Now; baekyeol (1/5)
Title: Now (There Is No Tomorrow)
Rating: NC17
Pairing: Chanyeol/Baekhyun, hints of Yifan/Jongdae, Yifan/Baekhyun, Minho/Baekhyun, Lu Han/Minseok, Taemin/Jongin
Wordcount: 40k~
Warning: very heavy themes, highlight to read --> prostitution, murder, dubcon, gun!kink, copious amount of smut, mob!au, unbetaed
Disclaimer: EXO belongs to themselves and SME
Notes: this is probably the deepest fic I've ever written, it seems only right to me to publish it as a bday gift for my beautiful namja. Happy birthday Byun Baekhyun, from your considerably less talented and less attractive and less cool evil twin sister ♥ real A/N at the end
Summary: Baekhyun drowns in heavy makeup and sex with a different man every night to pay a debt. Chanyeol kills people for a powerful mob boss to buy his boyfriend's time. Lu Han is the evil puppeteer who plays with too many lives, including his own. To us there is no tomorrow, so tell me now.
Prologue
Now
Park Chanyeol opened his eyes and cursed as sunshine made his head feel like it was being pierced by a cloud of evil little needles.
The memories of the night before were hazy, a quick shot in the soft belly of his target and a lot of money. No need to think about poor guy’s family, no need to look in his eyes before he crumbled on the dirty concrete choking on his own blood.
The mere thought added a lot more emphasis on his need to retch, the rancid taste of last night alcohol in his mouth definitely not helping.
He tried to lift his arm but he couldn’t even feel it because someone’s head was nested on it, cutting all of his blood circulation. He pushed the guy’s face away from his body, took a quick look to the blondie collapsed on the floor on the other side and, cursing everything he knew, he got up to stumble into the bathroom and empty the content of his stomach.
There were stashes of cash, so new he wasn't imagining the faint scent of recently inked paper, all over the floor. He looked for his gun, only to find it stuck under a warm, asleep body. He thanked the gods that the kid hadn’t managed to shoot himself accidentally staining forever his loft’s interior with red.
Chanyeol didn’t remember the night before apart from the gig, but on his agenda there was a date with Baekhyun signed and circled by a red heart, courtesy of his partner. Baekhyun wasn't exactly a cheesy person, but he had his precious moments of unforgivable cuteness.
He didn’t really know how exactly he managed to go, with the help of a considerable amount of booze, from a date with Baekhyun to hooking up with two strangers who looked suspiciously similar to his lover. The blond one even had locks the way ByunBaek used to have back in secondary school, when he was going through that rebellion phase and he used to think that having blonde curls while wearing Chanyeol’s leather jacket gave him some kind of fallen angel aura.
The blonde boy stirred and Chanyeol looked at his face. It was nothing like Baekhyun’s. He didn’t waste time in waking up both of them and hastily throwing them out.
When he lifted his eyes onto the mirror, it showed him bloodshot eyes, chapped lips, ghostly pale face and a desperate frown. Not bad for a party night. He let himself fall on the bed, rolling between sheets who smelt like smoke, gunpowder and one-night stand. Not blood, because Chanyeol was a professional and never dirtied himself with blood.
Little by little, fragments of conversation and slippery images from the night before surfaced on his mind. He remembered Baekhyun, his eyes clean and bright without the shadow of make up for once, and his red cap. He remembered a fight and some harsh words. Funnily, he didn’t remember what they were fighting for, but it didn’t take a genius to guess. After all, Baekhyun had always hated Chanyeol’s work as much as Chanyeol hated Baekhyun’s.
“The only difference,” Baekhyun would say, “is that you have a choice.”
You could stop. You can stop. Please stop.
“Just once more,” would always be the reply.
And Chanyeol would pucker his lips like a puppy in need of a little cuddling and try to make himself little so that he could rest his head on Baekhyun’s neck and inhale his scent. Baekhyun’s nape is very sensitive and feeling Chanyeol’s breath gusting over it usually takes the will of arguing away from Baekhyun’s body, leaving him pliant and soft in Chanyeol’s hands, more prone to moan in delight and writhe in pleasure than to remember that Chanyeol always asks for once more and never really promises him he’ll stop.
This time, though, this time was different. This time there was something Chanyeol couldn’t exactly pinpoint yet, what with the throbbing of his head and the acute nausea, but nagged at him from the borders of his memory. This time they argued and Baekhyun ran away, leaving Chanyeol to party by himself, his only company a bag full of money and, later that night, two bodies willing to delete everything from his mind for a couple of hours.
It can’t end just like this.
“They can’t do it, Baek, I won’t let them do it.” He surged forward, clinging onto Baekhyun’s hoodie, preventing him to back off in surprise at hearing his shout. Baekhyun just slapped his hands away in retaliation.
“And how do you think to stop them? Ah? Tell me!”
He looked at his lover, always so feisty and violent, always ready to fight back no matter how much stronger and bigger the opponent was.
“I don’t know, I’ll just do something, I’ll…” he felt his voice raising, and he instantly regretted it because if he was shouting that meant Baekhyun would only shout louder.
“They already have me, Yeol,” and the slight hysteric nuance in his voice was heart-breaking, “get deeper in this mess and they’ll have you too and then-”
“And what should I do then?”
Knowing Baekhyun, he had probably gone to work, and it wasn’t difficult for Chanyeol to imagine him, lost in a sea of bodies, his eyes smoky and alluring, lips painted red and obscenely open, gasping as unknown hands, not Chanyeol’s hands, roamed on his body making him hot and bothered.
It wasn’t difficult to picture him lain on the bed like a doll, open, crying. Chanyeol felt the bile rising out again at the thought.
He heard footsteps outside, and his hand went straight for the gun. The door opened and it was Baekhyun, all smudged eyeliner and long fade out lipstick, the smell of the club clinging onto him like a second skin and a lonely defeat in his eyes.
Baekhyun standing at his door like a ghost, stepping on the same bills Chanyeol threw out at him the night before and looking up right into Chanyeol’s eyes with something, a challenge, a promise, surrender.
Chanyeol didn’t know what Baekhyun was willing to offer, so he was taking everything. It’s not like Baekhyun’s everything isn’t already yours, he thought frantically as Baekhyun landed on the bed, his hands clenching and unclenching on Chanyeol’s shoulders. No matter how many hands dirty this body, no matter how many nights he was someone else’s toy, he’s still yours yours yours mine mine mine.
Baekhyun didn’t even try to resist. His breath stilled, eyes locking with Chanyeol’s for a long moment before swift hands quickly defiled the first button of his shirt. When it came ucamee, all the tension seemed to leave his body and he unfolded under Chanyeol’s hungry gaze, his legs spreading on their own and Chanyeol spreading him even more before settling between them.
Kissing Baekhyun always felt like coming home, and the tiny little sounds of pleasure he made never failed to draw Chanyeol to madness. Baekhyun jerked like a too tense spring when Chanyeol’s fingers teased his crotch through the fabric, and the force of the movement caused the gun laid forgotten on the bed to fall on the floor with a loud thud. Both of them turned their head towards the sudden sound, and then Chanyeol reached out for the weapon, his chest against Baekhyun’s, his cock sliding over toned thighs.
He wouldn’t have never noticed it if not for Baekhyun's behaviour. He was just about to leave the gun on the bedside table, near and reachable but definitely out of the bed to avoid any possible incident, when he saw Baekhyun’s eyes focused on it, and felt his hand trembling on Chanyeol’s hip.
Without even thinking about it, he lowered the rifle until it was in front of Baekhyun’s face, pointed towards his furrowed brow, and stared at the way his eyes crossed in his attempt to focus on the barrel. Then he closed them, and his lips parted as his pink tongue darted to lick down on it. The taste must have not been the best, because it only lasted for a second, then he scrunched his nose and made a grimaced face, while Chanyeol felt his body burn, unbearably hot.
After having adjusted to the texture, Baekhyun gave other little experiments laps before ducking for a long one, almost taking the barrel in his mouth if only Chanyeol wouldn’t prevented it. He pulled back the gun and shoved three fingers between his lips, searching for his tongue.
The rifle was lowered until it made contact with Baekhyun’s crotch, still trapped in the kinky black panties that Baekhyun wore as his work uniform. When Chanyeol rubbed the barrel on Baekhyun’s shaft, also exploring his throat with calloused fingers, he moaned long and desperate, his hips canting to reach the gun and have more friction.
Chanyeol did know nothing about such a kink, not even after months of sex with Baekhyun. He would have wanted to comment, to make him feel shy and guilty, to take his revenge over all those times Baekhyun had used his own sexual experience to teas, bringing Chanyeol to the brick of insanity and making him feel inadequate.
He would've and he could have, but Baekhyun’s eyes were glossy and unfocused and his face had never been that red. The more he pushed the gun against his perineum the more he would blush, his lips opened in a silent request, something he couldn’t say out loud but also couldn’t help but mouth helplessly.
This thing, the weight of this discover, was too heavy and new for Chanyeol to indulge too much in it, not when his relationship with Baekhyun was already like a mine craft, every faux pas threatening to kill them both. So he didn’t tease, he didn’t accuse and he didn’t ask anything, he just resumed what he was already doing. And just having Baekhyun under him, just being able to rub all of this moans and pleas out of him would be enough for this night.
He fished for a condom from the drawer, fumbling with packets and half empty lube bottles and ignoring Baekhyun’s pleas for more now now I don’t need it, because he could be a true bastard who killed people for living and sometimes his fight with Baek were a little violent, he had to admit it, but he cared and he wanted Baekhyun to feel safe, at least with him.
“I am,” came the answer to something he wasn’t even aware he just said loudly, and Chanyeol kissed Baekhyun’s face before claiming his mouth again while he moved the rifle to trace Baekhyun’s inner thigh.
Twisting his hand, he made sure to reach lightly towards Baekhyun’s rear and only then Baekhyun went really wild and desperate, even trying to kick him in a futile attempt to move farther from the weapon, or maybe nearer, Chanyeol would have really liked to know. He retrieved the gun, this time setting it on the bedside table for good.
Baekhyun’s skin was sweaty and slick, difficult to grasp and hold onto, but Chanyeol did his best to keep him from squirming too much as he did a quick job of putting his fingers into him. When he was done with the preparations, Baekhyun was almost gone and Chanyeol himself was on the verge of screaming.
Before he could react, Baekhyun’s ankles were clinging on his calves and with a powerful shove of his hips, his lover somehow did manage to invert their positions and sit himself smugly on Chanyeol’s legs. It was a tight fit and Baekhyun looked ready to collapse any moment now, but Chanyeol hold him up with a hand at the small of his back, helping him to find a rhythm on his cock and thrusting to meet him.
He didn’t last long before he was coming, closing his eyes and feeling Baekhyun collapse on his chest as soon as Chanyeol stopped supporting him, the wet, sticky feeling on his stomach the only proof Baekhyun did actually come.
