sheet covering his hips down. Kyungsoo smiles, but when he sees the black tattoo on Kai’s hip, the smile disappears.
His world spirals download and shatters as if it was made out of glass. Duvet and sheets were toasty warm, but Kyungsoo might as well be thrown into the seas of Antarctica because his veins ran cold upon seeing the words:
blanco- kim jongin
༺
“Good morning,” Jongin drawls, eyes turning to half-crescents when he grinned at Kyungsoo. To his surprise, Kyungsoo is dressed in all black, as if he’s on his way to a funeral. But Jongin doesn’t dwell to much into this as he drags his body out of bed, to his bathroom.
Kyungsoo tightens his grip on the cold steel behind his back as he waits for Jongin. Jongin returns, a new white towel and cup in hand and inquiries on his lips. “Kyungsoo, where’s the towel and cup you gave me? Why are these, well, not mine?”
Sauntering forward, Kyungsoo laughs, dry and bitter and cruel. Jongin shivers. He closes the gap between them, takes the handgun from his back, and rests the muzzle on Jongin’s forehead.
“You won’t need that, won’t you? Since you’re Jongin. The Jongin who worked for Mr. Oh’s family, whose friend I killed a few months ago. I burned all of Kai’s possessions earlier. They’re not yours. You’re not Kai and only the devil incarnate knows who the fuck Kai was.” Kyungsoo traces the blank ink on Jongin’s hips. “Sloppy work for someone your caliber. Kim Jongin, such a lovely, delightful name, isn’t it? It would look so much better engraved on your tombstone. I’m sure your family would grieve for you after you die on enemy ground.”
༺
part three; the bottom line
pairing: kaisoo, kray, baekyeol [ot12]
rating: NC-17
genre: romance, action, angst
part: 2 / 3
summary: some secrets are better off kept, kisses undelivered, scars hidden.
part one; ground zero
one shot;
one kill
Staring past the stained windows of their living room, Yifan waits for whichever raindrop would slide down faster. Gray skies, striped roads complete the somber setting of an October afternoon. Yifan likes to think it’s summer’s way of saying farewell; washing away remaining dirt and grime to welcome the new season. He’ll miss the heat. More specifically, the memories he created with Lay during humid evenings, swinging in hammocks by the beach. He doesn’t have the luxury to ponder over their happy days because he spots one of the file Lay’s working on, resting atop papers on his desk.
Green, yellow, red; like the traffic lights. Lay categorizes his files by importance-red being top priority.
The one on Yifan’s hand is crimson, and Lay rarely leaves any important files behind. They contain results of vigorous investigation: regarding the masterminds behind illegal drug-trades, down to guilt-ridden prostitutes on filthy districts. Normally, Yifan would rush to hand it to Lay. But the rhythm of raindrops encourage his hands to turn it open.
The downpour does not provide comfort when his fingers started trembling.
༺
D.O is totally not what Kai expected. In the scope of his mind, Kai envisioned D.O to be this intimidating guy who could send shivers down your spine or make an adult man wet his pants with just a simple finger snap. D.O proves Kai wrong as the clock ticks, reminding him of his restrained time. The closer he gets to ending Lay’s life, the better.
Kai disappears as Jongin discards his clothes back in his apartment, taking with it the cigarette scent Kim Jongin can’t stand. The lights are off. He basks in the cold darkness because he sincerely believes it helps him think. Kim Jongin, half-naked and alone, closes his lids to saunter into a familiar pattern of concentration.
The traditional contract killing-murdering someone to prove loyalty or to join a greater familia-isn’t a surprise to Jongin. He plans for forty minutes: examining possibilities, covering blind spots, prioritizing weapons of destruction. He plans and devices, because what else can he do? Kim Jongin and Kai were both born and would probably die in this world. It's a curse dictated in the stars long before he came to earth, and will probably remain there long before he leaves this planet.
༺
“What do you think of him?” It’s Baekhyun and Kyungsoo knows even he’s right without looking up. Baekhyun is never quiet. His footsteps must be louder than necessary, as if he’s a sumo wrestler with blocks of concrete for legs and anchors for arms. But then again, Byun Baekhyun is in love with Chanyeol, so Kyungsoo doubts anything else about Baekhyun is normal.
Kyungsoo tilts the picture of Kai in his hand, holding it up against the light of his room. “Are you asking D.O or Kyungsoo?”
“You’re a weird fuck,” Baekhyun chuckles, occupying the rotating chair beside Kyungsoo. “It was D.O who met him, right? Then what does D.O think of Kai?”
“Kai doesn’t fear the right things to fear.”
“What do you mean by that?”
"Earlier, I got the feeling that he was indifferent to every thing. I’ve seen people, Baek. I could practically tell what a person does for a living within two seconds, but Kai... I can't place him. Not because we don’t know where he came from or why he was sent in an asylum in the beginning, but because Kai doesn’t even know himself. I know what he wants, but I doubt we both know who he is. If you ask me, that’s what makes him a great hitman.”
Baekhyun remains quiet-but not quiet quiet. Ragged breathing and fidgeting hands. That’s quiet for Baekhyun. “Do you think he’ll be able to finish the contract killing?”
“He will. He wants in, and nothing brings a determined person down.”
༺
“No Yifan, you just don’t understand! How could you be this twisted? I thought you became a policeman to fight for what is right!” Lay yells.
“Don’t you think I still have that dream? Lay, you know how many hours we spent talking about our future when we were kids. I wanted this as much as you do.” Yifan replies without raising his voice. One screamer is enough. “But this isn’t one of those games, Lay. We grow up and we see things that we have to be quiet about.”
“Listen to yourself talk! You’ve been to these places. You were friends with the people who were robbed, cheated, and goddamit killed! You’re a secondhand witness. But look at you, wearing a uniform while cowering in fear.” Lay has gone too far, but he knows he can’t gulp back words or halt a thrown arrow. The truth residing in Lay's words shuts Yifan. This is what he'd been trying to ignore for years.
Yifan looks at Lay’s eyes and finds determination. Lay stares at Yifan and sees a ghost of the young kid who kept on shooting plastic water guns while running through puddles of mud and blades of grass while screaming I’m gonna be a big man. I’ll get all the bad guys and everyone will be happy! Lay examines Yifan’s lips, wrist, arms, hoping to locate for proof that his body had once been a home for a boy who believed in doing what is right and just.
“I’m sorry,” Yifan says without a clue about what he’s sorry for. Whatever it was, apologies still fell short. Like trying to warm your whole body with a baby's blanket.
