Super Junior AU; Various Pairings; Love/War
Title: Love/War (24/25)
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: Kibum/Donghae, Kyuhyun/Zhou Mi, Kangin/Eeteuk
Word Count: 4,610
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: You read that right :( It should probably be 26 chapters - these next two chapters are kind of long, but they aren't long enough to split! Story of my life.
Apologies to my flist, who I have teased without remorse for the past week or so ♥
Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8 / Chapter 9 / Chapter 10 / Chapter 11 / Chapter 12 / Chapter 13 / Chapter 14 / Chapter 15 / Chapter 16 / Chapter 17 / Chapter 18 / Chapter 19 / Chapter 20 / Chapter 21 / Chapter 22 / Chapter 23 / Chapter 24
Donghae’s eyes were focused on the clock above the doorway, watching the hand tick past, each second another second of silence. Kibum, sitting a couple of seats along, was staring at his feet, trying to work out what to say. Kyuhyun sat at the other end of the corridor next to the door where Zhou Mi had been taken, his head in his hands. Kibum and Donghae were keeping guard on the door next to them, the one that would lead out onto the front entrance, after Kyuhyun had been wrestled back by Sungmin and Shindong to stop him from going out and killing Choi Sikyu like he wanted to. No one had said anything to him - there was nothing they could say.
To Donghae, however, Kibum did have something he wanted to say, but he couldn’t work out how. He couldn’t work out how to word it without it seeming like he was simply prying; Kibum was quiet anyway, a man of few words, and even those were failing him. He coughed a little, and then Donghae spoke before he could.
“Thank you,” he said.
Kibum turned to him with a blank expression. “What for?” he asked.
“For stopping me,” said Donghae, his voice dropping. “If I had done that, I’d have been just as bad as him. It would have been premeditated, I’d have - we kill in self-defence, not for revenge.”
“It was self-defence,” said Kibum, playing devil’s advocate. “In a way.”
Donghae shook his head. “It wasn’t, it was revenge. I wanted to go in there and find out who it had been, but then my anger took me over.”
Kibum was silent, waiting to see if Donghae wanted to speak some more. “He’s always been there,” said Donghae after a moment. “Always - I can still see him every time I sleep, his face, twisted with smug pleasure hanging over me. I’ve lived for so long under the fear that he would find me and come to take me back to that prison that I grew used to it. That wasn’t living, he took my life from me.”
“There was a room, in that house. It was attached to his bedroom, and it was just big enough for a camp bed and a small amount of space to walk in. I don’t think it was ever supposed to be - it was where I slept, where I supposedly lived. It was really just a prison.”
“They took me to - him - when I arrived and no one told me what was happening. He just looked at me and nodded and then they pushed me into the room and left me there for a day and a half. Then he seemed to remember that I was there, and brought me out into his room and gave me a small amount of food. Then, after talking to me for a while, he said that he had something to attend to, and asked me to go back into the room. I was so grateful for the food that I did so - and he locked the door after me.”
“It became a routine. He’d leave me to starve for a couple of days, letting me out at night for the bathroom if I needed it - not that I ever did - and then give me something to eat - my gratitude for the food was something he thrived on. Soon he was letting me out for longer periods of time, and then he gave me jobs to do, jobs that were impossible to do - cleaning the floor of his bathroom with a toothbrush, counting all the confetti in a jar, he would come up with something new every day, and every time I failed, his reaction would get more and more violent until he hit me.”
“’Donghae,’ he’d say, hunkering down to look at me, where I lay on the floor after he’d knocked me there. ‘Donghae, if you just did what I said, I wouldn’t have to punish you, would I?’ I didn’t have the strength to fight back; I didn’t have the urge to do it. I had nowhere to go, and no one to turn to, I was alone in my one room. I didn’t understand what was going on.”
“Soon, he was beating me when I failed. Then, he beat me for looking at him the wrong way. Then, he simply beat me. After a while, his excuses, his reasons, they began to make sense. Maybe if I’d been more obedient, my family would have wanted me. Maybe if I wasn’t so stupid, I would be able to complete the tasks. Maybe if I didn’t fail, he really wouldn’t have to punish me. It got too much.”
