Super Junior AU; Various Pairings; Love/War
Title: Love/War (3/?)
Fandom: Super Junior AU (Mafia)
Pairings: Siwon/Hankyung/Heechul (Hankyung/Heechul), Kyuhyun/Zhou Mi, Kibum/Donghae, Yehsung/Ryeowook, Kangin/Eeteuk, Tablo/Eunhyuk
Pairings in Chapter: Kangin/Eeteuk, Hankyung/Heechul
Word Count: 3,514
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The Kim family and the Choi family are the two oldest families in Seoul: where other families have been born, grown, and then fell apart, they remain strong. Unfortunately, they are mortal enemies, and where one lives alongside the law, the other is beyond any control. It's up to the new generation of members to destroy the violence between them - even if it means destroying one family in the process.
A/N: I HATE WRITING ANGST >:( This has nothing to do with this chapter, mind, just. >:(
Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3
Eeteuk came to the family when Kangin was fifteen - a boy of sixteen; slight, with thin, feminine features, unremarkable beyond his beauty, nothing that looked like he would later become one of the leaders of the Kim family. He hadn’t been called Eeteuk then, his name was Park Jungsu, the heir to the Park family line. The Park family had occupied territory in the west of the city, fairly small though at the time they had been influential.
Eeteuk had left the Park household one night in a fit of anger over something his father had done; unable to see how his decision had been correct, Eeteuk had chosen to leave in the hopes that his father would see the error of his ways. It had been late when he stormed out, a small suitcase in his hand, and no one tried to stop him. No one had believed that he would really leave, and once he had, no one thought that he would have anywhere to go.
That was true - he didn’t have anywhere to go. Influential though the Park family were, they were disliked by the people who lived in the area of their power, and so it was unlikely that Eeteuk would find any solace with them. This left him with living on the street, or seeking refuge with another family. As a young boy of sixteen, it was not surprising that he chose the second.
He had three choices: the Choi family, who were known for their lack of sympathy for the other families, the Lee family, who were already taking the first steps onto the path of their eventual destruction, and the Kim family, who were fairly unknown to the Park family, as they occupied completely different areas of power. The closest family in terms of distance were the Choi family - Eeteuk chose to travel on foot to the Kim family.
He arrived at the house just before midnight, and stood outside the gates begging the man on duty to let him in. Eventually they asked his name, and then they fetched someone to speak to him. Eeteuk had expected, perhaps, the ruler of the family, or someone with a great deal of power - in the world that he occupied, he was used to that level of respect. Instead, he was greeted by an annoyed looking boy about his own age, who stared at him impassively through the bars of the gate.
“What?” asked the boy.
“I’d rather speak to the head of your family, if that’s okay,” said Eeteuk nervously. The boy flicked his hair out his eyes in irritation.
“My father’s in bed already,” he said. “You can talk to me, its okay. I’m not too beneath you, I hope.”
“No,” said Eeteuk desperately. “That’s not what I meant. I just didn’t want to get other people involved in this.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Park Jungsu,” said Eeteuk. “I’m the only son of the current leader of the Park family. I need somewhere to sleep for the night.”
“Go home,” said the boy with a sigh.
“I can’t,” said Eeteuk, gripping the bars of the gate. “I’ve walked out.”
The boy regarded him thoughtfully, and then motioned for the gatekeeper to open the doors. Eeteuk stood clutching his case to his chest, trying to desperately to not show how terrified he felt as the boy waved a hand at him, inviting him in.
Eeteuk wasn’t to know, when he stepped over the gates into the Kim estate, that he was taking steps that would change his life. At the time, he was just aware that he was stepping into a main yard that was similar to the Park’s own, a deserted place with a path to a main door lit with lamps. They went through the front doors into a grand hall, with two staircases leading off onto the second floor, and from there another two to lead to a third floor. It wasn’t up any of these that the boy led him up, but instead down a corridor to the left, then right, left, left again; until they came to an unremarkable door. The boy went inside. After a moment, his hand came around the door and motioned for Eeteuk to follow him.
Eeteuk stepped into a well-lit bedroom, large and spacious, with expensive drapes pulled closed over the windows and a four-poster bed covered in a dark purple cover. The boy opened one of the wardrobes and pulled out two white towels, which he placed on the bed, and he walked over to a door near the top right-hand corner. He pulled it open to reveal an en-suite bathroom. “You can take a shower in here,” he said. “I’ll come for you at eight tomorrow morning to get you something to eat, and to take you to see my father.”