He would’ve laughed about having finally managed to shut up Baekhyun’s not-so-inner screamer, but the slow rising and falling of his lover’s chest against his own meant that Baekhyun was already sleeping.
Frowning, Chanyeol was left alone to clean them both and ask himself how many people other than him his boyfriend has actually satisfied that night.
“Just leave me be, Yeol!”, the shouting was getting worse, Chanyeol was just lucky he had a soundproof attic to contain all of Baekhyun’s voice and anger, “get out of my life, get out of this mess, stop trying to be the hero or something, stop killing people for no reason, stop-”
He saw red.
“No reason?” It was difficult to keep the hurt, that sharp sour taste out of his words, not when all he was doing, all he ever did was for Baekhyun’s sake. “No reason, Baek?
Tell me, do you enjoy being a whore that much? Are you that used to slut yourself like a bitch in heat every night? Ah? AH?” He didn’t care that he was tossing Baekhyun around, probably hurting him as his fingers were locked in a tight vice-like grip over the older boy’s arms.
Baekhyun’s eyes were starting to water, but Chanyeol knew the little tricks he wore under his sleeve all too well. He knew he had been trained by his most violent clients, the ones who would shake him, who tried to hurt him, and he had learnt how to sneak himself away from those kind of situation in the most easy way possible, by crying and look defenceless.
He didn’t fall for it, his grip grew tighter.
“Well, if that’s the case,” he said, seeing that Baekhyun wasn’t going to answer to his little windup, he was just going to stubbornly stay there and being the poor abused victim, “if that’s the case remember, dear, that as long as I can pay your boss with my work…”
He backed Baekhyun onto the coffee table, snatching a stash of money from above it.
“…with the money that I earn with my job,” and he flashed the cash on Baekhyun’s face, tracing the soft lines of it, lowering it so slowly it bordered on the obscene until he could tuck everything inside of his tight jeans, Baekhyun’s eyes going wide at the gesture, the tears prickling at the corners starting to look more real now “as long as I pay you’re my whore too, so be a good whore and bend a little more baby.”
The sun was fading when Baekhyun got out of the bed. Chanyeol was nowhere in sight.
His head hurt, his ass hurt even more. His pride was hurting more than anything else was, because what the fuck happened last night? Since when did he have a kink for… guns? He had always hated seeing Chanyeol using firearms, from their first serious fight after Chanyeol did his very first gig for Baekhyun’s boss, right before they ended up together.
And still, the rush of giving his life to Chanyeol, seeing the power in his hands. Their fight was fresh and vivid, and Chanyeol was all but hangover, what if he had shoot, what if he had decided, even for just one second, that Baekhyun deserved to be shut up. Baekhyun knew he deserved it, just like he knew Chanyeol loved him more than anything else, but seeing that possibility in his hands had been frightening and exciting at the same time. Chanyeol was hardly ever in control, always running like a mad man in hope to catch Baekhyun out of his messes, to save him from his mistakes.
More than anything Baekhyun was just tired of falling, drowning and taking his best friend, his boyfriend, down with him.
It had to stop, before things could really get out of control.
He knew from the start, from the numb look in Baekhyun’s eyes, that it wouldn’t have been a pleasant conversation.
When Baekhyun stopped talking he felt hollow and cold, his words slowly sinking into his conscience like ice.
“This is… Is this?” He could feel his voice tremble with every word, shaking from the strain to speak every syllable with a throat as dry as cotton paper, “Baekhyun…”
“This is goodbye, Yeol.”
No, no no no. It can’t end just like this.
Now
(There Is No Tomorrow)
Six months before now
Lu Han was the prince of the night. No one even knew his name, and no one out of his close circle of friends had ever seen his face and survived to tell anyone that the man, the boy really, who controlled the biggest underground empire of the capital, was in fact just a boy. With a very boyish face.
Of course, he didn’t built it himself. When it came down to Lu Corporation, the massive economic monster known to be able to swallow every kind of illegal business that dared to cross his path whole, the one who should be thanked was his father, Lu senior. Unfortunately, he had died on mysterious circumstances leaving his young, sneaky and cold-blooded son to inherit all of his fortune. Too bad.
Unlike the father, the son wasn’t interested in risking his life on the line to make everyone crawl in fear when they saw his face, and besides he didn’t even have a face that scary in the first place. He preferred people to fear a shadow, a name whispered in the darkness, the faceless threat that someone will come in the middle of the night to kill your children if you don’t behave properly.
Bribery was overrated, negotiation more than useless, legal practices weren’t even on the table. Lu Han’s favourite work policy was blackmail, and it was with some sort of sick fun that he sat down and watched people destroy their lives in the useless and weak attempt to save someone else’s.
Park Chanyeol and Byun Baekhyun were his textbook example.
The former was one of the best gunmen of his stable. The kid was gold with a gun in his hands, and it was professional too. Quick, clean, never hearing the neighbours complaining for the noise was a bonus feature.
Chanyeol was one of those people who always get the invitations to the cooler parties, VIP places and all that shit. It was as simple as a snap of fingers for him to infiltrate in every place, and when you have a smile like that who is going to notice the bulge of a weapon under your leather jacket? Not the women flooding at your feet, and neither the men, too busy with sending daggers at you through their eyes for outshining them (or flooding at your feet).
To think it was just a coincidence, a random twist of fate, the one who brought Park Chanyeol to Lu Han. It was Byun Baekhyun, of course. You can't say Park Chanyeol without saying Byun Baekhyun.
It was Byun Baekhyun and his stupid habit of sleeping around, sleeping with the wrong people, the ones who don’t care a fuck about you. It was Byun Baekhyun trying to get over Park Chanyeol in Lu Han’s opinion, but if you asked Baekhyun he wasn’t in love with Park Chanyeol at that time, he never had been and he surely isn’t now, he’d say. “We’re just fuck buddies,” that was the lie, and Lu Han laughed under his breath and put his arms around Baekhyun’s shoulder like he believed it when he really didn’t, and then they switched to another subject and kept applying the make-up for the night.
But, to get back on track, it was Byun Baekhyun and his parents, his father really, finding out he was gay and him not having enough money to make it when they threw their second son out on the streets, alone, him having not enough pride to call Chanyeol and ask for his help, which he really would've been better. They could have argued, and Chanyeol would've lent him some money, and then they could've made out like they were meant to be and Lu Han would've short of a whore and a gunman.
Sadly, Chanyeol was somewhere in Europe with his high school girlfriend at the time, Baekhyun had too much pride to call, and maybe he was just a bit jealous too, or more than a little, and so that’s why he ended up being indebted with Lu Han and working at the club house to repay that debt.
That’s when Chanyeol came into the picture, because Lu Han’s prices are very high and it’s difficult to repay it with just money, especially when you’re just a poor college student.
“I know the boss,” he said to Chanyeol, a few years ago “I mean, the Boss, the Lu boss, the one they said he killed his father to inherit the company, the one who owns Baekhyun. I know someone who knows him, I could ask…”
Chanyeol had always been a little stupid, because there was no way in hell a simple back dancer at the club, a nobody like the one Lu Han pretended to be, could be able to reach the infamous Lu boss who controlled everything from Macao to Seoul, and was now extending his Tokyo branch, thank you very much.
So good but so stupid, so easy to trust other people.
For what Chanyeol knew, Xiao Hannie was just one of Baekhyun’s co-workers, someone who danced and was fucked at the club to earn a little money, or someone who, just like Baekhyun, simply had to work there to repay a debt. He trusted him already from those two beers shared while they waited for Baekhyun’s pole show to end, one because he had to be on stage after him, the other because he wanted to see really how bad his best friend’s situation really was. And, more simply, because he got a sick warm in his belly seeing Baekhyun’s leather clad thighs sliding on the pole like they would on dick.
Baekhyun never got to know who had been the link between Chanyeol and his Boss. He just knew that, one day, Chanyeol came and snatched him from the dance floor into one of the second floor privet, threw him on the table and kissed him senseless.
“Chanyeol, what the,” he found himself steadily following Chanyeol. His feet were moving, even if he was already booked for the night, his head was hurting and he had no time for this.
He tried to force his mouth to form to protest. Chanyeol left him no space to talk.
“Shut up and come with me.”
Six years before now
It wasn’t their first kiss.
They had plenty of fumbling drunk experiments back then, Baekhyun even daring to put his hands on Chanyeol’s belt once, moved by the sudden awareness that Chanyeol’s dick was hardening and poking at his leg.
He clearly remembered Chanyeol moaning against his neck and jerking to catch his hand before Baekhyun could undo his belt. He recalled Chanyeol shivering and pinning Baekhyun’s hand to the glass of the car window like he didn’t want him to move it further as he kept kissing him for what felt like an eternity, Chanyeol’s body physically looming over his own as Baekhyun’s skin grew hotter and hotter.
Chanyeol hardly took control for himself, it was always Baekhyun who initiated physical contact between them. Figures, the only time Chanyeol would do something on his own would be to stop Baekhyun from going too further.
Later, Chanyeol just looked at him with his big scared eyes, as if he couldn’t believe what they were doing, like he couldn’t believe what Baekhyun was going to do to him.
For Baekhyun that was the day he decided he was into guys, and no set of boobs in the world could compare the feeling he got in his gut when someone was manhandling his ass, he was as surest as he had ever been.
For Chanyeol that was the day he decided he was in denial. He started to date a cute sophomore the week after, she became his girlfriend and they stayed together until forever, and they’ll get married and they’ll live happily ever after while Baekhyun sells his body to a different men every hour. And that's it.
“What was that?”
Chanyeol still had that face, a little betrayal, a little guilt, a little anger. Baekhyun just shrugged and turned away from him, eyes on the road.
“What was that, Baekhyun? What were you trying to do?”
And this time was difficult to ignore the question as Chanyeol’s voice started to sound more frantic. Still, Baekhyun didn’t want to look at his face again.
“Nothing. It was just. Nothing.” he spit out. “We just got a little carried away.”
“You mean you got carried away. More than a little carried away. I can’t believe you tried to…”
Ah, the burn of blunt rejection.
“Just forget it, Yeol.”
Six months before now
Except Chanyeol suddenly appeared, at the club.
Baekhyun had no fucking idea how Chanyeol found out about his job, not likely from Baekhyun’s parents since they were so ashamed of their own son. Not likely from one of their old friends, all lost in the fog of a past that seemed like a dream.
Chanyeol came into the club, and it was awful. It was awful, having to show the boy he was in love with since probably elementary school what kind of fallen person Baekhyun had become, what shameful things he had to do for a living.
It was beyond awkward, having to pole dance in front of his eyes knowing he would be ashamed for him, he would be ashamed of him, and he had to bit his tongue to avoid fainting when the club’s patrons started to tuck money into his pants, booking their slot for later.
He felt like dying could've been a better fate than facing Chanyeol’s eyes after such a performance, but when he got down the stage, when the first of many man of his night grabbed his arm to drag him to the back doors and into the privet, away from curious eyes, Chanyeol was already gone.