He pulled his sleeves back to show Kibum the scars on his wrists, scars that Kibum had noticed while looking after him at the hospital but never felt confident enough to ask about back then, and then later wasn’t in a position to. “I tried to kill myself,” said Donghae quietly. “He left the room one day, leaving me with a French novel he wanted me to translate that day, and I went into his bathroom and stole his razor and cut my wrists.”
“They found me almost immediately - he had, after all, only left the room for a minute, which is why he hadn’t locked me back in the room - and rushed me to the hospital where they quickly bandaged me up, and sent me back. He ordered that I be treated for the bare minimum, he didn’t want to waste money on me. So they took me back to his bedroom and put me down and as I lay there, weak, barely able to move from lack of blood, he raped me.”
He brought a leg up to his chest, foot resting on the chair. “I - it was the start. It went on for a year, and I no longer had the strength to fight back. I was submissive and I was obedient and I was quiet - apart from when - I was everything he wanted me to be. He called me his pet, his whore, his thing, and he took what he wanted from me. My days became a constant routine of being locked in a room, then brought out, beaten and sexual assaulted in some way. It was living hell, and if I hadn’t taken the chance to escape when I did, I think I’d still be there.”
“That night, it was the worst it had ever been. He was angry about something, and took it out on me. He beat me viciously, using anything he could get his hands on, plus the cane that he kept in his room on purpose. His anger is so cold, his self-control terrifying - even as he beat me almost unseeingly, he was listening to when I screamed the loudest, and then he’d focus there. It was relaxing, to him. Then someone came with a message, and he left quickly, and forgot to lock the door after him.”
“I don’t remember how I escaped, it was like being in a dream. I fell asleep leaving the room and woke just as I met Sungmin - I told him we had to escape, and then there is nothing until we were wandering around the old Lee estate. I turned to him and said I didn’t feel well; it was like I couldn’t remember what had happened to me. Then, I fell unconscious, and woke up in hospital.”
“I didn’t know his name and I lived for so long in fear of him finding where I was. It lessened over time, but never when I was alone. Sleep was impossible when I dreamt that he was standing over me, always poised to attack but drawing out my suspense. Silence killed me when all I could hear was him whispering my name. And then you-”
“And I?” Kibum asked, voice slightly hushed, as Kyuhyun had looked up and was looking over with a confused expression; he couldn’t hear what they were saying, but could tell they were talking. That, it had to be said, was weird enough for even Kyuhyun to notice - Donghae, after all, didn’t speak to Kibum.
“I don’t like feeling vulnerable,” said Donghae. “When I was around you, I began to feel like I was undefended, that I had no way of protecting myself against - whatever I was beginning to feel. You don't - can you understand what that's like, to feel your heart race and only associate that with a beating about to come? To feel your hands shake and to immediately think of a key sliding in a lock? To - see you smile at me and know that there's no way of protecting myself other than to do what I had done earlier, to sink myself into the obedience and submission that I'd used to cope with those fearful feelings before?"
"But I don't understand why," said Kibum. "I mean - not about Sikyu, I will never, ever understand - but me, I can't understand it."
"I - you-" And then Donghae took a deep breath, shut his eyes, and leant in and kissed Kibum. Kibum's eyes were frozen wide as he struggled to work through the necessary thoughts that would get him closer to kissing back; it almost came too late, he realised as Donghae was pulling away, and he jerked forward to keep their mouths connected - and then they shot apart as a doctor stepped through the double doors at the end of the corridor.
Kyuhyun was immediately at his side. "How is he?" he asked.
The doctor, Kibum noticed as he stood up, didn't look sad, but neither did he look happy. "Are you family?" he asked.
"I'm - he's - I-"
"He's part of the Kim family," said Kibum, and showed the doctor his ID card. The doctor nodded.
"He's stable," he said. "He lost a lot of blood, but he seems to be fine right now. Tonight will let us know further, but we think he should be quite alright."