“You mean I’m staying here?” Eeteuk asked, with some surprise.
“Where else would you be staying?” asked the boy. “It’s only a guest room.”
“It’s bigger than my bedroom back home,” said Eeteuk honestly.
The boy regarded him again, and then strode purposefully to the door. He paused with his hand on the handle. “My father is ill,” he said. “Be ready at eight sharp, I don’t want to take up too much of his time.”
He pulled the door open to go out of the room. “Wait,” called Eeteuk before he could stop himself, and he blushed a little when the boy turned back around. “Thank you,” said Eeteuk. “What’s your name?”
“My name?” The boy faced him. “I’m Kim Youngwoon.”
***
“No,” said Heechul, turning his head to glare at Hankyung. “I don’t care what you say, I’m not doing it.”
“But Heechul,” said Hankyung, trying his best to continue to be patient and responsible. “We’re the only ones that Eun will see.”
“Yeah,” said Heechul. “That’s because he’s a pervert who gropes me.”
“Despite popular belief, not everyone is in love with you.”
“Beyond that being a complete lie,” said Heechul, ignoring Hankyung’s sigh of annoyance, “I am not making this up. Whenever we go see Eun, he always gropes me under the table.”
“No, that’s me,” said Hankyung. Heechul snarled at him.
“I don’t care what you say to get me to come,” he said. “I’m not going back to Eun’s place. I’m going to tell Eeteuk to make Sungmin go, he always likes the attention. I don’t give a fuck what he thinks, I’m not doing it-”
“Heechul-”
“And I don’t care what Kangin says, because he’s only two years older and who gives a fuck if he’s-”
“Heechul, would you watch-”
“-the head of the family, that’s just a tech-”
He walked into someone; someone hard and unyielding, and because Heechul had been mid-step, he was definitely at a disadvantage. He just had time to think fuck, I hope no one ever finds out about this and Eeteuk will probably make me go to Eun’s just to make up for this embarrassment before he braced himself for the impact. Two hands shot out and fastened around the tops of his arms, while Hankyung’s arm slipped around his waist to keep him upright that way. He opened his eyes and blinked, and then smirked.
“If you wanted meet up with us again, I’m sure you didn’t have to literally walk into me,” he said, as Siwon stared at him.
“Oh!” he said, and released his hold. “Sorry, innate reaction.”
“He’s such a gentleman,” said Heechul disdainfully.
“I did try to warn you,” pointed out Hankyung.
“Clearly not hard enough,” Heechul retorted.
“I hate it when you blame me,” said Hankyung, scowling at him.
“What are you doing here?” Heechul asked Siwon, who looked a little taken-aback by the question.
“What do you mean?” he asked, nervous. “Why shouldn’t I be here?”
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” said Heechul. “I believe in destiny.” His face was so straight that Hankyung was almost taken in by it - Siwon didn’t stand a chance.
“Really?” he asked eagerly. “Because sometimes, I think that I do too.”
“I was being sarcastic,” said Heechul flatly. Siwon’s face fell.
“Oh,” he said.
“But you sound like you’ve got a story to tell,” said Heechul with a grin. “You should tell us it. Is it a girl? Is it love at first sight? God, I hate things like that.”
“We have somewhere to be,” Hankyung reminded him.
“I’m not going,” said Heechul, without looking at him. “It’s like I’ve found a son to look after. I want to know about this girl that he’s found!”
“There is something inherently wrong in that statement,” said Hankyung. “I can’t work out what it is, but there’s something.”
“Yeah,” said Siwon quietly. “There is something.”
“You can’t stand around here all day and gossip,” said Hankyung. “We have a place that we need to be.”
“As do I,” said Siwon with a grin.
“I am surrounded by people that are no fun,” said Heechul.
***
“Okay, now this is just getting creepy,” said Heechul.
Hankyung had to agree - within a week and a half, they had bumped into Siwon five times, and not all of them had been in the nightclub that they had first met him in. After the first three times, they had seen him in a restaurant eating with someone who looked like his father, and this time, in a coffee shop that they had gone to in order to check some stocking accounts. Now that their business was complete, they had come out to get something to drink - and there was Siwon, sitting in one of the armchairs, reading a book.