That night Baekhyun cried himself to sleep.
“He did come again, you know? Your friend.”
Baekhyun made a little non-committal noise, something in him exploding and dying like a supernova at the information.
“I think he wants it in your pants. He kept staring at your ass like he never saw it before.”
There was something really fucking annoying about Hannie and his outrageous habit of slowly pushing daggers in form of words deep into Baekhyun’s scars.
“I can assure you he did see it before, and very closely too. He still preferred his own girlfriend’s.” Lu Han was harshly pushed to the side to make space for Baekhyun’s exit, as the host announced his third and last number for that night. “Move over Hannie, it’s show time.”
Lu Han was left staring into space with a knowing smirk.
“Always so rude, and I was just about to tell him they broke up two years ago.”
He knew that Chanyeol had came back a few times, talked with the other dancers, mostly Lu Han and Jongdae, sometimes Jongin.
He never tried to talk to him, and Baekhyun never actually looked for him, afraid and ashamed.
He felt dreadful. It had been months since the last time he had felt something akin to the ground under his feet, always living under the distinct impression that he was sinking deeper and deeper on his own misery without ever getting the chance to get out of it.
Then, suddenly, Park Chanyeol had to come and destroy even that little thread of security he did still have. He knew what he felt for Chanyeol was wrong for him, and that he could never reciprocate his feelings, he grasped onto that knowledge to feel his sanity when everything else changed so fast he couldn’t even register it.
And then Chanyeol snatched this away from him too, leaving Baekhyun defenceless to his angry hands that tried to rip his clothes and cover every inch of exposed skin at the same time.
“What…” his lips were chapped, and the words got stuck on the edge of his mouth. He licked it, but Chanyeol didn’t even leave him a chance to speak again.
Baekhyun knew he should have done something to stop Chanyeol from physically assaulting his mouth with his tongue in the darkness of the privet, knew he should ask him what he was doing or, even better, just push him and ran away from the shame of being a whore even for his best friend.
The second floor privet was reserved for this kind of activities, and if Chanyeol brought him here without anyone from the security trying to stop him, that could only mean he was a client.
Baekhyun was used to selling his body, but not like this, not with Chanyeol. Chanyeol, who could have had it for free, whenever he wanted, wherever he wanted, except now Baekhyun’s body was not his own anymore so he couldn’t even give it to Chanyeol out of his own choice.
In the end what made him react was not the shame, because for how much he could be ashamed he was also weak, and a hypocrite, and Chanyeol’s tongue stroking his own was still the best thing in the world for him.
What woke him up from the dream was the smell of blood and gunpowder, scents he had learned to recognize from the few times he had slept with one of the boss’ man. They called themselves hitmen, but for him they were just plain killers, and they carried their work with them even in the bedroom, the gun always at hand reach.
Baekhyun fought against the fog clouding the back of his mind from the urge of the kiss to reach tentatively under Chanyeol’s jacket, ignoring the lustful moan that the gesture got him, until his hands touched the unmistakable barrel of a gun. He tensed like a violin’s cord, and Chanyeol froze too when he realized the reason.
“I still don’t understand who the fuck set him up for the fucking job…” Baekhyun was bitter and angry, he had cried all the night and his eyes were puffy and red, blood-shoot.
Lu Han stroked his hair, gently, almost motherly.
“Han, what do I do? I can let him do something like this for me. I don’t deserve it, not in the slightest. I’m just a waste, and now I’m wasting him too.”
More sobs, more tears.
“Maybe if you were, you know, able to earn more money in a night you’d be able to pay your debt faster, that way he wouldn’t be forced to work for him.”
Baekhyun’s eyes shot open, but his head didn’t move from its spot between his knees.
“There’s no way I can make more money than what I’m doing now, Hannie, you know that.”
“Just trust me.” Lu Han smiled, a with a last kiss on Baekhyun’s forehead he went to pick a cup of water for his friend.
While Chanyeol made an excellent killer Baekhyun was an average whore.
He just didn’t have it in him, Lu Han thought after seeing him deal with the club patrons for the very first time. He didn’t have the face, nor the attitude. Kai, indeed, was the whore. Luscious lips, full nose, long legs, he resembled one of those Greek statues that Lu Han’s partners in crime liked to spend all of their money on. And since Kai was like living art they paid for him as much as they paid for ancient pieces of stone. And more. Kai could dance and he mastered the sexy stare like he owned it. Kai was the prince of the club.
Baekhyun didn’t have any of it. He was just a lost puppy. Sure, apply some make-up on his face and he’ll be able to summon a sexy look from nowhere. The thick thighs unmistakably helped his cause, but in the end he didn’t want to be part of it, he hated his job and Lu Han really thought he wasn’t cut out for prostitute life.
It was a surprise to find out that Baekhyun, the same Baekhyun who didn’t have any kind of training, who didn’t have the face nor the body, the lost puppy with nowhere to go, was actually even more popular than Kai, especially with old patrons.
“There’s something about him,” said one of Lu Han’s favourite regulars while he undressed him for the night, “something which is really alluring, he make me want to put him on his knees and take him all night.”
Lu Han snorted at the overly romantic comment, but he knew Yunho wouldn’t care about politeness and etiquette in front of a whore.
Between his clients, he especially liked Jung Yunho, the leader of a criminal organization so big it could rival Lu’s empire.
Some years ago, when Lu Han’s father was still fighting for crime supremacy in China, Yunho leaded the most powerful and frightening mob of all Asia, controlling everything that happened in Japan, South Korea, South-East Asia and even part of China. The five bosses were a legend, until an internal fight tore them apart from the inside and they separated in two different organizations, none of them as powerful as the one they had before the split up.
That was when Lu senior surged from China and occupied the vacant place of King of Crime in Seoul, after having secured his position in his homeland. They were on relatively good terms now, Lu Han’s group and Yunho’s, sometimes they even collaborated on difficult trades or exchange dangerous goods and information.
Since he was a kid Lu Han had always listened stories about this man, this Jung Yunho, who despite their frail alliance wouldn’t waver for a second before killing him if he knew the surname of the boy laying on his bed with his ass raised up in the air.
Nevertheless, for Yunho, and for everyone else, Lu Han was just Han, Hannie, Xiao Han, one of the boys who sell their bodies at the club for whoever has enough money to buy it. They thought he was the whore, they thought they were buying his body, but in the end he was just finding company for the night, getting money he didn't even need from it, and he was even able to hear the juiciest gossips from the mob world.
This thing about Baekhyun, though, made him extremely curious. If it were him, he’d never look at the guy for more than a second. Too anonymous and boring.
“He’s the look on his face.” said Kris as they brunched the morning after.
Lu Han just looked at him with a quizzical face. “What?”
“Byun.” Kris, Yifan, bodyguard slash best friend slash right-hand man of all his life, sipped his Bellini with a frown. “He always has this look, on his face, like it’s torn between spitting in your face for daring to even lay your eyes on him and begging you to take him as soon as possible.
When I slept with him…”
“You slept with him? When? Why?” Lu Han deserted the salmon to listen to Yifan’s story. “Tell me!”
“Don’t interrupt me then.” came Yifan’s warning tone. Lu Han raised his palms in surrender and stared at him expectantly.
“I am entitled to sleep with our employees, you know.” said Yifan plucking invisible dust from his flawlessly ironed Italian suit. Lu Han slapped his sleeve to get him to hurry.
“I slept with him twice, or thrice, and I understand why he’s so… wanted. I can’t explain it, but it gave me the feeling he’s one of those guys who makes you want to be rough, you know? I slept with Jongin, too, but with him I enjoyed the sex and that was all. With Byun I enjoyed being able to overpower him, to humiliate him, because it seemed like the thing he dreaded the most and at the same time he was craving it so much… It’s difficult to explain.”
“So,” Lu Han munched on the olive, “you liked the sex because you could be a cold cruel bastard to him but you didn’t have to bear the later guilt of treating another human being like crap?”
“Why do you always have to make me sound like a total bastard?” replied Yifan, forsaking the food and hurrying towards the lounge to find solace in a quick smoke.
Lu Han’s voice followed him outside, taunting and smug.
“Because you are.”
“I want to help you.”
“Go home, Yeol. Live your life. Be happy. I’ll figure something out… I’ll do well, I promise.”
“No, you won’t. Lu Han said you make really good money, they won’t let you get away.”
“Still, I don’t want your pity.”
“It’s not pity. It’s never, I… How could it ever be pity, Baek?”
“Oh, come on Park!” The surname sounded alien on Baekhyun’s tongue and Chanyeol cringed. “When was the last time we talked, anyway? Just take your sorry ass out of his place, because you don’t belong here.”
“Except I do,” he stilled, sending a glance to the full holster on his chest, “now I do.”
“Is that your answer? Really?” Baekhyun was incredulous, and slightly hysteric, as if he had forgotten about the gun and seeing it, still loaded and pressed onto Chanyeol’s side where the jacket would have covered it fairly well, suddenly reminded him the gravity of the situation. “Becoming one of them? One of the men who pay to see me at night, is this-”
“Stop! You don’t know-!”
“No, you stop. Stop being a stubborn child, stop wasting the life you managed to build for yourself, stop doing this. Just stop.”
Stop getting my hopes up Chanyeol, stop messing with my head, stop looking at me with those big sad eyes, this isn’t the day before the end of school anymore, when you pleaded me to skip school to go to the beach with you.
He had accepted, because he could never say no to Chanyeol, so they took the train and spent the rest of the day with their jeans rolled up and their feet soaked on the shore, because it was raining an too cold to actually get naked and inside the water.
Seemed like a lifetime ago.
“That night,” Chanyeol’s voice tore up his memories, “in the car-”
“Didn’t I say to forget it?” And now there was no way Chanyeol could have missed his panicked tone. “I said-”
Chanyeol cut him off impatiently. “That night, in the car,” he said in a breath, “I was scared.”
“Doesn’t matter, it’s-”
“That night I wanted to fuck you.”
Baekhyun, finally, shut up, his pupils huge.
“I would have done it, and I know you wanted it too. But I was scared.”
Chanyeol wasn’t looking at him. His eyes were clouded, almost like he was recollecting that night, again, in his head. Maybe thinking about how things could have gone from there, if he only…
“I still want to do it, though. Even” and now he was looking into Baekhyun’s eyes, no doubt in his ones, “now. I want to be the only one who can do it.”
Baekhyun slowly sagged onto the ground, his legs no more supporting him. He could barely hear his own voice over the sound of his own heartbeat dictating the rhythmic push and pull of all of the blood in the desperate rush to reach his head.
“A bit late for that.”
“Not if I help you.” He sounded so sincere. “Let me help you Baek. Let me.”
He outstretched a hand to caress Baekhyun’s cheek and left it suspended in the air, as if he was afraid to do it and was waiting for some kind of permission from Baekhyun.