“It’s okay,” It isn’t.
Lay walks out of their building. Yifan follows, a few steps behind. Close but not too close.
Soles crunch against gravel. Burning autumn leaves swirl around these two lovers like helicopters. Yifan speaks because he simply can’t bear glancing at Lay’s tense back. “Do you know William Halsted?”
“No, but that name sounds familiar. Why are you asking me that?” When Lay turns, Yifan takes it as his queue to walk beside him.
“He was a great surgeon. I’ve read about him somewhere,” At this, Lay smiles slightly because Yifan always reads about things somewhere. Little things that make Yifan, well, Yifan. “There was this nurse whom he kind of fancied, sort of the way I feel about you, except that my feelings are stronger. Anyway, he’d see her around the hospital and he would notice the bad condition of her hands. All red and damaged because of performing surgeries. So he did something about it. He created rubber gloves, just for her. A labor of love. Of course it was a great help to the field of medicine, but you know what I think of it?”
Lay doesn’t answer, waiting for Yifan to continue.
“Hey! Ask me what I think of it!” Yifan stops walking and he’s all cherry cheeks and ruffled blond hair and flailing arms.
“Okay, Mr. Yifan. What do you think of it?” Sunlight hits Lay’s dark eyes, adding emphasis to the chilidish humor in them. Being with Yifan claws the years out of Lay. When Yifan playfully tickles him, Lay is transformed back into a skinny and shy middle-schooler. When Yifan makes love to him inside cramped public stalls, Lay is forever a horny eighteen-year old. Hungry for lips, eager thrusts and skin he can't taste fast enough.
“I think that it was more than just labor. It was an inspired invention. What I’m trying to tell you is that I love you like that,” Yifan reaches out to take Lay’s hand in his. “I love you to the point of invention. But since we’re not doctors and all that shindig, I love you to the point of well, whatever you’d call fighting for what’s right.”
Lay leans closer to kiss Yifan, all the while thinking that kiss is such an insufficient word.
It doesn’t sum up the feel of Yifan’s fingers on his hair and the nape of his neck. Kiss can’t explain the way his heart convulses in his chest, beating its way out of his ribcage. Nor could that simple word summarize the need their lips and tongues can’t translate accurately. But kiss will have to do, because when Yifan ‘kisses’ him, Lay is a wrinkly, senior citizen who has experienced all the love there is in the world-and basked in them. Yifan wraps an arm around Lay’s waist and Lay understands.
Kiss is just a word and can be shared with one person after another and the trick isn’t about being the perfect kisser, but finding the person who would make you feel things that no rearrangement of twenty-six letters can ever explain.
༺
Kai slithers to and fro the corners of a certain luxury hotel. Purpose lingers on the hem of his shirt; determination trailing not-too far away. By each footfall subdued by the rug, Kai walks faster until it turns out to be a sprint and the golden light from the wall's lamps blurs behind him. He's been here before. He's been here a thousand times too much he could find his way to Ga In's suite in the dark. But he was Jongin then.
Ga In is 158 centimeters of pure bullshit and recycled sarcasm. Slimy gossip drips down the edges of her lips. As a person, Kai would have stuffed the blunt twenty-four year old in a garbage bin. But in this universe, Ga In isn't a person to Kai. She's a supplier and what she's smuggling underneath those leopard-pattered sheets is good enough to lure Kai time and time again.
Within three minutes, this man with a mission is in the confines of Ga In's room: tinges of heavy Arabian aromas, sprinkles of glitter over the marble floor, a vast area where a curvy woman waits by the end. Ga In covered in fur and trapped in golden chains proves to Kai how much two years doesn't change certain things, or people. The freak in gold opens her dark-velvet lips to welcome her customer, each syllable transmitting nostalgia into Kai.
"I'm gonna pull a dramatic act," Ga In's customer explains. The composed stance and unwavering look rekindles the respect Ga In previously harbored for Jongin. He continues as he occupies the comfortable couch. "You're aware, of course, of my love for the classics and passionate plays."
"Your last kill was done à la Romeo and Juliet, and it ended beautifully. I'll be more than happy to supply you with the props for this one. You reenact tragedies quiet well, Jongin."
Kai doesn't correct her about Jongin, and how he's as dead as the bones hiding in Ga In's closet. Discretion hides behind Jongin's lips as his eyes observe Ga In moving around, tendrils of fur grazing after her. Kai talks and Ga In listens without looking like she is. "In the play 'Arsenic and Old Lace', two women murdered old men by poisoning them with elderberry wine mixed with arsenic, strychnine, and just a pinch of cyanide. I want that."
"And that you shall have," Ga In, as ostentatious as ever, grins sluggishly under the orange lights. "When will you need it?"
"When can you finish it?"
"I could whip one out now, but I lack some ingredients."
"I don't need it now. Tomorrow will do. I'll come here before sunset to pick it up," with that, Kai begins making his way out to the door, only halting when Ga In brings him back with a few words.
"I can have someone deliver it to you. You don't have to go back here again. I hear that some of your family are getting cracked down."
Kai turns with images of the winking Minseok behind his iris, the ghost of Minseok's laughter ringing in his ears. Kai smiles, a seam-tugging smile that can pull anyone undone. "I'll come here before sunset to pick it up, like I said. Even the walls have eyes and the next thing we know, we're kissing muzzles and ammunition. Be careful of who you trust, Ga In. No, actually, don't trust anyone at all."
༺
He had been drinking bubbly champagne in the third floor of a building catered for private offices and a handful of bars when Kai approached him. Le petit is the name of the place and Kai thinks it's perfect: it's tiny, but elegantly so. There could only be a few people to bask in the porcelain, and ivories sprinkled in lieu of adorning the space. By the fourteenth of each month, Lay visits this place with a pocket bulging with his monthly salary and leaving with it half-emptied by the expensive cost of drinks imported from Barcelona, Milan and Lyon. Dark, fermented drinks coming from places with captivating histories and promising futures.
Lay meets Kai when the latter glides down beside the brass stool beside him. Seoul's muted yellow sunlight enthralls the dense investigator, the neat bartender, and the determined coffee-skinned boy, when its rays kiss the expanse of the place. Kai mutters it's so beautiful, under his breath before turning to the bartender whose hair is crimped in waves like they'd never been crimped before. "A whole bottle of elderberry wine, please."
The bartender nods, leaves, scampering through rows of glass and carafes aligned on the wall like books on library shelves. Lay speaks the moment the bartender's hands encircle the neck of a bottle. "Isn't it a bit too early for wine?"