Heechul stalked over to him and pulled the book from his hands before Siwon even realised what was happening. He looked at the cover as Siwon’s head shot up, face shocked and surprised, before he noticed who it was and he smiled.
“This book looks boring,” said Heechul.
“It’s not, really,” said Siwon. “It’s a classic.”
“Probably really is boring” said Heechul. “Classically boring.” He handed it back to Siwon, just as Hankyung reached them. He glanced at the title but couldn’t decipher it.
“It’s a play,” said Siwon. “Written by an old English playwright. It’s about a young boy and girl who are from enemy families, who fall in love with each other but are unable to tell their parents because of the tensions.”
“What’s the name?” Hankyung asked, slipping into one of the chairs that surrounded the table that Siwon’s coffee rested on.
“Romeo and Juliet,” said Siwon. His voice held a very slight accent on the English - it was, at least, much better than Heechul’s, or indeed, anyone else’s in the family. There was a reason they made Henry meet any foreign clients; the only ones he could meet. Hankyung looked at Siwon with increased interest, and some confusion. For a trade man’s son, he was remarkably well educated.
“But fancy meeting you here,” said Heechul with a meaningful look at Hankyung. “Anyone would think it was planned.”
“I’ve been here for half an hour now,” said Siwon with a shrug. “If anything, you two are the ones who walked in on me.”
“Now that was a good choice of words,” said Heechul with a grin. Siwon choked a little on the sip of coffee he had just taken. Heechul laughed gleefully and took the seat next to Hankyung, and with a wave his hand, ordered their usual drinks. Hankyung glared at him - such a move would let it be known who they were.
He wasn’t sure, now, why they were keeping up the pretence of not telling Siwon who they were, that they came from a family. To begin with, it had been because they had met the younger man on Choi territory, and telling him could have been dangerous. Since then, he had been increasingly on Kim territory, and everyone on their side of the city knew exactly who they were. Siwon, however, still didn’t seem to be aware. Heechul found it funny, wanted to keep it going as long as possible, but Hankyung worried about the friendship that had been built up between them. How much longer could it go on, before either Siwon found out, or it became a stupid, silly, inconsequential game? How would he react, when he learnt the truth?
“You appear to be well known around here,” commented Siwon. Heechul nodded smugly and slung his legs over the arm of the chair, resting his back against Hankyung’s side.
“We come here often.” Hankyung was quick to offer an explanation, a lie though it was.
Siwon grinned, reached over the side of his chair, and pulled a black file from his bag, which he placed on his knees. He opened it, and flicked through it. “You don’t have to lie anymore,” he said casually.
Heechul twisted his head to look at Hankyung with confusion. Hankyung’s heart sank. “What?” he asked, acting innocent. He had wanted the truth to come out on his terms, where he could be sure that only certain facts could be known, so he could be cautious.
“It was clever,” said Siwon, still grinning, as if it was a joke. “Telling me that you don’t have a family name, when, of course, Hankyung is your full Korean name. Isn’t it, Han Geng?”
Heechul shot upright, swinging his legs around and sitting in an almost-standing position. His hand dived into his pocket; they heard the audible click of his gun. “Shut the fuck up,” he hissed.
Siwon looked surprised at the violence of the reaction - Hankyung couldn’t move, frozen in place by his Chinese name, the shock of it - but he continued nevertheless. “Kim Heechul,” he said, reading from his file. “Second son of the old Kim family leader, now heir to the family should anything happen to Kangin, was Kim Youngwoon, the eldest son, and Eeteuk, was Park Jungsu, heir to the now gone Park family.”
“What the fuck?” spat Heechul. “Did you spy on us or something?”
“I didn’t need to,” said Siwon. “You’re well liked around here, you and your family. It was merely a case of asking the right questions.”
“Why?” asked Heechul, not removing his hand from his pocket. “What’s it got to do with you?”
Siwon shrugged. “I wanted to know,” he said, almost apologetic about it. “About who you were. You knew about me, and I wanted to know about you, so I found out.”
“That name,” said Hankyung softly. “How did you find that name? No one around here knows that name.”
Siwon faltered for a moment, and then closed his file. “Research,” he said. “I must have just asked the right people.” Heechul didn’t stop glaring; Hankyung remained just as tense. “I just wanted to know,” said Siwon softly.
Hankyung nodded tensely. “You know our pasts,” he said.
“No,” said Siwon, quick to interrupt. “I could find very little truly about you. The people who live in your territory give me your names, but refused to yield any other information. I didn’t find anything about - you.”