Baekhyun looked at him from under trembling lashes, tugging at his bottom lip from the corner of the mouth. For a second, something flickered in his heavily painted eyes. The shadow of a thunderbolt of too many emotions battling each other in his gaze, each one too weak and confused to prevail on the others and surface on his face.
It lasted only a moment. Then, jerking away from Chanyeol’s warmth, he bolted.
It didn’t take a genius to guess why Baekhyun was avoiding him.
“Now that I think about it,” chimed in Han from where he was sprawled on the counter playing with an empty vodka bottle, “it was a very dick move, you know, booking him for the night.”
He hiccupped and then he arranged his limbs on the couch until his legs were obscenely spread and his feet trapped in dark leather stilettos were dirtying the velvety seats.
It was too early for the club to open yet, but the staff was already around.
One of the bouncers whistled and licked his lips at Han’s show-off, but he just gave him the finger in response and started rubbing his dick. Jongdae sighed and disappeared to put on his make up for the night.
The new barman flushed an impossible shade of red and almost dropped a bottle on the floor. Xiao Han licked his lips while keeping eye contact with him, making him squirm, and Jongin laughed at the poor guy’s discomfort.
Now that he was working for the company, Chanyeol was technically part of the staff, so he had permission to stroll around the place to look for Baekhyun, but he wasn’t having this much luck in actually finding him.
“You should have thought it better,” continued Han, “because I have the fair suspicion you gave him a…” he raised his eyebrows suggestively, “slightly different message than what you were really trying to convey.”
Jongdae managed to frown at him, even as he was applying eyeliner with a brush.
“Because you were just going to talk to him, right Chanyeol? You weren’t going to be a giant ass and actually try to fuck him on the fucking privet where he’s been fucked for the last year of his life, right Chanyeol?”
Jongdae was usually pretty harmless, but maybe it was the light, maybe it was the single lined eye staring at him as if he wanted to stab him, his twin one closed as Jongdae managed to put on make-up without even having to look at the mirror, Chanyeol felt very endangered.
Jongin just looked him like he was a fucking idiot.
I truly am an idiot, thought Chanyeol slamming his head on the table.
Baekhyun had called in sick and only Han and Jongdae knew where he lived. No need to say neither of them wanted to tell him.
Chanyeol had no clue, but he needed to talk with him. And if he had to kneel in front of Han’s flexed legs and beg, he was ready to do it. More or less.
“You won’t need their help, after all.” Jongin made a beck towards the back door.
Han straightened right away and grasping Chanyeol’s right ear, he turned him towards the boy now entering the room.
“Looks like your princess is here.”
Chanyeol would never forget what he felt when he killed a man for the first time, that powerful mix of empowerment and excitement that hit him like a train wreck and left him shaking and unsure on his legs. The hand holding up the gun was the only part of him that wasn't tingling, feeling so numb it almost seemed like someone else's limb. It lasted two minutes before he collapsed on the ground and retched, cursing and tearing from the effort to regain his breath. He cried on the cold concrete for the man he killed, for the two men he killed that night, because he felt like he had died too.
Make it three, because he knew somewhere deep in his soul that this thing, knowing what he did in order to help him, would have killed Baekhyun inside too.
He felt an idiot, for not coming back before, he felt like hitting Baekhyun for not telling him, for not even trying to reach out to him when he was in need. At the same time he knew it was useless even thinking about it, for Baekhyun was proud and stubborn, and would have never tried to contact him, not after the utter failure that was their night, their probably last night as true friends, before everything changed.
It was true that Chanyeol wanted him back then, he wanted with a desperation he didn't think Baekhyun would have understood. Baekhyun was hopeless in his own little way because he thought Chanyeol didn't reciprocate his feelings, but Chanyeol knew about it and wanted it as much, but he was too afraid.
Baekhyun feared Chanyeol, his reaction, that he could end their friendship and never be with him again. Chanyeol feared the entire world. His parents, his teachers, his classmates, everyone who could have seen them walking with their hands intertwined would have became an enemy to a guy who was used to have everyone falling to his charms, the most popular one.
When Chanyeol's thoughts went back to that time every worry, every fear, every doubt seemed hollow and futile comparing to what he had to deal with in the present.
His best friend was selling his body to a luxurious brothel owned by a young mysterious crime lord. Only God knew how much time would pass before Baekhyun caught something, or one of his clients, the ones who did the same things that Chanyeol now did, the one with guns and no qualms to use it, tried to hurt him in one way or another. And he couldn't let it happen. He just couldn't. There was too much that he let happen without knowing it, too much he would never forgive himself of being unable to prevent.
The mere thought of what could have happened, what he was trying desperately to avoid from now on, gave him chills colder than the ones that hit him when Xiao Han proposed him the job.
He fought to raise himself from the ground, where he was almost laying in the city dirt and his own retch. His forehead was wet with sweat and when he fixed his hair, he found traces of blood in his fingers, still fresh and sticky. Cursing, he put the gun on the wasn't aware he was still holding inside the jacket, fishing a tissue with his now free right hand and swiping it across his hands and face. He hoped no one noticed anything strange. Besides, he wasn't going to visit a place unused to such scenes.
He was going to the clubhouse, but in a place he hadn't seen yet.
Not in the basement where he Baekhyun, Lu Han or Jongin showed off the goods on a badly lit squalid stage, nor in the suffocating privet, with their fake luxurious furniture and the infinite collection of sex toys and strong drinks hidden in the cabinets to provide the best experience possible.
He had every intention to visit the private rooms too, though he still didn't know what to do with Baekhyun since he had the faint suspicion he wouldn't be happy to know where Chanyeol had found the money to buy him for an entire night.
Still, he wanted to see him. He had just killed a man for him and he wanted nothing more than his best friend's comfort.
Baekhyun was the best at comforting him, like when Chanyeol managed to blow up the lab in chemistry II of sophomore year and the principal suspended chemistry lessons for a week and Chanyeol got a suspension too, for damaging the school property. He was the school hero of the month. Everyone else cheered and thanked him, but in the end it was Baekhyun's chest the place he chose to cry on, thinking about how to tell his parents their stupid son did another one of his deeds.
Chanyeol wondered what his parents, his sister, would have thought of him now. They always liked Baekhyun, said he had a good influence on their son. Would they resent him now?
He entered the hall and without thinking and his feet started to drag him towards the soft red lights of the club. Kris grabbed him and they slowly walked into the elevator, the taller man forcefully hitting the door-closing button before turning to Chanyeol, his posture rigid.
“There's dry blood on your brow, you know?”
“I thought I cleaned everything properly. “
“It's important that you're not covered in blood, especially if you're going to use the main entrance like you own the place.”
Chanyeol chose to stare at Kris' reflection on the mirror wall.
One of the elevator's sides was nothing but pure glass, diving right into a full view of Seoul's shadiest district. A dirty and messy chaos of skyscrapers reaching the sky while at their roots, in the suffocating and stinky little streets, flourished a new generation of little gangsters, dealers, low-level whores and informers.
The elevator slowly made its way past the offices, the supposedly clean face of the Lu empire - shipping companies, an army of attorneys, banks, industrial groups, important politicians - and let’s not forget the totally legal brothel in the basement, thought Chanyeol bitterly.
The view grew even more stunning when they reached the last floors, and Kris had to get his fingerprints scanned by a tiny electronic device to go on. While the lower floors were full of people, like a nest of wasps ready to explode at the minimal pressure, the more they proceeded the emptier became. No lights, no telephone ringing, just long, hollow aisles leading to darkness and the beauty of the city lights shining under their eyes. He understood why the boss chose such a place for his private rooms.
“Most of the rot of this city is crowded in this district,” he murmured absentmindedly, “and from here you can see it all.” And control it even better, he thought.
Kris’ voice shook his mind from its little reverie. “Are you even listening to me, Park?”
Chanyeol shrugged. Not really.
“Maybe my words would be able find their way to your head if I'd just shoot a hole in it.”
“I killed a man today,” was the quiet response. “Sorry if I am more shaken because I actually executed a guy on behalf of a man wanted by the intelligence of at least twenty three states, than for a little brain splattered on my forehead.”
Chanyeol try to say it as nonchalantly as possible, but his fists were still shaking.
Kris sighed, that's why he hated newbies. “Just make sure to use the staff entry next time. We don't want any,” poignant pause, “incident to occur, don't we?”
We don't want any incident to occur to Baekhyun.
“I understand sir. I won't do it again.”
The elevator stopped with a ping, and they stepped in the attic, where a young man was waiting for them at the mahogany desk.
Chanyeol's heart was beating furiously against its ribcage, the sensation similar to the one he felt when he pulled the trigger, back in the alley.
He couldn't believe he was going to meet one of the most dangerous men of far east Asia.
His first impression of the young Lu heir was that he seemed a little too young. The second, that he was a little too neat and placid, and the overly bright and friendly smile didn't exactly contribute to add a badass hue to his character. The third thing he thought, the one which made he finally understand that he wasn't truly in the presence of the real heart of this fifty floor monster made of metal, glass and the bones of whoever dared to stand between Lu and success, was that he was too Korean.
“Aren't you a little too Korean to be Chinese?” he asked, without big preambles.
The guy and Kris shared a dumbfounded glance. “I'm Suho, the accountant.”
Now it was Chanyeol's turn to be perplexed, maybe even a little disappointed. “Oh. I thought I was going to meet, you know... “
His words fell into an awkward silence. Kris' eyebrow appeared ready to reach the roof and the accounting guy was still smiling like the world was made of candies.
“No,” replied Kris in the end with a sigh, “in case the thousands hundreds of safety systems that we encountered on our way here didn't scream it loud enough, Mr. Lu is slightly paranoid.”
“But I didn't see any trap coming here.”
“Because usually you don't have to see a trap or you won't fall into it like a fool, defying its purpose.”
Oh.
“Mr Lu didn't think that the idea of showing his face to a rookie killer who hates him for slaving his boyfriend was a particularly good one. So he decided not to join our little party tonight... You know, just a little precaution.”
“But let's talk about you, Chanyeol,” Suho presented him a thick paper crowded with little words and a suitcase, opening it like gangsters do during action movies to show perfectly lined rows of cash. Chanyeol hadn't seen that much money together in his whole life, but he kept glancing at the paper sheet. It looked glossy, important and very official. Very binding.
“And what's that?”
“Your contract of course.”
Suho reminded him of those models who were casted for television auctions, all positive smiles and elegant hands stroking a stainless steel pot or a discounted mattress, the ones who never fails to persuade people to phone the client line and order before it’s too late. Except Chanyeol wasn't sure he wanted to sign this contract, couldn’t shake away the wariness, for who knows whatever trick they had prepared for him.
In the end, he thought of Baekhyun when he wrote his name, he thought of Baekhyun and how difficult it must have been for him, since unlike Chanyeol he had no choice. Not that Chanyeol did have any other choice.