Kai clucks his tongue, amused at the skinny man's curiosity. A piano piece plays in the background at a reasonable volume. He finds it soothing, perfect even. "I don't think so. Suppose something tragic will happen to me before evening comes, wouldn't I want to have a bottle of rich wine before that occurs? Why deny yourself the little pleasures available to you in the present?"
The lithe rhythm of the background music, the air conditioner's low rumble from above splits the silence into oblivion. Lay's lips are pressed in a thin line, gliding to a smile when the tall stranger beside him taps his fingers on the counter. "You sound stupid and logical."
"I'm what people make me out to be."
Lay leans in closer. "But you, what do you make yourself out to be?"
Kai takes the filled wine glass between his index and middle finger, and with a flick of his wrist, he tilts it to his left until the dark liquid is a few millimeters away from spilling over. Then he does the same to the right. Towards and away from him. His dull eyes examining it intently, a jeweler scrutinizing a portion of diamond. "What I make myself out to be. To be frank, I'm still trying to figure it out. Yet I seem to have lost a vital piece of myself along the way and I can't locate it again even if I retrace my footsteps."
"I'm impressed by your words. Have you ever considered slam poetry? Your voice is really powerful," Lay compliments, giving Kai a smile that caused the latter to inwardly chuckle because some people are just so simple-minded. They accept whatever's there for the taking. No questions, just grab and run and get everything over with. Too bad that what Lay acquired was a lethal grenade with a removed safety pin. The countdown to his seconds begins when Kai offers him a drink which he accepted.
Coupled by practice movements, the bartender pours the rich liquor into another sparkling glass. He hands it to Lay.
"Let's toast to this," Kai suggests.
Lay glances quizzically. "For what?"
"For the present," Behind the raised glass, Kai's smile is warmer and harmless enough that Lay lets his guard sink down to the polished floor. "For the tomorrows that might never come, and for the yesterdays that will never come back. For the present because it's all we have. Cheers."
Those odd and subtle words echo as the surface of their glasses click against each other. The novel-like setting of two strangers sharing opinions and humorous misfortune over a few drinks occurs to Kai and Lay. The man with deep dimples however, misses the gleam in Kai's eyes every time he gulps down his wine. Fitting the role quite well with their homely conversation, Kai notices the liquor's effect on Lay. They were discussing about literary masterpieces when Lay's eyes widen and he coughs in the middle of asking Kai about his favorite quote.
Through the way Lay clutches his throat using both hands, wheezing for air through hollowed mouth and bloodshot eyes, Kai understands what the poison is doing to him internally. The cyanide mixed in the liquor has molecules which act like a monkey wrench. Looking similar to oxygen molecules, the cells responsible for respiration will grab onto the cyanide molecules first and attempt to use them. But, like trying to run a car with peanut butter instead of gasoline, it will only clog up the fuel system.
Unwavering, Kai observes how Lay succumbs to death from the inside out. His gaze follow Lay's hands as they tremble to touch the gun obviously placed behind his back. Hands that slowly hung limp along with his whole body within the course of a few seconds. Lay goes down with the thud of his head and the shattered glass that fell off the counter.
"My favorite quote?" Kai talks to the dead. "Would be Shakespeare's 'We know what we are, but know not we may be.' Such raw and honest words, don't you think?"
"It's enough. That was a splendid show." The bartender, alive and able, replies.
Kai smiles at him: empty eyes serving as windows for a vacant soul. "I always put on a good act, Mr. Byun Baekhyun."
༺
From: My Lay
Sent: 4: 23 P.M 19 / 02 / 13
'Le Petit' the bar your lover frequents. What a picture-perfect snow white he makes. Pale skin. Tinted red lips. Oh yes. But too bad the seven dwarfs were missing in action and prince charming is probably stuck in traffic. Tick toc, goes the clock.
༺
Five pairs of eyes are glued on the scene unveiling before them. Parallel to the third floor of the building where Kai and Baekhyun had been a few minutes earlier, Luhan and his companions stand behind the glass walls of the neighboring skyscraper. Kai blends in with the familia: steady gazes, semi-formal clothing, hearts as cold as fingertips that had only been familiar with the curve of triggers and pins of bombs.
What laid before them was an act without mandated scripted lines or rehearsals. The main attraction was the looming figure of a man with bright blonde hair, whose face morphed into an expression of disbelief upon seeing his lover's slumped body drenched in some dark liquid. D.O is engrossed in studying this stranger--Police officer Yifan, as Kai addressed him.
This is what losing someone you love looks like, D.O measures Yifan as he shakes his head, steps back, and abruptly lounges to the rows of bottles on the wall only to throw them one by one everywhere. Maybe he thinks that if he smash the pieces until there's nothing left to break, Lay would be revived, powered by the pulverized shards. D.O is transfixed by Yifan's hands as they destroy everything they touch. He takes delight in the growing insanity.
"Splendid. Splendid indeed, but how did you had these all set up?" It's Luhan; messy brown hair, childish features, hardened jaw as he looks at Kai from across the room.
And Kai shifts in the couch before narrating the earlier part of his story; how easy it was to discover Lay's habits, questioning the right people behind the right gun model, having the bar cleaned out beforehand, adding bitter emphasis to how they disposed of the real bartender. "He should be floating somewhere in the South China sea." Kai mentions with a marginal wave.
Approaching footsteps, a welcoming smile, and a soft, pale hand is placed in front of Kai. Chanyeol, Baekhyun, and D.O automatically stiffen as they felt their pulse leap in the walls of their veins. Luhan, with his rolled-up sleeves and eyes as wrinkled at the side like his collar, beams at Kai. When Kai reaches out for Luhan's hand and shakes it, it appeared as something light. What you'd see newly formed friends do with each other as a sign of mutual trust and hope.
And hope, Kai thinks, is another fickle word. But feeling Luhan's tender yet steady hands around his, Kai hopes for all the good things to come his way and follow after his every step into the abyss of this new family. New people, new faces, new targets, new atmosphere. Old goals and old vendettas. Luhan's lustrous eyes contains the avalanche of Kai's motives.
"Kai, welcome to the family."
༺
Seven hours later, Kai established that Luhan is the opposite of Oh Sehun.
Actually scratch that, Luhan's ostentatious mansion--ringed by a variety of greenery, tinged with millions' worth of paintings and china-- is the negative version of Sehun's modest house. The different sides of the same coin. Kai imagines that if Sehun were to throw his riches into the sunset, it would transform into Luhan's haven; the total inversion. Luhan is soft-spoken, generous with words and ideas whereas Sehun is calculative, measuring and weighing sentences before sharing them.