“Why?” asked Heechul, leaning forward. He picked up the file and flicked through it, face blank. “Why do you want to know about us?”
“What do you want from us?” asked Hankyung.
Siwon shook his head. “I don’t want anything from you,” he said. “Except, I’d quite like to - meet your family.”
***
Kangin’s father had been ill, truly ill, although he managed to survive for another two years after the time that Eeteuk first met him. A frail man, in his early fifties, yet who looked decades older, who lay on the bed and just accepted what Kangin told him. Kim Youngwoon, a boy of fifteen, heir apparent - and yet who already carried out the duties of a family leader.
Eeteuk was supposed to leave at the end of the first day, or at least, that had been what he had planned, but Kangin offered him his room again for the night, and then again the next day. Before Eeteuk realised, he had stayed there for a week, and his father had come to see what had become of him.
“I’m not coming back,” he told his father. “I’m staying here. I’m joining the Kim family.”
Eeteuk had only been there for a week, but that was enough time for him. He had seen what the Kim family did; quietly, on the low, but always there, doing whatever would be best for the people who lived in the area under their power. They liaised with the police to sort out disputes, controlled what was bought and sold in shops to make sure that nothing suspect occurred, and took their income from their own businesses and donations. It had been his own family’s tendency to bleed the businesses in their area dry through ‘debt’ that he had objected to - money, he felt, was not the be all and end all, and Kangin agreed with him.
His father objected, but Kangin agreed to it, and on Kim ground, what Kangin said went. His father was removed from the premises, and a month later, Eeteuk became a member of the Kim family. At first, he was just a normal family worker, one of the men in suits who collected the taxes from the people in the area, and who did the paperwork, but he had grown up believing that he would, one day, take over the Park family. Kangin came to realise that it was stupid to waste Eeteuk’s talents in his current place, and quickly raised him through the ranks. There was no resentment, like there would have been in the Park family - the members of the Kim family accepted what their leader said, even if he was just fifteen. He knew what he was doing.
It was unfortunate that Kangin and Eeteuk had grown up so quickly in order to take over their respective families. Kangin’s mother had died three years earlier, and with his father ill, he was also left looking after his younger brothers, and his cousins. When his father died, he was the one they turned to for support, leaning on the seventeen year old Kangin. Heechul had been fifteen, Kibum, just turned ten. Yehsung had been living with them for two years, was fourteen when his uncle passed away, and almost immediately afterwards, ten year old Ryeowook’s parents died, and he came to live with them. And it was Eeteuk that Kangin turned to for his own support.
It wasn’t love, to begin with, but then it very rarely is. A boss-employee relationship turned into friendship, which then turned into closer friendship, became best friends, and then something more, as Kangin gave into the tension and confessed, and Eeteuk pulled him down onto the bed with him, and kissed him. It was the start of more complications, a greater need to show what Kangin could do as a leader, needing to prove that he hadn’t just taken Eeteuk as his right-hand man simply for their relationship.
When Eeteuk was twenty, his father died, suddenly and completely without warning, when his car was shunted off the road by a lorry driver who fell asleep. Eeteuk hadn’t seen him once in the four years since he had joined the Kim family, had had nothing to do with the Park family - his death only hit him after the funeral, and he burst into Kangin’s office and sobbed on his shoulder, as the failed chances and opportunities hit him.
And like that, Eeteuk was the leader of the Park family - he was the only son, and although he had left the family, his father had left him in the will. He was left in charge of a family fraught with divides, those men who had been favoured by his father resentful of being over-looked, those who had not been favoured suddenly clamoured to be favoured by him, and everywhere he looked, he was hated. So he did the only thing he could do - he found other jobs for the men, those who were willing and who he trusted joined him at the Kim family, the others left to places that he never found again, and the Park family was no more.
He didn’t feel any guilt or remorse over his move. It was his family, but it was a family that was disliked by the other families and the people who lived in its area. It became part of the Kim family territory, the old estate became merely an add on, used now as an hotel that is run by the Kim family - and still Eeteuk doesn’t feel remorse. He changed his name around that time, became Eeteuk at the same time that Youngwoon became Kangin. He feels no attachment to the Park family - it was merely something he once belonged too, but which died.
He became one of the co-rulers of the Kim family when the Park family was absorbed, and no one questions that decision. Eeteuk knows what he’s doing, just like Kangin knows what he’s doing.