He signed the paper, feeling as if he had just made a pact with the devil himself.
part 2 >>
Rating: NC17
Pairing: Chanyeol/Baekhyun, hints of Yifan/Jongdae, Yifan/Baekhyun, Minho/Baekhyun, Lu Han/Minseok, Taemin/Jongin
Wordcount: 40k~
Warning: very heavy themes, highlight to read --> prostitution, murder, dubcon, gun!kink, copious amount of smut, mob!au, unbetaed
Disclaimer: EXO belongs to themselves and SME
Notes: this is probably the deepest fic I've ever written, it seems only right to me to publish it as a bday gift for my beautiful namja. Happy birthday Byun Baekhyun, from your considerably less talented and less attractive and less cool evil twin sister ♥ real A/N at the end
Summary: Baekhyun drowns in heavy makeup and sex with a different man every night to pay a debt. Chanyeol kills people for a powerful mob boss to buy his boyfriend's time. Lu Han is the evil puppeteer who plays with too many lives, including his own. To us there is no tomorrow, so tell me now.
Prologue
Now
Park Chanyeol opened his eyes and cursed as sunshine made his head feel like it was being pierced by a cloud of evil little needles.
The memories of the night before were hazy, a quick shot in the soft belly of his target and a lot of money. No need to think about poor guy’s family, no need to look in his eyes before he crumbled on the dirty concrete choking on his own blood.
The mere thought added a lot more emphasis on his need to retch, the rancid taste of last night alcohol in his mouth definitely not helping.
He tried to lift his arm but he couldn’t even feel it because someone’s head was nested on it, cutting all of his blood circulation. He pushed the guy’s face away from his body, took a quick look to the blondie collapsed on the floor on the other side and, cursing everything he knew, he got up to stumble into the bathroom and empty the content of his stomach.
There were stashes of cash, so new he wasn't imagining the faint scent of recently inked paper, all over the floor. He looked for his gun, only to find it stuck under a warm, asleep body. He thanked the gods that the kid hadn’t managed to shoot himself accidentally staining forever his loft’s interior with red.
Chanyeol didn’t remember the night before apart from the gig, but on his agenda there was a date with Baekhyun signed and circled by a red heart, courtesy of his partner. Baekhyun wasn't exactly a cheesy person, but he had his precious moments of unforgivable cuteness.
He didn’t really know how exactly he managed to go, with the help of a considerable amount of booze, from a date with Baekhyun to hooking up with two strangers who looked suspiciously similar to his lover. The blond one even had locks the way ByunBaek used to have back in secondary school, when he was going through that rebellion phase and he used to think that having blonde curls while wearing Chanyeol’s leather jacket gave him some kind of fallen angel aura.
The blonde boy stirred and Chanyeol looked at his face. It was nothing like Baekhyun’s. He didn’t waste time in waking up both of them and hastily throwing them out.
When he lifted his eyes onto the mirror, it showed him bloodshot eyes, chapped lips, ghostly pale face and a desperate frown. Not bad for a party night. He let himself fall on the bed, rolling between sheets who smelt like smoke, gunpowder and one-night stand. Not blood, because Chanyeol was a professional and never dirtied himself with blood.
Little by little, fragments of conversation and slippery images from the night before surfaced on his mind. He remembered Baekhyun, his eyes clean and bright without the shadow of make up for once, and his red cap. He remembered a fight and some harsh words. Funnily, he didn’t remember what they were fighting for, but it didn’t take a genius to guess. After all, Baekhyun had always hated Chanyeol’s work as much as Chanyeol hated Baekhyun’s.
“The only difference,” Baekhyun would say, “is that you have a choice.”
You could stop. You can stop. Please stop.
“Just once more,” would always be the reply.
And Chanyeol would pucker his lips like a puppy in need of a little cuddling and try to make himself little so that he could rest his head on Baekhyun’s neck and inhale his scent. Baekhyun’s nape is very sensitive and feeling Chanyeol’s breath gusting over it usually takes the will of arguing away from Baekhyun’s body, leaving him pliant and soft in Chanyeol’s hands, more prone to moan in delight and writhe in pleasure than to remember that Chanyeol always asks for once more and never really promises him he’ll stop.
This time, though, this time was different. This time there was something Chanyeol couldn’t exactly pinpoint yet, what with the throbbing of his head and the acute nausea, but nagged at him from the borders of his memory. This time they argued and Baekhyun ran away, leaving Chanyeol to party by himself, his only company a bag full of money and, later that night, two bodies willing to delete everything from his mind for a couple of hours.
It can’t end just like this.
“They can’t do it, Baek, I won’t let them do it.” He surged forward, clinging onto Baekhyun’s hoodie, preventing him to back off in surprise at hearing his shout. Baekhyun just slapped his hands away in retaliation.
“And how do you think to stop them? Ah? Tell me!”
He looked at his lover, always so feisty and violent, always ready to fight back no matter how much stronger and bigger the opponent was.
“I don’t know, I’ll just do something, I’ll…” he felt his voice raising, and he instantly regretted it because if he was shouting that meant Baekhyun would only shout louder.
“They already have me, Yeol,” and the slight hysteric nuance in his voice was heart-breaking, “get deeper in this mess and they’ll have you too and then-”
“And what should I do then?”
Knowing Baekhyun, he had probably gone to work, and it wasn’t difficult for Chanyeol to imagine him, lost in a sea of bodies, his eyes smoky and alluring, lips painted red and obscenely open, gasping as unknown hands, not Chanyeol’s hands, roamed on his body making him hot and bothered.
It wasn’t difficult to picture him lain on the bed like a doll, open, crying. Chanyeol felt the bile rising out again at the thought.
He heard footsteps outside, and his hand went straight for the gun. The door opened and it was Baekhyun, all smudged eyeliner and long fade out lipstick, the smell of the club clinging onto him like a second skin and a lonely defeat in his eyes.
Baekhyun standing at his door like a ghost, stepping on the same bills Chanyeol threw out at him the night before and looking up right into Chanyeol’s eyes with something, a challenge, a promise, surrender.
Chanyeol didn’t know what Baekhyun was willing to offer, so he was taking everything. It’s not like Baekhyun’s everything isn’t already yours, he thought frantically as Baekhyun landed on the bed, his hands clenching and unclenching on Chanyeol’s shoulders. No matter how many hands dirty this body, no matter how many nights he was someone else’s toy, he’s still yours yours yours mine mine mine.
Baekhyun didn’t even try to resist. His breath stilled, eyes locking with Chanyeol’s for a long moment before swift hands quickly defiled the first button of his shirt. When it came ucamee, all the tension seemed to leave his body and he unfolded under Chanyeol’s hungry gaze, his legs spreading on their own and Chanyeol spreading him even more before settling between them.
Kissing Baekhyun always felt like coming home, and the tiny little sounds of pleasure he made never failed to draw Chanyeol to madness. Baekhyun jerked like a too tense spring when Chanyeol’s fingers teased his crotch through the fabric, and the force of the movement caused the gun laid forgotten on the bed to fall on the floor with a loud thud. Both of them turned their head towards the sudden sound, and then Chanyeol reached out for the weapon, his chest against Baekhyun’s, his cock sliding over toned thighs.
He wouldn’t have never noticed it if not for Baekhyun's behaviour. He was just about to leave the gun on the bedside table, near and reachable but definitely out of the bed to avoid any possible incident, when he saw Baekhyun’s eyes focused on it, and felt his hand trembling on Chanyeol’s hip.
Without even thinking about it, he lowered the rifle until it was in front of Baekhyun’s face, pointed towards his furrowed brow, and stared at the way his eyes crossed in his attempt to focus on the barrel. Then he closed them, and his lips parted as his pink tongue darted to lick down on it. The taste must have not been the best, because it only lasted for a second, then he scrunched his nose and made a grimaced face, while Chanyeol felt his body burn, unbearably hot.
After having adjusted to the texture, Baekhyun gave other little experiments laps before ducking for a long one, almost taking the barrel in his mouth if only Chanyeol wouldn’t prevented it. He pulled back the gun and shoved three fingers between his lips, searching for his tongue.
The rifle was lowered until it made contact with Baekhyun’s crotch, still trapped in the kinky black panties that Baekhyun wore as his work uniform. When Chanyeol rubbed the barrel on Baekhyun’s shaft, also exploring his throat with calloused fingers, he moaned long and desperate, his hips canting to reach the gun and have more friction.
Chanyeol did know nothing about such a kink, not even after months of sex with Baekhyun. He would have wanted to comment, to make him feel shy and guilty, to take his revenge over all those times Baekhyun had used his own sexual experience to teas, bringing Chanyeol to the brick of insanity and making him feel inadequate.
He would've and he could have, but Baekhyun’s eyes were glossy and unfocused and his face had never been that red. The more he pushed the gun against his perineum the more he would blush, his lips opened in a silent request, something he couldn’t say out loud but also couldn’t help but mouth helplessly.
This thing, the weight of this discover, was too heavy and new for Chanyeol to indulge too much in it, not when his relationship with Baekhyun was already like a mine craft, every faux pas threatening to kill them both. So he didn’t tease, he didn’t accuse and he didn’t ask anything, he just resumed what he was already doing. And just having Baekhyun under him, just being able to rub all of this moans and pleas out of him would be enough for this night.
He fished for a condom from the drawer, fumbling with packets and half empty lube bottles and ignoring Baekhyun’s pleas for more now now I don’t need it, because he could be a true bastard who killed people for living and sometimes his fight with Baek were a little violent, he had to admit it, but he cared and he wanted Baekhyun to feel safe, at least with him.
“I am,” came the answer to something he wasn’t even aware he just said loudly, and Chanyeol kissed Baekhyun’s face before claiming his mouth again while he moved the rifle to trace Baekhyun’s inner thigh.
Twisting his hand, he made sure to reach lightly towards Baekhyun’s rear and only then Baekhyun went really wild and desperate, even trying to kick him in a futile attempt to move farther from the weapon, or maybe nearer, Chanyeol would have really liked to know. He retrieved the gun, this time setting it on the bedside table for good.
Baekhyun’s skin was sweaty and slick, difficult to grasp and hold onto, but Chanyeol did his best to keep him from squirming too much as he did a quick job of putting his fingers into him. When he was done with the preparations, Baekhyun was almost gone and Chanyeol himself was on the verge of screaming.
Before he could react, Baekhyun’s ankles were clinging on his calves and with a powerful shove of his hips, his lover somehow did manage to invert their positions and sit himself smugly on Chanyeol’s legs. It was a tight fit and Baekhyun looked ready to collapse any moment now, but Chanyeol hold him up with a hand at the small of his back, helping him to find a rhythm on his cock and thrusting to meet him.
He didn’t last long before he was coming, closing his eyes and feeling Baekhyun collapse on his chest as soon as Chanyeol stopped supporting him, the wet, sticky feeling on his stomach the only proof Baekhyun did actually come.