The difference didn’t just end there. Luhan’s whole family is distorted and wacky and that’s just putting it mildly.
Baekhyun and Chanyeol are lovers, casually holding hands while showing Kai around the mansion’s labyrinth and not-so-casually- began eating each other’s faces in front of the embarrassed Kai and D.O after they trudged past Luhan’s study where some cheesy music plays on the vinyl record. Plus, Chanyeol says ‘I have a knife’ every three minutes, at least.
Kai settles on dubbing D.O as a clean freak, Baekhyun as a softie, and Park Chanyeol as an extra terrestrial being who somehow managed on tumbling down to earth and into Baekhyun’s arms. Their dinner consists of sitting down in a spacious banquet hall, in a long table made pristine by the bright chandelier hanging above. Maids and men in uniform heads toward them with hands carrying silver platters. Under the covered table, Kai pinches his left forearm to confirm that he isn’t time traveling back a few decades ago when this was fashionable. It seemed like Luhan appreciated the quaint and antique.
Whatever Kai was expecting about the mannoia’s bond, it certainly wasn’t this; light conversations regarding the current news over smoked salmon. Baekhyun and Chanyeol acting like proper comedians, equipped with endless punchlines and knock knock jokes.
“Hey Kai, knock knock,” Baekhyun elbows Chanyeol on his ribs for talking while his mouth is full.
“Who’s there?” Kai goes along, much to D.O and Luhan’s amusement.
“Certainly not Baekhyun because he doesn’t knock,” Chanyeol states. Baekhyun reddens. D.O and Luhan shoots Kai an apologetic glance simply because there’s nothing they can do about Chanyeol.
They continue like that; knives cutting through fish, silence punctuated by little sentences that draw out laughter. And with eyes wandering around him, Kai thinks that this is the appropriate adjective to describe the feeling; homely.
༺
Grief comes in all shades and form. There are possibly two hundred ninety-seven ways in which a soul can bruise. Pain branches out, entwining its venom for others to feel. Other times it caves in, destroys the insides of its host until it nibbles everything down to mini-strips. But if you're Yifan and the rigid body of the person you loved lies between the walls of a morbid morgue, you'll begin to nurse a new creature fueled by your desire for revenge, to retaliate for the unfairness cast upon you.
Yifan mourns by sloshing puddles of water on the side of the road. Lights move around him; red, green, and yellow flickering warnings for pedestrians, orange and bluish headlights blurring along with the speedy cars. A quarter of Yifan hopes for the ground to open up and swallow him whole, or for the heavens to part and carry him into its realm, to wherever Lay's spirit is, just so Yifan could whisper 'I love you'.
Ironic how Lay has to be poisoned before the words spills from his lips like an antidote.
Yifan won't cry. He'll go home, despite the absence of warm hugs waiting for him, devoid of the comfortable silence he and Lay shared. An empty house furnished with little things that Lay had touched, loved, and treasured. Gone was his dream of growing old with Lay, sipping coffee from mugs they've picked out for each other, hearing Lay talk of things he's afraid of; the future and robots. In its place was the rekindled dreams of his childhood; hand-cuffing bad guys, jailing criminals, sitting in the podium of justice.
He reaches out for his pistol, walks forward, never looking back.
༺
“You called for me, sir?” Kai’s figure is half-swallowed by the room’s darkness.
“Please, call me hyung. We don’t have to be so formal at home,” Luhan replies. Kai walks inside Luhan’s large study, smelling of vanilla and old books and something tender. Tender, like how Luhan turns to face Kai, light blond hair haloed by the moonlight slipping through the windows. Everything appears old; the stack of books, the mahogany table, the heavy velvet robe in which Luhan is snuggled into. Everything except Luhan himself who seemed to be frozen in a certain time; eternally youthful. Luhan points to one of the empty love seats, “Please, sit down and loosen up.”
Kai’s solid doubts about the situation vanished into a puff of smoke once Luhan recounts tales about himself; his childhood, the father who went through a lot under another family’s vile hands, how his passion for pretty things led him to collect antiques and paintings, about the boy who like playing hide and seek, whose fingers find comfort on piano keys and harmony. Luhan laughs when he noticed the creases between Kai’s brow. “Wondering why I’m telling you all this?”
Kai nods, his gaze following Luhan as the latter gets up to grab something from his table. He throws it to Kai’s agile hands. It’s a bottle of milk. Luhan continues, “Milk is good. Milk is good. Too much liquor isn’t good for us. I try to encourage others to take it easy on the whiskey and vodka and all those provocative drinks.”
Kai opens his bottle, taking a long gulp. When he brings it down, a smile goes up Luhan’s child-like face. Under the lamp’s glow, Luhan looks more inexperienced than ever. Luhan doesn’t look like a leader of a syndicate whose deadly tentacles are widespread throughout Seoul. “Oh well, oh well. There’s still a question without an answer. Talking to people calms me down. I call D.O, or Baekhyun, or sometimes Chanyeol over here for some milk and bonding time.”
Luhan rolls his eyes when Kai chuckles. “That’s very mature of you Kai. Very mature.”
The younger’s eyes are fixed on his feet, a smile still plastered on his lips. “You should be careful on what you say next time, hyung.”
Freely, like water running down the stream, the word glides out of Kai’s mouth for the rusted furnitures of Luhan’s study room to hear. Hyung, Kai repeats three times in his head for it to sound relaxing.
“I will, Kai. I will.”
༺
In the two weeks that Kai has known D.O, he’s taught himself to avoid having any expectations about that certain wide-eyed killer. D.O takes Kai by surprise. When Kai thinks he’s got D.O all figured out, the latter twists the path of Kai’s imagination with his spontaneous attitude and quirky remarks. Trying to analyze D.O. is like trying to skim through the dictionary while holding it upside-down; you might get the gist of it but it would be better to read it the way it should be read. But D.O. isn’t made up of words, and Kai doesn’t like reading.
And just when he thinks he knows D.O, he meets Kyungsoo and really, all that killer does is to tangle the tissues of his brain against each other. To Mindfuck, as kids these days would call it.
Kai meets Kyungsoo when the latter knocks on his door with a paintbrush on his hand and Kai’s sanity on the other. The awakening color of the skies outside his window tells Kai it’s probably about six in the morning, the pounding feeling on his head tells him it’s too early to function, but the smile of the man before him tells Kai that he doesn’t care. He probably came here for a specific purpose.