Fandom: Super Junior AU (Mafia)
Pairings: Siwon/Hankyung/Heechul (Hankyung/Heechul), Kyuhyun/Zhou Mi, Kibum/Donghae, Yehsung/Ryeowook, Kangin/Eeteuk, Tablo/Eunhyuk
Pairings in Chapter: Kangin/Eeteuk, Hankyung/Heechul
Word Count: 3,514
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The Kim family and the Choi family are the two oldest families in Seoul: where other families have been born, grown, and then fell apart, they remain strong. Unfortunately, they are mortal enemies, and where one lives alongside the law, the other is beyond any control. It's up to the new generation of members to destroy the violence between them - even if it means destroying one family in the process.
A/N: I HATE WRITING ANGST >:( This has nothing to do with this chapter, mind, just. >:(
Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3
Eeteuk came to the family when Kangin was fifteen - a boy of sixteen; slight, with thin, feminine features, unremarkable beyond his beauty, nothing that looked like he would later become one of the leaders of the Kim family. He hadn’t been called Eeteuk then, his name was Park Jungsu, the heir to the Park family line. The Park family had occupied territory in the west of the city, fairly small though at the time they had been influential.
Eeteuk had left the Park household one night in a fit of anger over something his father had done; unable to see how his decision had been correct, Eeteuk had chosen to leave in the hopes that his father would see the error of his ways. It had been late when he stormed out, a small suitcase in his hand, and no one tried to stop him. No one had believed that he would really leave, and once he had, no one thought that he would have anywhere to go.
That was true - he didn’t have anywhere to go. Influential though the Park family were, they were disliked by the people who lived in the area of their power, and so it was unlikely that Eeteuk would find any solace with them. This left him with living on the street, or seeking refuge with another family. As a young boy of sixteen, it was not surprising that he chose the second.
He had three choices: the Choi family, who were known for their lack of sympathy for the other families, the Lee family, who were already taking the first steps onto the path of their eventual destruction, and the Kim family, who were fairly unknown to the Park family, as they occupied completely different areas of power. The closest family in terms of distance were the Choi family - Eeteuk chose to travel on foot to the Kim family.
He arrived at the house just before midnight, and stood outside the gates begging the man on duty to let him in. Eventually they asked his name, and then they fetched someone to speak to him. Eeteuk had expected, perhaps, the ruler of the family, or someone with a great deal of power - in the world that he occupied, he was used to that level of respect. Instead, he was greeted by an annoyed looking boy about his own age, who stared at him impassively through the bars of the gate.
“What?” asked the boy.
“I’d rather speak to the head of your family, if that’s okay,” said Eeteuk nervously. The boy flicked his hair out his eyes in irritation.
“My father’s in bed already,” he said. “You can talk to me, its okay. I’m not too beneath you, I hope.”
“No,” said Eeteuk desperately. “That’s not what I meant. I just didn’t want to get other people involved in this.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Park Jungsu,” said Eeteuk. “I’m the only son of the current leader of the Park family. I need somewhere to sleep for the night.”
“Go home,” said the boy with a sigh.
“I can’t,” said Eeteuk, gripping the bars of the gate. “I’ve walked out.”
The boy regarded him thoughtfully, and then motioned for the gatekeeper to open the doors. Eeteuk stood clutching his case to his chest, trying to desperately to not show how terrified he felt as the boy waved a hand at him, inviting him in.
Eeteuk wasn’t to know, when he stepped over the gates into the Kim estate, that he was taking steps that would change his life. At the time, he was just aware that he was stepping into a main yard that was similar to the Park’s own, a deserted place with a path to a main door lit with lamps. They went through the front doors into a grand hall, with two staircases leading off onto the second floor, and from there another two to lead to a third floor. It wasn’t up any of these that the boy led him up, but instead down a corridor to the left, then right, left, left again; until they came to an unremarkable door. The boy went inside. After a moment, his hand came around the door and motioned for Eeteuk to follow him.
Eeteuk stepped into a well-lit bedroom, large and spacious, with expensive drapes pulled closed over the windows and a four-poster bed covered in a dark purple cover. The boy opened one of the wardrobes and pulled out two white towels, which he placed on the bed, and he walked over to a door near the top right-hand corner. He pulled it open to reveal an en-suite bathroom. “You can take a shower in here,” he said. “I’ll come for you at eight tomorrow morning to get you something to eat, and to take you to see my father.”