He would’ve laughed about having finally managed to shut up Baekhyun’s not-so-inner screamer, but the slow rising and falling of his lover’s chest against his own meant that Baekhyun was already sleeping.
Frowning, Chanyeol was left alone to clean them both and ask himself how many people other than him his boyfriend has actually satisfied that night.
“Just leave me be, Yeol!”, the shouting was getting worse, Chanyeol was just lucky he had a soundproof attic to contain all of Baekhyun’s voice and anger, “get out of my life, get out of this mess, stop trying to be the hero or something, stop killing people for no reason, stop-”
He saw red.
“No reason?” It was difficult to keep the hurt, that sharp sour taste out of his words, not when all he was doing, all he ever did was for Baekhyun’s sake. “No reason, Baek?
Tell me, do you enjoy being a whore that much? Are you that used to slut yourself like a bitch in heat every night? Ah? AH?” He didn’t care that he was tossing Baekhyun around, probably hurting him as his fingers were locked in a tight vice-like grip over the older boy’s arms.
Baekhyun’s eyes were starting to water, but Chanyeol knew the little tricks he wore under his sleeve all too well. He knew he had been trained by his most violent clients, the ones who would shake him, who tried to hurt him, and he had learnt how to sneak himself away from those kind of situation in the most easy way possible, by crying and look defenceless.
He didn’t fall for it, his grip grew tighter.
“Well, if that’s the case,” he said, seeing that Baekhyun wasn’t going to answer to his little windup, he was just going to stubbornly stay there and being the poor abused victim, “if that’s the case remember, dear, that as long as I can pay your boss with my work…”
He backed Baekhyun onto the coffee table, snatching a stash of money from above it.
“…with the money that I earn with my job,” and he flashed the cash on Baekhyun’s face, tracing the soft lines of it, lowering it so slowly it bordered on the obscene until he could tuck everything inside of his tight jeans, Baekhyun’s eyes going wide at the gesture, the tears prickling at the corners starting to look more real now “as long as I pay you’re my whore too, so be a good whore and bend a little more baby.”
The sun was fading when Baekhyun got out of the bed. Chanyeol was nowhere in sight.
His head hurt, his ass hurt even more. His pride was hurting more than anything else was, because what the fuck happened last night? Since when did he have a kink for… guns? He had always hated seeing Chanyeol using firearms, from their first serious fight after Chanyeol did his very first gig for Baekhyun’s boss, right before they ended up together.
And still, the rush of giving his life to Chanyeol, seeing the power in his hands. Their fight was fresh and vivid, and Chanyeol was all but hangover, what if he had shoot, what if he had decided, even for just one second, that Baekhyun deserved to be shut up. Baekhyun knew he deserved it, just like he knew Chanyeol loved him more than anything else, but seeing that possibility in his hands had been frightening and exciting at the same time. Chanyeol was hardly ever in control, always running like a mad man in hope to catch Baekhyun out of his messes, to save him from his mistakes.
More than anything Baekhyun was just tired of falling, drowning and taking his best friend, his boyfriend, down with him.
It had to stop, before things could really get out of control.
He knew from the start, from the numb look in Baekhyun’s eyes, that it wouldn’t have been a pleasant conversation.
When Baekhyun stopped talking he felt hollow and cold, his words slowly sinking into his conscience like ice.
“This is… Is this?” He could feel his voice tremble with every word, shaking from the strain to speak every syllable with a throat as dry as cotton paper, “Baekhyun…”
“This is goodbye, Yeol.”
No, no no no. It can’t end just like this.
Now
(There Is No Tomorrow)
Six months before now
Lu Han was the prince of the night. No one even knew his name, and no one out of his close circle of friends had ever seen his face and survived to tell anyone that the man, the boy really, who controlled the biggest underground empire of the capital, was in fact just a boy. With a very boyish face.
Of course, he didn’t built it himself. When it came down to Lu Corporation, the massive economic monster known to be able to swallow every kind of illegal business that dared to cross his path whole, the one who should be thanked was his father, Lu senior. Unfortunately, he had died on mysterious circumstances leaving his young, sneaky and cold-blooded son to inherit all of his fortune. Too bad.
Unlike the father, the son wasn’t interested in risking his life on the line to make everyone crawl in fear when they saw his face, and besides he didn’t even have a face that scary in the first place. He preferred people to fear a shadow, a name whispered in the darkness, the faceless threat that someone will come in the middle of the night to kill your children if you don’t behave properly.
Bribery was overrated, negotiation more than useless, legal practices weren’t even on the table. Lu Han’s favourite work policy was blackmail, and it was with some sort of sick fun that he sat down and watched people destroy their lives in the useless and weak attempt to save someone else’s.
Park Chanyeol and Byun Baekhyun were his textbook example.
The former was one of the best gunmen of his stable. The kid was gold with a gun in his hands, and it was professional too. Quick, clean, never hearing the neighbours complaining for the noise was a bonus feature.
Chanyeol was one of those people who always get the invitations to the cooler parties, VIP places and all that shit. It was as simple as a snap of fingers for him to infiltrate in every place, and when you have a smile like that who is going to notice the bulge of a weapon under your leather jacket? Not the women flooding at your feet, and neither the men, too busy with sending daggers at you through their eyes for outshining them (or flooding at your feet).
To think it was just a coincidence, a random twist of fate, the one who brought Park Chanyeol to Lu Han. It was Byun Baekhyun, of course. You can't say Park Chanyeol without saying Byun Baekhyun.
It was Byun Baekhyun and his stupid habit of sleeping around, sleeping with the wrong people, the ones who don’t care a fuck about you. It was Byun Baekhyun trying to get over Park Chanyeol in Lu Han’s opinion, but if you asked Baekhyun he wasn’t in love with Park Chanyeol at that time, he never had been and he surely isn’t now, he’d say. “We’re just fuck buddies,” that was the lie, and Lu Han laughed under his breath and put his arms around Baekhyun’s shoulder like he believed it when he really didn’t, and then they switched to another subject and kept applying the make-up for the night.
But, to get back on track, it was Byun Baekhyun and his parents, his father really, finding out he was gay and him not having enough money to make it when they threw their second son out on the streets, alone, him having not enough pride to call Chanyeol and ask for his help, which he really would've been better. They could have argued, and Chanyeol would've lent him some money, and then they could've made out like they were meant to be and Lu Han would've short of a whore and a gunman.
Sadly, Chanyeol was somewhere in Europe with his high school girlfriend at the time, Baekhyun had too much pride to call, and maybe he was just a bit jealous too, or more than a little, and so that’s why he ended up being indebted with Lu Han and working at the club house to repay that debt.
That’s when Chanyeol came into the picture, because Lu Han’s prices are very high and it’s difficult to repay it with just money, especially when you’re just a poor college student.
“I know the boss,” he said to Chanyeol, a few years ago “I mean, the Boss, the Lu boss, the one they said he killed his father to inherit the company, the one who owns Baekhyun. I know someone who knows him, I could ask…”
Chanyeol had always been a little stupid, because there was no way in hell a simple back dancer at the club, a nobody like the one Lu Han pretended to be, could be able to reach the infamous Lu boss who controlled everything from Macao to Seoul, and was now extending his Tokyo branch, thank you very much.
So good but so stupid, so easy to trust other people.
For what Chanyeol knew, Xiao Hannie was just one of Baekhyun’s co-workers, someone who danced and was fucked at the club to earn a little money, or someone who, just like Baekhyun, simply had to work there to repay a debt. He trusted him already from those two beers shared while they waited for Baekhyun’s pole show to end, one because he had to be on stage after him, the other because he wanted to see really how bad his best friend’s situation really was. And, more simply, because he got a sick warm in his belly seeing Baekhyun’s leather clad thighs sliding on the pole like they would on dick.
Baekhyun never got to know who had been the link between Chanyeol and his Boss. He just knew that, one day, Chanyeol came and snatched him from the dance floor into one of the second floor privet, threw him on the table and kissed him senseless.
“Chanyeol, what the,” he found himself steadily following Chanyeol. His feet were moving, even if he was already booked for the night, his head was hurting and he had no time for this.
He tried to force his mouth to form to protest. Chanyeol left him no space to talk.
“Shut up and come with me.”
Six years before now
It wasn’t their first kiss.
They had plenty of fumbling drunk experiments back then, Baekhyun even daring to put his hands on Chanyeol’s belt once, moved by the sudden awareness that Chanyeol’s dick was hardening and poking at his leg.
He clearly remembered Chanyeol moaning against his neck and jerking to catch his hand before Baekhyun could undo his belt. He recalled Chanyeol shivering and pinning Baekhyun’s hand to the glass of the car window like he didn’t want him to move it further as he kept kissing him for what felt like an eternity, Chanyeol’s body physically looming over his own as Baekhyun’s skin grew hotter and hotter.
Chanyeol hardly took control for himself, it was always Baekhyun who initiated physical contact between them. Figures, the only time Chanyeol would do something on his own would be to stop Baekhyun from going too further.
Later, Chanyeol just looked at him with his big scared eyes, as if he couldn’t believe what they were doing, like he couldn’t believe what Baekhyun was going to do to him.
For Baekhyun that was the day he decided he was into guys, and no set of boobs in the world could compare the feeling he got in his gut when someone was manhandling his ass, he was as surest as he had ever been.
For Chanyeol that was the day he decided he was in denial. He started to date a cute sophomore the week after, she became his girlfriend and they stayed together until forever, and they’ll get married and they’ll live happily ever after while Baekhyun sells his body to a different men every hour. And that's it.
“What was that?”
Chanyeol still had that face, a little betrayal, a little guilt, a little anger. Baekhyun just shrugged and turned away from him, eyes on the road.
“What was that, Baekhyun? What were you trying to do?”
And this time was difficult to ignore the question as Chanyeol’s voice started to sound more frantic. Still, Baekhyun didn’t want to look at his face again.
“Nothing. It was just. Nothing.” he spit out. “We just got a little carried away.”
“You mean you got carried away. More than a little carried away. I can’t believe you tried to…”
Ah, the burn of blunt rejection.
“Just forget it, Yeol.”
Six months before now
Except Chanyeol suddenly appeared, at the club.
Baekhyun had no fucking idea how Chanyeol found out about his job, not likely from Baekhyun’s parents since they were so ashamed of their own son. Not likely from one of their old friends, all lost in the fog of a past that seemed like a dream.
Chanyeol came into the club, and it was awful. It was awful, having to show the boy he was in love with since probably elementary school what kind of fallen person Baekhyun had become, what shameful things he had to do for a living.
It was beyond awkward, having to pole dance in front of his eyes knowing he would be ashamed for him, he would be ashamed of him, and he had to bit his tongue to avoid fainting when the club’s patrons started to tuck money into his pants, booking their slot for later.
He felt like dying could've been a better fate than facing Chanyeol’s eyes after such a performance, but when he got down the stage, when the first of many man of his night grabbed his arm to drag him to the back doors and into the privet, away from curious eyes, Chanyeol was already gone.