“Good morning, D.O,” Kai mumbles, eyes half opened.
“I’m Kyungsoo. Whenever we’re at home, call me Kyungsoo,” Clean guy explains and Kai starts closing the door slowly.
“Okay Kyungsoo, nice to meet you. See you around,” he slams the door shut and jumps back to his bed, only to find out that getting rid of Kyungsoo takes more than just a door-slam. Keys rattle and knobs were turned open. Kai groans because he decides he doesn’t like Kyungsoo and if punching this man would bring D.O back, then Kai would happily oblige.
“Is your Kai spelled as k-a-i or k-a-y?”
“Did you just wake me up just to ask me that?”
“Just answer,”
“K-a-i, now leave me alone,” Drowsy and half-asleep, Kai understood nothing from their conversation. All he can scratch from his memory of that morning is Kyungsoo leaving his room with a smile and a whispered ‘go back to sleep, may you have happy dreams.’ And a certain, foreign sensation creeping from Kai’s fingertips up to his veins and heart because no one has ever wished him to have happy dreams.
Living in the shadows, there was simply no room for those fluffy crap about safety. For him, if you really wanted to keep someone safe, you try your best to not get them killed.
But after nine or twelve more replays of Kyungsoo’s ‘go back to sleep, may you have happy dreams‘ in his mind, Kai understood what the fuss was all about, and he doesn’t think that parents aren’t that stupid anymore. It must be because everyone would love to feel like someone cares about them, even to go as far as to hope they’ll be protected while asleep.
Kim Jongin or Kai has never been tucked to bed with a bedtime story, never experienced what it’s like to drift off to wonderland after having a hot mug of milk, or have someone wish him goodnight. So Kyungsoo’s little whisper touched a sensitive corner of Kim Jongin’s heart in more ways than he’d like to admit. He goes back to sleep, thinking that maybe he’d come to like this Kyungsoo, after all.
༺
It’s impossible for Kai not to remember his new identity.
The letters ‘K-a-i’ are written, painted, and sewn on notebooks, cups, and towels respectively. Kyungsoo had proudly showed him his ‘works’ as Kai groggily walks around the house. Kyungsoo talks and talks and uses his hands to paint pictures in the air. Kai is captivated as Kyungsoo holds up another ma-fucking-roon colored towel with his name sewn on the bottom right side in fu-fucking-schia.
“You’re really good,” Kai compliments, avoiding to get closer to Kyungsoo because, hello he didn’t brush his teeth yet.
“I know right! I’m happy that you liked it. I like naming and organizing,” he slowly brings the towelette down, a smile rising from those pink lips.
“I like doing that, it gives me some sense of order and power over things.”
“Why? Isn’t being D.O enough? D.O pretty much kills people, isn’t that enough power?” Kai blurts out and by the not-so-surprised look Kyungsoo gives him, Kai knows Kyungsoo didn’t detect the clear-cut hate interlaced in his tone. The suspense flits in the air before swatting it off with a reply.
“D.O? I don’t know a D.O,” and that’s how Kai knew the topic was sealed to be thrown to some far-off place. Kyungsoo shows him around the large mansion, talking animatedly until Kai finds himself walking and leaning closer beside the shorter guy, just so he could hear him better; how Kyungsoo’s voice would raise an octave when he’s excited about something, like preparing dinner every night for the family, or the way Kyungsoo slightly scrunch his nose when he finds a topic displeasing, such as Chanyeol’s habit of licking Baekhyun’s earlobes. In public.
“That’s Luhan’s rose garden. He had that greenhouse made just to cater to his beloved red roses,” Through the window, Kyungsoo’s ivory skin tilts to the direction of a large structure with clear, transparent glass trapping what looked like young green leaves and blood-red roses. They ring bells leading to Sehun. But then sunlight hits Kyungsoo’s teeth and all Kai could think about were toothpaste commercials and those Japanese mangas Minseok likes to read; the male leads there has sparkles on their teeth when they smile.
“I think that’s pretty much it,” Kyungsoo turns to him and Kai doesn’t deny himself the pleasure of wiping a smudge of dirt on Kyungsoo’s cheeks. He’s as soft as he looks. Soon, faint red spots bloom from where Kai’s fingers met Kyungsoo’s skin. Kai discovers his favorite color, as of today.
“You, uh, had some dirt on your face.” Kai stutters and bites his lower lip because Kyungsoo’s flesh stirs Jongin awake. The Jongin that’s deprived of affection and Kai doesn’t like that.
༺
“I don’t trust that Kai person,” Baekhyun leans against the snow-white wall of his bedroom. His window provides an eagle’s viewpoint of the cobbled grounds where Kai and Kyungsoo are chafing target points with their pistols. Holes on red dots symbolizes the pair’s shooting accuracy. Yet the uplifted lips, the calm stance, suggests something different. Serenity, is the word Baekhyun would have used to describe these two, but it still insufficient.
“He’s a cool bro. A really cool bro. Don’t worry, I have a knife. You might be on edge because Luhan took him in at once?” Chanyeol. Creeping up behind him as usual. Lengthy arms embrace Baekhyun’s waist from behind. Homely heat feeling more comfortable than Baekhyun’s own flesh. Chanyeol’s breath spirals on Baekhyun’s neck and shoulders, bringing with it the memories of last night. His train of thought takes a detour.
“Luhan,” Baekhyun muses. “I feel like he’s in a hurry lately. Like he’s waiting for something big to happen. Something he can’t control.”
Chanyeol’s hands travels south of Baekhyun’s waist , alerting bare skin with tingles and undeniable heat. Pink blotches appears on Baekhyun’s cheeks. Chanyeol licks Baekhyun’s earlobes. He takes delight in the slight shiver from his lover. Wandering fingers and palms hover over the obvious bulge in Baekhyun’s boxers. “Can’t control? You mean something like this?”
Rational and responsible, that’s what Baekhyun’s known to be. But caged in Chanyeol’s arms and tongue, his identity seems to blur behind his primitive desire to knock the tall man senseless. “No, I meant something possibly dangerous that can pose as a threat for- Oh fuck you Chanyeol.”