“You mean I’m staying here?” Eeteuk asked, with some surprise.
“Where else would you be staying?” asked the boy. “It’s only a guest room.”
“It’s bigger than my bedroom back home,” said Eeteuk honestly.
The boy regarded him again, and then strode purposefully to the door. He paused with his hand on the handle. “My father is ill,” he said. “Be ready at eight sharp, I don’t want to take up too much of his time.”
He pulled the door open to go out of the room. “Wait,” called Eeteuk before he could stop himself, and he blushed a little when the boy turned back around. “Thank you,” said Eeteuk. “What’s your name?”
“My name?” The boy faced him. “I’m Kim Youngwoon.”
***
“No,” said Heechul, turning his head to glare at Hankyung. “I don’t care what you say, I’m not doing it.”
“But Heechul,” said Hankyung, trying his best to continue to be patient and responsible. “We’re the only ones that Eun will see.”
“Yeah,” said Heechul. “That’s because he’s a pervert who gropes me.”
“Despite popular belief, not everyone is in love with you.”
“Beyond that being a complete lie,” said Heechul, ignoring Hankyung’s sigh of annoyance, “I am not making this up. Whenever we go see Eun, he always gropes me under the table.”
“No, that’s me,” said Hankyung. Heechul snarled at him.
“I don’t care what you say to get me to come,” he said. “I’m not going back to Eun’s place. I’m going to tell Eeteuk to make Sungmin go, he always likes the attention. I don’t give a fuck what he thinks, I’m not doing it-”
“Heechul-”
“And I don’t care what Kangin says, because he’s only two years older and who gives a fuck if he’s-”
“Heechul, would you watch-”
“-the head of the family, that’s just a tech-”
He walked into someone; someone hard and unyielding, and because Heechul had been mid-step, he was definitely at a disadvantage. He just had time to think fuck, I hope no one ever finds out about this and Eeteuk will probably make me go to Eun’s just to make up for this embarrassment before he braced himself for the impact. Two hands shot out and fastened around the tops of his arms, while Hankyung’s arm slipped around his waist to keep him upright that way. He opened his eyes and blinked, and then smirked.
“If you wanted meet up with us again, I’m sure you didn’t have to literally walk into me,” he said, as Siwon stared at him.
“Oh!” he said, and released his hold. “Sorry, innate reaction.”
“He’s such a gentleman,” said Heechul disdainfully.
“I did try to warn you,” pointed out Hankyung.
“Clearly not hard enough,” Heechul retorted.
“I hate it when you blame me,” said Hankyung, scowling at him.
“What are you doing here?” Heechul asked Siwon, who looked a little taken-aback by the question.
“What do you mean?” he asked, nervous. “Why shouldn’t I be here?”
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” said Heechul. “I believe in destiny.” His face was so straight that Hankyung was almost taken in by it - Siwon didn’t stand a chance.
“Really?” he asked eagerly. “Because sometimes, I think that I do too.”
“I was being sarcastic,” said Heechul flatly. Siwon’s face fell.
“Oh,” he said.
“But you sound like you’ve got a story to tell,” said Heechul with a grin. “You should tell us it. Is it a girl? Is it love at first sight? God, I hate things like that.”
“We have somewhere to be,” Hankyung reminded him.
“I’m not going,” said Heechul, without looking at him. “It’s like I’ve found a son to look after. I want to know about this girl that he’s found!”
“There is something inherently wrong in that statement,” said Hankyung. “I can’t work out what it is, but there’s something.”
“Yeah,” said Siwon quietly. “There is something.”
“You can’t stand around here all day and gossip,” said Hankyung. “We have a place that we need to be.”
“As do I,” said Siwon with a grin.
“I am surrounded by people that are no fun,” said Heechul.
***
“Okay, now this is just getting creepy,” said Heechul.
Hankyung had to agree - within a week and a half, they had bumped into Siwon five times, and not all of them had been in the nightclub that they had first met him in. After the first three times, they had seen him in a restaurant eating with someone who looked like his father, and this time, in a coffee shop that they had gone to in order to check some stocking accounts. Now that their business was complete, they had come out to get something to drink - and there was Siwon, sitting in one of the armchairs, reading a book.
Heechul stalked over to him and pulled the book from his hands before Siwon even realised what was happening. He looked at the cover as Siwon’s head shot up, face shocked and surprised, before he noticed who it was and he smiled.