That night Baekhyun cried himself to sleep.
“He did come again, you know? Your friend.”
Baekhyun made a little non-committal noise, something in him exploding and dying like a supernova at the information.
“I think he wants it in your pants. He kept staring at your ass like he never saw it before.”
There was something really fucking annoying about Hannie and his outrageous habit of slowly pushing daggers in form of words deep into Baekhyun’s scars.
“I can assure you he did see it before, and very closely too. He still preferred his own girlfriend’s.” Lu Han was harshly pushed to the side to make space for Baekhyun’s exit, as the host announced his third and last number for that night. “Move over Hannie, it’s show time.”
Lu Han was left staring into space with a knowing smirk.
“Always so rude, and I was just about to tell him they broke up two years ago.”
He knew that Chanyeol had came back a few times, talked with the other dancers, mostly Lu Han and Jongdae, sometimes Jongin.
He never tried to talk to him, and Baekhyun never actually looked for him, afraid and ashamed.
He felt dreadful. It had been months since the last time he had felt something akin to the ground under his feet, always living under the distinct impression that he was sinking deeper and deeper on his own misery without ever getting the chance to get out of it.
Then, suddenly, Park Chanyeol had to come and destroy even that little thread of security he did still have. He knew what he felt for Chanyeol was wrong for him, and that he could never reciprocate his feelings, he grasped onto that knowledge to feel his sanity when everything else changed so fast he couldn’t even register it.
And then Chanyeol snatched this away from him too, leaving Baekhyun defenceless to his angry hands that tried to rip his clothes and cover every inch of exposed skin at the same time.
“What…” his lips were chapped, and the words got stuck on the edge of his mouth. He licked it, but Chanyeol didn’t even leave him a chance to speak again.
Baekhyun knew he should have done something to stop Chanyeol from physically assaulting his mouth with his tongue in the darkness of the privet, knew he should ask him what he was doing or, even better, just push him and ran away from the shame of being a whore even for his best friend.
The second floor privet was reserved for this kind of activities, and if Chanyeol brought him here without anyone from the security trying to stop him, that could only mean he was a client.
Baekhyun was used to selling his body, but not like this, not with Chanyeol. Chanyeol, who could have had it for free, whenever he wanted, wherever he wanted, except now Baekhyun’s body was not his own anymore so he couldn’t even give it to Chanyeol out of his own choice.
In the end what made him react was not the shame, because for how much he could be ashamed he was also weak, and a hypocrite, and Chanyeol’s tongue stroking his own was still the best thing in the world for him.
What woke him up from the dream was the smell of blood and gunpowder, scents he had learned to recognize from the few times he had slept with one of the boss’ man. They called themselves hitmen, but for him they were just plain killers, and they carried their work with them even in the bedroom, the gun always at hand reach.
Baekhyun fought against the fog clouding the back of his mind from the urge of the kiss to reach tentatively under Chanyeol’s jacket, ignoring the lustful moan that the gesture got him, until his hands touched the unmistakable barrel of a gun. He tensed like a violin’s cord, and Chanyeol froze too when he realized the reason.
“I still don’t understand who the fuck set him up for the fucking job…” Baekhyun was bitter and angry, he had cried all the night and his eyes were puffy and red, blood-shoot.
Lu Han stroked his hair, gently, almost motherly.
“Han, what do I do? I can let him do something like this for me. I don’t deserve it, not in the slightest. I’m just a waste, and now I’m wasting him too.”
More sobs, more tears.
“Maybe if you were, you know, able to earn more money in a night you’d be able to pay your debt faster, that way he wouldn’t be forced to work for him.”
Baekhyun’s eyes shot open, but his head didn’t move from its spot between his knees.
“There’s no way I can make more money than what I’m doing now, Hannie, you know that.”
“Just trust me.” Lu Han smiled, a with a last kiss on Baekhyun’s forehead he went to pick a cup of water for his friend.
While Chanyeol made an excellent killer Baekhyun was an average whore.
He just didn’t have it in him, Lu Han thought after seeing him deal with the club patrons for the very first time. He didn’t have the face, nor the attitude. Kai, indeed, was the whore. Luscious lips, full nose, long legs, he resembled one of those Greek statues that Lu Han’s partners in crime liked to spend all of their money on. And since Kai was like living art they paid for him as much as they paid for ancient pieces of stone. And more. Kai could dance and he mastered the sexy stare like he owned it. Kai was the prince of the club.
Baekhyun didn’t have any of it. He was just a lost puppy. Sure, apply some make-up on his face and he’ll be able to summon a sexy look from nowhere. The thick thighs unmistakably helped his cause, but in the end he didn’t want to be part of it, he hated his job and Lu Han really thought he wasn’t cut out for prostitute life.
It was a surprise to find out that Baekhyun, the same Baekhyun who didn’t have any kind of training, who didn’t have the face nor the body, the lost puppy with nowhere to go, was actually even more popular than Kai, especially with old patrons.
“There’s something about him,” said one of Lu Han’s favourite regulars while he undressed him for the night, “something which is really alluring, he make me want to put him on his knees and take him all night.”
Lu Han snorted at the overly romantic comment, but he knew Yunho wouldn’t care about politeness and etiquette in front of a whore.
Between his clients, he especially liked Jung Yunho, the leader of a criminal organization so big it could rival Lu’s empire.
Some years ago, when Lu Han’s father was still fighting for crime supremacy in China, Yunho leaded the most powerful and frightening mob of all Asia, controlling everything that happened in Japan, South Korea, South-East Asia and even part of China. The five bosses were a legend, until an internal fight tore them apart from the inside and they separated in two different organizations, none of them as powerful as the one they had before the split up.
That was when Lu senior surged from China and occupied the vacant place of King of Crime in Seoul, after having secured his position in his homeland. They were on relatively good terms now, Lu Han’s group and Yunho’s, sometimes they even collaborated on difficult trades or exchange dangerous goods and information.
Since he was a kid Lu Han had always listened stories about this man, this Jung Yunho, who despite their frail alliance wouldn’t waver for a second before killing him if he knew the surname of the boy laying on his bed with his ass raised up in the air.
Nevertheless, for Yunho, and for everyone else, Lu Han was just Han, Hannie, Xiao Han, one of the boys who sell their bodies at the club for whoever has enough money to buy it. They thought he was the whore, they thought they were buying his body, but in the end he was just finding company for the night, getting money he didn't even need from it, and he was even able to hear the juiciest gossips from the mob world.
This thing about Baekhyun, though, made him extremely curious. If it were him, he’d never look at the guy for more than a second. Too anonymous and boring.
“He’s the look on his face.” said Kris as they brunched the morning after.
Lu Han just looked at him with a quizzical face. “What?”
“Byun.” Kris, Yifan, bodyguard slash best friend slash right-hand man of all his life, sipped his Bellini with a frown. “He always has this look, on his face, like it’s torn between spitting in your face for daring to even lay your eyes on him and begging you to take him as soon as possible.
When I slept with him…”
“You slept with him? When? Why?” Lu Han deserted the salmon to listen to Yifan’s story. “Tell me!”
“Don’t interrupt me then.” came Yifan’s warning tone. Lu Han raised his palms in surrender and stared at him expectantly.
“I am entitled to sleep with our employees, you know.” said Yifan plucking invisible dust from his flawlessly ironed Italian suit. Lu Han slapped his sleeve to get him to hurry.
“I slept with him twice, or thrice, and I understand why he’s so… wanted. I can’t explain it, but it gave me the feeling he’s one of those guys who makes you want to be rough, you know? I slept with Jongin, too, but with him I enjoyed the sex and that was all. With Byun I enjoyed being able to overpower him, to humiliate him, because it seemed like the thing he dreaded the most and at the same time he was craving it so much… It’s difficult to explain.”
“So,” Lu Han munched on the olive, “you liked the sex because you could be a cold cruel bastard to him but you didn’t have to bear the later guilt of treating another human being like crap?”
“Why do you always have to make me sound like a total bastard?” replied Yifan, forsaking the food and hurrying towards the lounge to find solace in a quick smoke.
Lu Han’s voice followed him outside, taunting and smug.
“Because you are.”
“I want to help you.”
“Go home, Yeol. Live your life. Be happy. I’ll figure something out… I’ll do well, I promise.”
“No, you won’t. Lu Han said you make really good money, they won’t let you get away.”
“Still, I don’t want your pity.”
“It’s not pity. It’s never, I… How could it ever be pity, Baek?”
“Oh, come on Park!” The surname sounded alien on Baekhyun’s tongue and Chanyeol cringed. “When was the last time we talked, anyway? Just take your sorry ass out of his place, because you don’t belong here.”
“Except I do,” he stilled, sending a glance to the full holster on his chest, “now I do.”
“Is that your answer? Really?” Baekhyun was incredulous, and slightly hysteric, as if he had forgotten about the gun and seeing it, still loaded and pressed onto Chanyeol’s side where the jacket would have covered it fairly well, suddenly reminded him the gravity of the situation. “Becoming one of them? One of the men who pay to see me at night, is this-”
“Stop! You don’t know-!”
“No, you stop. Stop being a stubborn child, stop wasting the life you managed to build for yourself, stop doing this. Just stop.”
Stop getting my hopes up Chanyeol, stop messing with my head, stop looking at me with those big sad eyes, this isn’t the day before the end of school anymore, when you pleaded me to skip school to go to the beach with you.
He had accepted, because he could never say no to Chanyeol, so they took the train and spent the rest of the day with their jeans rolled up and their feet soaked on the shore, because it was raining an too cold to actually get naked and inside the water.
Seemed like a lifetime ago.
“That night,” Chanyeol’s voice tore up his memories, “in the car-”
“Didn’t I say to forget it?” And now there was no way Chanyeol could have missed his panicked tone. “I said-”
Chanyeol cut him off impatiently. “That night, in the car,” he said in a breath, “I was scared.”
“Doesn’t matter, it’s-”
“That night I wanted to fuck you.”
Baekhyun, finally, shut up, his pupils huge.
“I would have done it, and I know you wanted it too. But I was scared.”
Chanyeol wasn’t looking at him. His eyes were clouded, almost like he was recollecting that night, again, in his head. Maybe thinking about how things could have gone from there, if he only…
“I still want to do it, though. Even” and now he was looking into Baekhyun’s eyes, no doubt in his ones, “now. I want to be the only one who can do it.”
Baekhyun slowly sagged onto the ground, his legs no more supporting him. He could barely hear his own voice over the sound of his own heartbeat dictating the rhythmic push and pull of all of the blood in the desperate rush to reach his head.
“A bit late for that.”
“Not if I help you.” He sounded so sincere. “Let me help you Baek. Let me.”
He outstretched a hand to caress Baekhyun’s cheek and left it suspended in the air, as if he was afraid to do it and was waiting for some kind of permission from Baekhyun.