Much to his irritation and Chanyeol’s delight, Baekhyun turns and kisses Chanyeol’s lips. A kiss that required tiptoes and eager fingers to be followed by sprinkles of rehearsed licking and sucking. The routine of scattering love bites on each other has been going on for years but-like everything else with Chanyeol and Baekhyun-each sensation hit them harder than the first or trillionth time. Chanyeol leans down, wraps an arm around Baekhyun’s hips and carries them back to Baekhyun’s bed which has bore enough traces of their previous love-making. Each footstep is echoed with shredded moans. By the time the bed creaks with their weight, Baekhyun is fully naked and torn, “I need to be in Gangnam in thirty minutes. Luhan would castrate me if I don’t collect the monthly vigs from those druggies.”
And Chanyeol laughs because, well, this is so Baekhyun. Careful and measured, tender and defiant. A sheep in a wolf’s clothing, definitely not the other way around. “Half an hour, let’s make it quick then because I also need a few more minutes to tell you how much I love you.”
༺
“Where are you now?”
“At some park,”
“Are you alone?”
“I’m by myself in a bench, if that’s what you want.”
“Let’s not waste time. How are things there going?”
“Great. So far I got to meet the ones in the important circle. There are a lot of men working under them, as you said, but there are only three aside from Luhan who matters.”
“Names,”
“Park Chanyeol. Byun Baekhyun. Do Ky-Kyungsoo,”
“And they matter, because..? Jongin, you’re twenty-two, not three. I don’t have to spoon feed you the follow up questions.”
“D.O here is sort of like me. A killer. Baekhyun and Chanyeol performs the same tasks as Jongdae and Minseok. The only difference is that they’re both alive.”
It turns out that sound waves or lack of, aren’t the only thing that mobile phones can transmit. Jongin and Sehun are quiet on both ends. Tens and hundreds of miles and the heavy, phantom weight of the words Jongin just let go occupied the distance between them. The rustling of fallen leaves before Jongin’s eyes had him concluding about the wind, and its power to move things just by pressure. How something so tender can whisper on branches, yet at the same time, drive tsunamis toward coasts. Sehun inhales. Unlike before, Jongin doesn’t have the desire to take Sehun’s breath away with a kiss.
“Jongin, listen. This might be difficult for you, but I wouldn’t have given you this mission if I didn’t think you were capable enough.” Sehun instructs on the other end, because really, that’s all he ever does: instruct. “Don’t lose sight of what you have to do. Get their trust. When you’re valuable enough for more information about their various syndicates, inform Jongdae at once in order to have him sabotage their plans before they even get started.”
“I know what I should do. I know better,” The words come out with a groan from someone who’s already had enough. Jongin runs a hand through his raven hair. Hanging up after murmuring ‘I’ll call you later or something’, Jongin leisurely stretches his limbs, battered from three hours sparring with D.O earlier.
A picture of large, dark eyes accompanied by plump lips imprints itself on Jongin’s memory. He smiles and feeds it by reminiscing about Kyungsoo; ivory-skinned and sharp witted, someone who could flip eggs sunny-side up while blindfolded (He challenged Kyungsoo yesterday and lost miserably).
༺
Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap.
“Bravo bravo,” Kai’s unique, husky voice resonates inside the dim auditorium. The sound adheres to the wall, recoiling to the standing figure of D.O whose way of replying was to turn to the source of the sound. With measured movements, he swings a Manurhin MR-73 in Kai’s direction, its barrel gleaming silver under the theater’s lights. Kai sinks deeper into the cozy maroon chair, looking like an emperor entranced by a palace performance. The heated metal in D.O’s hand all but forgotten. Delirium thickens the atmosphere by each second.
D.O stands a few meters in front of him. The stage’s elevated surface providing him an advantage as he points the muzzle parallel to Kai’s face. If Kai was threatened, he did a good job at hiding it behind a carefree smirk and a posture. “Relax, I was just congratulating you on the wonderful show. Do you know how much people would pay to see this kind of acting on Broadway? Certainly more than what we earn for each dead body, I tell you.”
D.O doesn’t waver and Kai knows it’s D.O because Kyungsoo manipulates pancake recipes in his hands, not heated cylinders. “Why are you here? I’m doing some spring cleaning. I don’t need your help.”
“Help? Good lord, no. I’m Kai. Kai doesn’t do ‘help’”
“Then why are you here?” D.O brings down his arm.
“I got bored back in the casa. So I asked Chanyeol where the fuck you flied off to. He told me you were out to slaughter some officials,” Kai replies, indifference coating his syllables. “I was nearly mad at you, you know. Why is it that you get all the fun? But it’s cool man, since I get to see you in action and can I say that you were great up there? You should be shoved under the limelight.”
Then Kai cocks his head to the left, clucks his tongue, raises an eyebrow. “Too bad I can’t say the same thing to your co-stars.”
He gets up, shuffles closer, and jumps on stage. Bodies are sprawled on the ground. There are more or less twelve men in blood-smeared uniforms lying around D.O. Kai thinks this is like the Grimm’s version of a garden. The thorns were bullets nestled in flesh. No roses either, just the crimson liquid seeping from limbs too impaired to be considered limbs. Certainly, there isn’t any eyelash-batting happening around here.
In his dark jeans and even darker loose sweater, D.O appears to be a lost boy. With a mere shrug, a casual smile, he proves to Kai how multi-dimensional people are. What's on the surface could never reflect what lies underneath. Warm smiles nurse a splintered history, dark eyes are home for all the wrong truths and the right lies, words are twisted to the point where they sound true.
Without even thinking, Kai closes the gap between them and encircles his hand around D.O's wrist. Tightly. In the same way a child clings to a steady post after madly spinning in circles for a minute. D.O remains frozen. Maybe he sees how Kai's skies and clouds rotate rapidly in his eyes. Maybe he doesn't. Either way, Kai smiles at the shorter boy when his fingers found D.O's pulse. D.O grins back because Kai has him thinking about the blood in his veins, not the cold steel nestled on his hand D.O believes he can brave gunshots and tides.
In a hidden pocket probably, inside their minds, they question the why of the present situation. Here they are, two men breathing in the oxygen that the corpses around them can't. But guilt doesn't seep through their pores or tighten around their throats. The ghosts haunting the air remains unnoticed as these two hang onto each other; hangs onto what’s stable in a galaxy of constant motion.
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The city is brimming with life and surprises; strangers appearing at every turn, people walking beside him. People with somewhere and no where to go. People with someone waiting for them, and others with hollow echoes welcoming them home. Oh Sehun doesn’t know what he is; lonely or alone. All he knows is that when a handful of leaves cascade before his eyes-of dry reds and golds-it extracts a carefully hidden memory.