“This book looks boring,” said Heechul.
“It’s not, really,” said Siwon. “It’s a classic.”
“Probably really is boring” said Heechul. “Classically boring.” He handed it back to Siwon, just as Hankyung reached them. He glanced at the title but couldn’t decipher it.
“It’s a play,” said Siwon. “Written by an old English playwright. It’s about a young boy and girl who are from enemy families, who fall in love with each other but are unable to tell their parents because of the tensions.”
“What’s the name?” Hankyung asked, slipping into one of the chairs that surrounded the table that Siwon’s coffee rested on.
“Romeo and Juliet,” said Siwon. His voice held a very slight accent on the English - it was, at least, much better than Heechul’s, or indeed, anyone else’s in the family. There was a reason they made Henry meet any foreign clients; the only ones he could meet. Hankyung looked at Siwon with increased interest, and some confusion. For a trade man’s son, he was remarkably well educated.
“But fancy meeting you here,” said Heechul with a meaningful look at Hankyung. “Anyone would think it was planned.”
“I’ve been here for half an hour now,” said Siwon with a shrug. “If anything, you two are the ones who walked in on me.”
“Now that was a good choice of words,” said Heechul with a grin. Siwon choked a little on the sip of coffee he had just taken. Heechul laughed gleefully and took the seat next to Hankyung, and with a wave his hand, ordered their usual drinks. Hankyung glared at him - such a move would let it be known who they were.
He wasn’t sure, now, why they were keeping up the pretence of not telling Siwon who they were, that they came from a family. To begin with, it had been because they had met the younger man on Choi territory, and telling him could have been dangerous. Since then, he had been increasingly on Kim territory, and everyone on their side of the city knew exactly who they were. Siwon, however, still didn’t seem to be aware. Heechul found it funny, wanted to keep it going as long as possible, but Hankyung worried about the friendship that had been built up between them. How much longer could it go on, before either Siwon found out, or it became a stupid, silly, inconsequential game? How would he react, when he learnt the truth?
“You appear to be well known around here,” commented Siwon. Heechul nodded smugly and slung his legs over the arm of the chair, resting his back against Hankyung’s side.
“We come here often.” Hankyung was quick to offer an explanation, a lie though it was.
Siwon grinned, reached over the side of his chair, and pulled a black file from his bag, which he placed on his knees. He opened it, and flicked through it. “You don’t have to lie anymore,” he said casually.
Heechul twisted his head to look at Hankyung with confusion. Hankyung’s heart sank. “What?” he asked, acting innocent. He had wanted the truth to come out on his terms, where he could be sure that only certain facts could be known, so he could be cautious.
“It was clever,” said Siwon, still grinning, as if it was a joke. “Telling me that you don’t have a family name, when, of course, Hankyung is your full Korean name. Isn’t it, Han Geng?”
Heechul shot upright, swinging his legs around and sitting in an almost-standing position. His hand dived into his pocket; they heard the audible click of his gun. “Shut the fuck up,” he hissed.
Siwon looked surprised at the violence of the reaction - Hankyung couldn’t move, frozen in place by his Chinese name, the shock of it - but he continued nevertheless. “Kim Heechul,” he said, reading from his file. “Second son of the old Kim family leader, now heir to the family should anything happen to Kangin, was Kim Youngwoon, the eldest son, and Eeteuk, was Park Jungsu, heir to the now gone Park family.”
“What the fuck?” spat Heechul. “Did you spy on us or something?”
“I didn’t need to,” said Siwon. “You’re well liked around here, you and your family. It was merely a case of asking the right questions.”
“Why?” asked Heechul, not removing his hand from his pocket. “What’s it got to do with you?”
Siwon shrugged. “I wanted to know,” he said, almost apologetic about it. “About who you were. You knew about me, and I wanted to know about you, so I found out.”
“That name,” said Hankyung softly. “How did you find that name? No one around here knows that name.”
Siwon faltered for a moment, and then closed his file. “Research,” he said. “I must have just asked the right people.” Heechul didn’t stop glaring; Hankyung remained just as tense. “I just wanted to know,” said Siwon softly.
Hankyung nodded tensely. “You know our pasts,” he said.
“No,” said Siwon, quick to interrupt. “I could find very little truly about you. The people who live in your territory give me your names, but refused to yield any other information. I didn’t find anything about - you.”