Baekhyun looked at him from under trembling lashes, tugging at his bottom lip from the corner of the mouth. For a second, something flickered in his heavily painted eyes. The shadow of a thunderbolt of too many emotions battling each other in his gaze, each one too weak and confused to prevail on the others and surface on his face.
It lasted only a moment. Then, jerking away from Chanyeol’s warmth, he bolted.
It didn’t take a genius to guess why Baekhyun was avoiding him.
“Now that I think about it,” chimed in Han from where he was sprawled on the counter playing with an empty vodka bottle, “it was a very dick move, you know, booking him for the night.”
He hiccupped and then he arranged his limbs on the couch until his legs were obscenely spread and his feet trapped in dark leather stilettos were dirtying the velvety seats.
It was too early for the club to open yet, but the staff was already around.
One of the bouncers whistled and licked his lips at Han’s show-off, but he just gave him the finger in response and started rubbing his dick. Jongdae sighed and disappeared to put on his make up for the night.
The new barman flushed an impossible shade of red and almost dropped a bottle on the floor. Xiao Han licked his lips while keeping eye contact with him, making him squirm, and Jongin laughed at the poor guy’s discomfort.
Now that he was working for the company, Chanyeol was technically part of the staff, so he had permission to stroll around the place to look for Baekhyun, but he wasn’t having this much luck in actually finding him.
“You should have thought it better,” continued Han, “because I have the fair suspicion you gave him a…” he raised his eyebrows suggestively, “slightly different message than what you were really trying to convey.”
Jongdae managed to frown at him, even as he was applying eyeliner with a brush.
“Because you were just going to talk to him, right Chanyeol? You weren’t going to be a giant ass and actually try to fuck him on the fucking privet where he’s been fucked for the last year of his life, right Chanyeol?”
Jongdae was usually pretty harmless, but maybe it was the light, maybe it was the single lined eye staring at him as if he wanted to stab him, his twin one closed as Jongdae managed to put on make-up without even having to look at the mirror, Chanyeol felt very endangered.
Jongin just looked him like he was a fucking idiot.
I truly am an idiot, thought Chanyeol slamming his head on the table.
Baekhyun had called in sick and only Han and Jongdae knew where he lived. No need to say neither of them wanted to tell him.
Chanyeol had no clue, but he needed to talk with him. And if he had to kneel in front of Han’s flexed legs and beg, he was ready to do it. More or less.
“You won’t need their help, after all.” Jongin made a beck towards the back door.
Han straightened right away and grasping Chanyeol’s right ear, he turned him towards the boy now entering the room.
“Looks like your princess is here.”
Chanyeol would never forget what he felt when he killed a man for the first time, that powerful mix of empowerment and excitement that hit him like a train wreck and left him shaking and unsure on his legs. The hand holding up the gun was the only part of him that wasn't tingling, feeling so numb it almost seemed like someone else's limb. It lasted two minutes before he collapsed on the ground and retched, cursing and tearing from the effort to regain his breath. He cried on the cold concrete for the man he killed, for the two men he killed that night, because he felt like he had died too.
Make it three, because he knew somewhere deep in his soul that this thing, knowing what he did in order to help him, would have killed Baekhyun inside too.
He felt an idiot, for not coming back before, he felt like hitting Baekhyun for not telling him, for not even trying to reach out to him when he was in need. At the same time he knew it was useless even thinking about it, for Baekhyun was proud and stubborn, and would have never tried to contact him, not after the utter failure that was their night, their probably last night as true friends, before everything changed.
It was true that Chanyeol wanted him back then, he wanted with a desperation he didn't think Baekhyun would have understood. Baekhyun was hopeless in his own little way because he thought Chanyeol didn't reciprocate his feelings, but Chanyeol knew about it and wanted it as much, but he was too afraid.
Baekhyun feared Chanyeol, his reaction, that he could end their friendship and never be with him again. Chanyeol feared the entire world. His parents, his teachers, his classmates, everyone who could have seen them walking with their hands intertwined would have became an enemy to a guy who was used to have everyone falling to his charms, the most popular one.
When Chanyeol's thoughts went back to that time every worry, every fear, every doubt seemed hollow and futile comparing to what he had to deal with in the present.
His best friend was selling his body to a luxurious brothel owned by a young mysterious crime lord. Only God knew how much time would pass before Baekhyun caught something, or one of his clients, the ones who did the same things that Chanyeol now did, the one with guns and no qualms to use it, tried to hurt him in one way or another. And he couldn't let it happen. He just couldn't. There was too much that he let happen without knowing it, too much he would never forgive himself of being unable to prevent.
The mere thought of what could have happened, what he was trying desperately to avoid from now on, gave him chills colder than the ones that hit him when Xiao Han proposed him the job.
He fought to raise himself from the ground, where he was almost laying in the city dirt and his own retch. His forehead was wet with sweat and when he fixed his hair, he found traces of blood in his fingers, still fresh and sticky. Cursing, he put the gun on the wasn't aware he was still holding inside the jacket, fishing a tissue with his now free right hand and swiping it across his hands and face. He hoped no one noticed anything strange. Besides, he wasn't going to visit a place unused to such scenes.
He was going to the clubhouse, but in a place he hadn't seen yet.
Not in the basement where he Baekhyun, Lu Han or Jongin showed off the goods on a badly lit squalid stage, nor in the suffocating privet, with their fake luxurious furniture and the infinite collection of sex toys and strong drinks hidden in the cabinets to provide the best experience possible.
He had every intention to visit the private rooms too, though he still didn't know what to do with Baekhyun since he had the faint suspicion he wouldn't be happy to know where Chanyeol had found the money to buy him for an entire night.
Still, he wanted to see him. He had just killed a man for him and he wanted nothing more than his best friend's comfort.
Baekhyun was the best at comforting him, like when Chanyeol managed to blow up the lab in chemistry II of sophomore year and the principal suspended chemistry lessons for a week and Chanyeol got a suspension too, for damaging the school property. He was the school hero of the month. Everyone else cheered and thanked him, but in the end it was Baekhyun's chest the place he chose to cry on, thinking about how to tell his parents their stupid son did another one of his deeds.
Chanyeol wondered what his parents, his sister, would have thought of him now. They always liked Baekhyun, said he had a good influence on their son. Would they resent him now?
He entered the hall and without thinking and his feet started to drag him towards the soft red lights of the club. Kris grabbed him and they slowly walked into the elevator, the taller man forcefully hitting the door-closing button before turning to Chanyeol, his posture rigid.
“There's dry blood on your brow, you know?”
“I thought I cleaned everything properly. “
“It's important that you're not covered in blood, especially if you're going to use the main entrance like you own the place.”
Chanyeol chose to stare at Kris' reflection on the mirror wall.
One of the elevator's sides was nothing but pure glass, diving right into a full view of Seoul's shadiest district. A dirty and messy chaos of skyscrapers reaching the sky while at their roots, in the suffocating and stinky little streets, flourished a new generation of little gangsters, dealers, low-level whores and informers.
The elevator slowly made its way past the offices, the supposedly clean face of the Lu empire - shipping companies, an army of attorneys, banks, industrial groups, important politicians - and let’s not forget the totally legal brothel in the basement, thought Chanyeol bitterly.
The view grew even more stunning when they reached the last floors, and Kris had to get his fingerprints scanned by a tiny electronic device to go on. While the lower floors were full of people, like a nest of wasps ready to explode at the minimal pressure, the more they proceeded the emptier became. No lights, no telephone ringing, just long, hollow aisles leading to darkness and the beauty of the city lights shining under their eyes. He understood why the boss chose such a place for his private rooms.
“Most of the rot of this city is crowded in this district,” he murmured absentmindedly, “and from here you can see it all.” And control it even better, he thought.
Kris’ voice shook his mind from its little reverie. “Are you even listening to me, Park?”
Chanyeol shrugged. Not really.
“Maybe my words would be able find their way to your head if I'd just shoot a hole in it.”
“I killed a man today,” was the quiet response. “Sorry if I am more shaken because I actually executed a guy on behalf of a man wanted by the intelligence of at least twenty three states, than for a little brain splattered on my forehead.”
Chanyeol try to say it as nonchalantly as possible, but his fists were still shaking.
Kris sighed, that's why he hated newbies. “Just make sure to use the staff entry next time. We don't want any,” poignant pause, “incident to occur, don't we?”
We don't want any incident to occur to Baekhyun.
“I understand sir. I won't do it again.”
The elevator stopped with a ping, and they stepped in the attic, where a young man was waiting for them at the mahogany desk.
Chanyeol's heart was beating furiously against its ribcage, the sensation similar to the one he felt when he pulled the trigger, back in the alley.
He couldn't believe he was going to meet one of the most dangerous men of far east Asia.
His first impression of the young Lu heir was that he seemed a little too young. The second, that he was a little too neat and placid, and the overly bright and friendly smile didn't exactly contribute to add a badass hue to his character. The third thing he thought, the one which made he finally understand that he wasn't truly in the presence of the real heart of this fifty floor monster made of metal, glass and the bones of whoever dared to stand between Lu and success, was that he was too Korean.
“Aren't you a little too Korean to be Chinese?” he asked, without big preambles.
The guy and Kris shared a dumbfounded glance. “I'm Suho, the accountant.”
Now it was Chanyeol's turn to be perplexed, maybe even a little disappointed. “Oh. I thought I was going to meet, you know... “
His words fell into an awkward silence. Kris' eyebrow appeared ready to reach the roof and the accounting guy was still smiling like the world was made of candies.
“No,” replied Kris in the end with a sigh, “in case the thousands hundreds of safety systems that we encountered on our way here didn't scream it loud enough, Mr. Lu is slightly paranoid.”
“But I didn't see any trap coming here.”
“Because usually you don't have to see a trap or you won't fall into it like a fool, defying its purpose.”
Oh.
“Mr Lu didn't think that the idea of showing his face to a rookie killer who hates him for slaving his boyfriend was a particularly good one. So he decided not to join our little party tonight... You know, just a little precaution.”
“But let's talk about you, Chanyeol,” Suho presented him a thick paper crowded with little words and a suitcase, opening it like gangsters do during action movies to show perfectly lined rows of cash. Chanyeol hadn't seen that much money together in his whole life, but he kept glancing at the paper sheet. It looked glossy, important and very official. Very binding.
“And what's that?”
“Your contract of course.”
Suho reminded him of those models who were casted for television auctions, all positive smiles and elegant hands stroking a stainless steel pot or a discounted mattress, the ones who never fails to persuade people to phone the client line and order before it’s too late. Except Chanyeol wasn't sure he wanted to sign this contract, couldn’t shake away the wariness, for who knows whatever trick they had prepared for him.
In the end, he thought of Baekhyun when he wrote his name, he thought of Baekhyun and how difficult it must have been for him, since unlike Chanyeol he had no choice. Not that Chanyeol did have any other choice.
He signed the paper, feeling as if he had just made a pact with the devil himself.
part 2 >>