Five years ago, in an autumn day such as this, he’d been with a boy whose golden locks where identical to the sunlight peeking through the brown branches. Twin laughter danced in the roads they’ve been walking on together. We were happy then, Sehun recalls with a sad smile. They’ve braved the loops of roller coasters, twirled on teacups and hollered at each other after winning a large, fluffy teddy bear from one the booths. The teddy bear, unfortunately, was brutally damaged after Sehun used it to protect himself from a pillow fight they had that night.
Cushioned by the sheets and white feathers, the bear’s button-eyes survived. Sehun had unconsciously kept it in his pocket-and it stayed there since then, even if the boy who owned the bear with him didn’t. The leaves turned darker until they gave up and let themselves fall to the ground, undressing the trees. Winter left. Spring bloomed. Summer heightens. By the time autumn came back, Sehun grew up, wondering about the boy with soft features and carefree laughter.
Sehun is taken back to the present when he spots him: ruffled hair, light clothing, tender shoulders, walking inside Joonmyun’s shop. Sehun’s headed there, too. He nearly trips on a stone in his hurry to follow him, but then Sehun completely halts when he laughs. Luhan.
Years and feuds and family ties had them drifting apart. But there are still pieces of Sehun scattered throughout his lifetime-the Sehun with chipped front teeth, the diligent Sehun who waters his beloved roses, the Sehun who tattooed his family’s emblem on his hips along with Minseok, Jongdae, Tao and Jongin as a sign of loyalty, the Sehun who haunts like a prey-pieces that Luhan could sew together without even trying. And Sehun hated him for that.
Sehun observes Luhan through the windows, hating those golden locks Luhan liked to keep uncut, hating those compassionate eyes. Sehun walks away, touching the bear’s button-eyes on his pocket, hating the ruin they made out of each other.
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The moon glows brightly despite the clinging darkness of the evening skies. Almost naked branches cast their shadows upon unsuspecting damp soil. Earth's own scent and the nights calmness permeates the atmosphere. Somewhere between Luhan's mansion and his greenhouse, Kyungsoo and Kai are lying down on the ground; heads cushioned by tired arms and elbows whispering against elbows. The glowing white circle hanging above allures Kai, but the grinning Kyungsoo catches his attention.
"Have you ever thought of it?" Kyungsoo's words shatters the neighboring silence. "Of steel?"
Kai bites his lower lip. "What about steel?"
"They never asked to be forged into guns. Lethal guns. Or lead. They never asked to aid senseless murder."
Kai turns and looks at Kyungsoo, lips pressed together because no answer would ever slip out of them. Kyungsoo doesn't groan or press for any words, so he thinks this must be one of those inquiries that never required particular replies. Questions buried in the crevices of our mind for so long we have to shove them out into the air before they rust. Kai studies Kyungsoo; an equation Kai's sharp wit can't comprehend. And it's only when Kyungsoo stares at him with moonlit eyes when the sentences starts forming in his mouth, springing out into the open, gliding into Kyungsoo's ears.
"Why should they be asked when we don't? No one has ever went up to me and asked if I was doing fine. If I wanted this life. I think it's okay fair that weapons don't have the same privilege." He huffs. "Let's talk about something different. Something normal. Tell me about yourself."
Kyungsoo chuckles and they both could tell his laughter pleases Kai when his tanned fingers graze against the shorter boy’s throat. Fingernails on Kyungsoo’s neck. Warm hands on Kai’s hips. Kyungsoo begins sharing and Kai listens as if each syllable would save his life. Their similarities lie on the ground of Kyungsoo’s words. Tainted pasts to be followed by combats and escapades, killing people to survive, learning how to live the hard way.
“And Luhan, he’s this live-action male doll that you can’ help but admire, right? But that’s all bluff. When he’s agitated enough, he delivers some butcher-knife jab and combined with airmail-your-jaw-back-to-Beijing punches,” Kyungsoo purses his lips. “We’re all grateful for Luhan, though. Without him, I’d probably be rotting on some farm where buffaloes and cows shit. Isn’t it a good thing I’m not underneath manure?”
Kai agrees, holding up Kyungsoo’s fingers against the moonlight, having difficulties deciding which one is more ethereal. “You’re too good to rot and-”
“Are you happy?” Kyungsoo asks in the middle of listening to Kai talk.
“What a feeble question.”
“Just fucking answer it. Are you happy?”
Kai doesn’t find happiness in any of the intersections of his lifetime; so he settles for inhaling a lungful of damp air and looking at Kyungsoo. What he finds in those curious eyes and plump lips isn’t happiness-it’s something infinitely bigger than that. “Yes. Now. I’m very happy now.”
༺
A lot happens in three weeks. Normal people leading normal lives fade into the background of Kai’s adventures. The hours of his days stretch into the blooming horizon, endings punctuated by the rumble of luxury cars and custom made shoes stepping on bleeding bodies. Five days trailing after D.O’s meetings and missions, Kai could already maneuver his way to the casinos and clubs after making the world hundreds and hundreds of pounds lighter by shooting, cutting, slicing, poisoning the weight.
Hectic, cramped, one target after another, sometimes he has to take them down simultaneously. Kai’s never been so occupied and thrilled before. In the middle of pulling triggers, Kyungsoo and his dishes would come to mind. When that happens, Kai can clear a roomful of thugs in less than three seconds, then disappear into the sunset in a minute. By each kill and threat, he proves his worth to Luhan and the rest.
Today tugged the strings of his adrenaline, sharpened his instincts. Kai is a child trapped in Disneyland because he was working side by side with D.O-who usually liked to keep himself mostly to himself. The rush of feelings warned his heart when D.O pat his back and muttered ‘you did well.’ Kai grinned, hoping that praises are solid so he’ll be able to hang up those words in a frame.
And soon enough, Kai stopped calling Luhan’s haven as a mansion and referred to it as a home. Kai is familiar with Kyungsoo and D.O, and is fond of both equally. Serious instructions and lame jokes, neat and accurate, handles pots and operates time bombs. Kyungsoo is a spectrum of colors-majestic no matter what angle Kai catches him in.
Kai flips through the pages of a manga, thinking of lines he can recycle while he’s on a mission because, really, these characters are bad ass and resembles D.O. Kyungsoo enters his room and Kai also stopped being surprise because Kyungsoo doesn’t know the meaning of ‘privacy’ sometimes.