“Why?” asked Heechul, leaning forward. He picked up the file and flicked through it, face blank. “Why do you want to know about us?”
“What do you want from us?” asked Hankyung.
Siwon shook his head. “I don’t want anything from you,” he said. “Except, I’d quite like to - meet your family.”
***
Kangin’s father had been ill, truly ill, although he managed to survive for another two years after the time that Eeteuk first met him. A frail man, in his early fifties, yet who looked decades older, who lay on the bed and just accepted what Kangin told him. Kim Youngwoon, a boy of fifteen, heir apparent - and yet who already carried out the duties of a family leader.
Eeteuk was supposed to leave at the end of the first day, or at least, that had been what he had planned, but Kangin offered him his room again for the night, and then again the next day. Before Eeteuk realised, he had stayed there for a week, and his father had come to see what had become of him.
“I’m not coming back,” he told his father. “I’m staying here. I’m joining the Kim family.”
Eeteuk had only been there for a week, but that was enough time for him. He had seen what the Kim family did; quietly, on the low, but always there, doing whatever would be best for the people who lived in the area under their power. They liaised with the police to sort out disputes, controlled what was bought and sold in shops to make sure that nothing suspect occurred, and took their income from their own businesses and donations. It had been his own family’s tendency to bleed the businesses in their area dry through ‘debt’ that he had objected to - money, he felt, was not the be all and end all, and Kangin agreed with him.
His father objected, but Kangin agreed to it, and on Kim ground, what Kangin said went. His father was removed from the premises, and a month later, Eeteuk became a member of the Kim family. At first, he was just a normal family worker, one of the men in suits who collected the taxes from the people in the area, and who did the paperwork, but he had grown up believing that he would, one day, take over the Park family. Kangin came to realise that it was stupid to waste Eeteuk’s talents in his current place, and quickly raised him through the ranks. There was no resentment, like there would have been in the Park family - the members of the Kim family accepted what their leader said, even if he was just fifteen. He knew what he was doing.
It was unfortunate that Kangin and Eeteuk had grown up so quickly in order to take over their respective families. Kangin’s mother had died three years earlier, and with his father ill, he was also left looking after his younger brothers, and his cousins. When his father died, he was the one they turned to for support, leaning on the seventeen year old Kangin. Heechul had been fifteen, Kibum, just turned ten. Yehsung had been living with them for two years, was fourteen when his uncle passed away, and almost immediately afterwards, ten year old Ryeowook’s parents died, and he came to live with them. And it was Eeteuk that Kangin turned to for his own support.
It wasn’t love, to begin with, but then it very rarely is. A boss-employee relationship turned into friendship, which then turned into closer friendship, became best friends, and then something more, as Kangin gave into the tension and confessed, and Eeteuk pulled him down onto the bed with him, and kissed him. It was the start of more complications, a greater need to show what Kangin could do as a leader, needing to prove that he hadn’t just taken Eeteuk as his right-hand man simply for their relationship.
When Eeteuk was twenty, his father died, suddenly and completely without warning, when his car was shunted off the road by a lorry driver who fell asleep. Eeteuk hadn’t seen him once in the four years since he had joined the Kim family, had had nothing to do with the Park family - his death only hit him after the funeral, and he burst into Kangin’s office and sobbed on his shoulder, as the failed chances and opportunities hit him.
And like that, Eeteuk was the leader of the Park family - he was the only son, and although he had left the family, his father had left him in the will. He was left in charge of a family fraught with divides, those men who had been favoured by his father resentful of being over-looked, those who had not been favoured suddenly clamoured to be favoured by him, and everywhere he looked, he was hated. So he did the only thing he could do - he found other jobs for the men, those who were willing and who he trusted joined him at the Kim family, the others left to places that he never found again, and the Park family was no more.
He didn’t feel any guilt or remorse over his move. It was his family, but it was a family that was disliked by the other families and the people who lived in its area. It became part of the Kim family territory, the old estate became merely an add on, used now as an hotel that is run by the Kim family - and still Eeteuk doesn’t feel remorse. He changed his name around that time, became Eeteuk at the same time that Youngwoon became Kangin. He feels no attachment to the Park family - it was merely something he once belonged too, but which died.
He became one of the co-rulers of the Kim family when the Park family was absorbed, and no one questions that decision. Eeteuk knows what he’s doing, just like Kangin knows what he’s doing.