He guesses it’s flour that’s smeared on Kyungsoo’s upper lip and nose. The powder catches his attention and Kai leans to clean it off Kyungsoo while he’s talking. Clean it off with his tongue. His room, like all the rooms in this house, is spacious. And it serves as an advantage as Kai drags Kyungsoo closer to him by gripping his hips, deeper into his room. It’s Kyungsoo who kissed him and Kai who slid a hand inside Kyungsoo’s shirt. Who did what after wards was hard to differentiate.
Both of them are caught and trapped: lips on tongues, hair between desperate fingers, heavy breathing against jaw lines, arms tangled in each other, heat, tension and a fucking galaxy’s worth of electrifying molecules fill the spaces where skin doesn’t meet skin. The fact that Kyungsoo can barely see anything in the room’s darkness doesn’t hinder him from pushing Kai to his bed.
Kai lands, the mattress groaning under him and Kyungsoo examining him with hungry eyes above. Kai doesn’t think that lack of water is the only reason for his parched tongue. Kyungsoo isn’t as tame in bed as he is in the kitchen. Kyungsoo in bed is like a lion; intimidating with his touches and manipulating fabric off them using experienced fingers. One minute he’s kissing Kai and the other flicking Kai’s chest and nipples with his tongue. Their synchronized groans and whimpers just might have been the sweetest sound next to Kyungsoo moaning out Kai’s name when the latter touched him where it hurts.
Kyungsoo rubs their crotches together, Kai digs his fingernails into Kyungsoo’s arm. Looking at each other’s eyes, they both understand that this is what they need. So Kai hurts Kyungsoo by licking, sucking the flesh of his throat down to his chest. Kyungsoo pleasures Kai by pumping him. Hands curled in just the right way it makes Kai see stars and all the good things in this world. Still kissing Kyungsoo’s puffy lips, Kai fumbles for the bottle of lube inside his bed-side table (and no, he is so not prepared for this).
“Give it to me,” Kyungsoo instructs, but takes it from Kai’s hand anyway. Kai closes his eyes to catch a breath, and the next thing he knew, Kyungsoo’s fingers are inside him. Wet, slippery, penetrating harshly. “Please,” Kai asks, his voice huskier. “Fuck me.”
D.O grins as he positions himself between Kai’s sweat-drenched thighs. Who would have thought that this Kai would be begging lewdly like this? Kai murmurs at last once Kyungsoo nudges his entrance and slowly slides in. Kai shouldn’t have, but he finds it touching how Kyungsoo handles him carefully. And if he wasn’t this horny, he’d have appreciated it more.
Jongin emerges somewhere between Kyungsoo thrusting and groping his ass. Sheets crumple along with Jongin’s clenched fingers. Reasons, feelings, common sense are all in knots, and the only thing that make sense is having Kyungsoo inside him. Moving fast like a drag racer, getting closer to the end by each plunge. Jongin groans loudly as if he can never have enough. D.O obviously got fueled enough to start jerking Jongin off and words started to scramble themselves in Jongin’s mind-oh-my-god, more-please, fuck-me-harder, is that all you got? Agony and delight turned out to be a brilliant combination.
This is what happens if fire fuses with fire, it’s an inferno. Kai brings light in Kyungsoo’s shadows, turning the places he never even knew existed to flames. Scorching joints and lips it feasts upon itself and subdues into ashes.
Kyungsoo came in Jongin’s ass shortly after the younger. He fixes their bodies, sinks down into the bed and inhales. Sweat, sex, and need permeated the air. Jongin lies down beside Kyungsoo, their tired limbs bathed in golden light. “Kyungsoo, why didn’t you tell me guns weren’t the only thing you could shoot well?”
Despite Kyungsoo facing the other way, he raises his hand to flip Jongin off. Jongin laughs, kisses the back of Kyungsoo’s hand and holds it in his before murmuring, “Good night, Kyungsoo. May you have happy dreams.”
༺
Early morning, to Kyungsoo, is the most romantic time of the day. It’s when the reborn sun kisses everything on earth in yellow, when the skies aren’t as harsh as they usually are. Dawn brings with it a fresh start and a smile on Kyungsoo’s face-especially when Kai’s sleeping face is the first thing he sees. There’s something magical about watching someone sleep; a spell cast for only your eyes to witness.
Kyungsoo observes Kai intently, since he didn’t get a proper chance last night. Warmth spreads to Kyungsoo’s fingers as they glide over Kai’s forehead, the bridge of his nose, lingering for a while over his pink lips. A flurry of feelings swarming his heart and throat, he continues tracing Kai. The curve of his jaw, his Adam’s apple, the dent between his collarbones as if Kyungsoo is a blind man and Kai’s bones and crevices were the Braille.
“I’m so glad I know you. You understand me, in more ways than one. Thank you, Kai.” He whispers, comforted by the knowledge that Kai’s fast asleep to catch his quick confession. He looks to his left, then right, before pecking Kai on the lips. Kai’s protruding ribs are the piano keys for Kyungsoo’s fingers, playing a melody only his soul can hear. Kai shifts under Kyungsoo’s fleeting hand, bringing the sheet covering his hips down. Kyungsoo smiles, but when he sees the black tattoo on Kai’s hip, the smile disappears.
His world spirals download and shatters as if it was made out of glass. Duvet and sheets were toasty warm, but Kyungsoo might as well be thrown into the seas of Antarctica because his veins ran cold upon seeing the words:
blanco- kim jongin
༺
“Good morning,” Jongin drawls, eyes turning to half-crescents when he grinned at Kyungsoo. To his surprise, Kyungsoo is dressed in all black, as if he’s on his way to a funeral. But Jongin doesn’t dwell to much into this as he drags his body out of bed, to his bathroom.
Kyungsoo tightens his grip on the cold steel behind his back as he waits for Jongin. Jongin returns, a new white towel and cup in hand and inquiries on his lips. “Kyungsoo, where’s the towel and cup you gave me? Why are these, well, not mine?”
Sauntering forward, Kyungsoo laughs, dry and bitter and cruel. Jongin shivers. He closes the gap between them, takes the handgun from his back, and rests the muzzle on Jongin’s forehead.
“You won’t need that, won’t you? Since you’re Jongin. The Jongin who worked for Mr. Oh’s family, whose friend I killed a few months ago. I burned all of Kai’s possessions earlier. They’re not yours. You’re not Kai and only the devil incarnate knows who the fuck Kai was.” Kyungsoo traces the blank ink on Jongin’s hips. “Sloppy work for someone your caliber. Kim Jongin, such a lovely, delightful name, isn’t it? It would look so much better engraved on your tombstone. I’m sure your family would grieve for you after you die on enemy ground.”
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part three; the bottom line