"Oh thank god," said Kyuhyun, sitting down heavily, his head in his hands. "I could just - thank you, so much."
"I'll go tell Kangin," said Kibum. "I-" He turned to Donghae, who avoided his eyes. With a squeeze of Kyuhyun's shoulder, he turned and left the room.
***
Eeteuk smiled a little as he noticed the excitement radiating off Kangin. "God," muttered Kangin under his breath. "I really hope that this works. We could be free-"
"Don't get too hopeful," said Eeteuk, laying a hand on his shoulder. "It might not work as well as we're hoping."
"It will," said Kangin. "It will because we're - it will." And he slipped his arm around Eeteuk's waist, pulled him close and kissed him. Eeteuk smiled slightly and kissed him back until there was a knock at the door. Then he pulled away and lay his forehead against Kangin's.
"We can celebrate later," he said. Kangin grinned and let go of him, before sitting down at the desk. "Come in," called Eeteuk.
Shindong opened the door and stepped in. "I brought Choi Sikyu," he said, not sounding happy about it. "Like you said."
"Send him in," said Eeteuk with a grin in spite of himself. Shindong frowned at him, clearly believing him to be quite mad, and then Choi Sikyu stormed into the room, sweeping down onto one of the chairs and sitting back with a glare. Eeteuk felt a thrill run through him at the sight of his sneering, hostile face; he had never felt more disgust for a person, but soon it would be different. “We needed to talk to you,” said Eeteuk, voice mild.
“I believe it’s the other way around,” snapped Sikyu. “Do you have any idea what your family has done? You have taken two things that belong to me, and I have stopped my family from attacking until I get them back. I want those two things back.
Kangin and Eeteuk exchanged glances. “Go on,” said Eeteuk, leaning forward in mock interest. It was, he could see, angering Sikyu that it was he who spoke, and not the actual Kim. “What have we taken?”
“The first is my son,” said Sikyu.
“Ah, yes,” said Eeteuk. “Siwon. He’s a bit of a controversial subject, but we hope that his problem will be resolved soon enough. I believe we’ll come back to him. The second?”
Sikyu looked severely annoyed at his first being swept under the rug, but continued nonetheless. “Lee Donghae.”
“Donghae is a Kim,” said Kangin coldly. Sikyu’s eyes flicked to his face, sneering.
“He is a Lee,” he said. “And I bought him - he belongs to me.”
“He may not be a Kim in name,” said Eeteuk, “but he is part of the Kim family, and the Kim family takes care of those in its fold. Donghae is under our protection.” He folded his arms and leant forward, elbows on the table. “You place too much importance on name, and not enough on actual family loyalty. A name is not enough to guarantee unwavering support.”
Sikyu glared at Kangin, the offence too much for him to take. “Who is a Park to speak to me like this?” he asked, outraged. “You would do well to reign in your whores, Youngwoon.”
Eeteuk sighed and laid a hand on Kangin’s arm to stop him from reacting to that. “This is getting us nowhere. I will speak to you in terms that you will be able to understand.” He opened the folder in front of him, pulled out a disc and held it up between two fingers. “On this disc is information on more than one hundred murders that you ordered yourself, over fifty that you have a part in, and uncountable assaults, attacks and killings which, as Choi head, you are responsible for.”
“I wonder how the police would view all this,” said Kangin with a wry smile.
Sikyu looked unimpressed. “I am head of the Choi family,” he said.
Eeteuk shrugged. “You think that will protect you? Like I said, you place too much importance on name, and not enough on building loyalty.”
“You use your name as a shield, fear as a weapon,” said Kangin, “but it’s fascinating how easy it is to gain information from people who do not truly respect you, or who fear you.”
“Here,” said Eeteuk, pushing the disc towards Sikyu. “You might want to check everything is correct - I’d hate for our information to be wrong.” Sikyu picked the disc up and in one movement snapped it in half. Eeteuk laughed at that, a noise of triumph - Kangin felt a rush of emotion, he had never seen Eeteuk so in control. “You think that that is the only copy we have? No, we have plenty of those, plenty of information. Once we hand it over to the police, well, I wonder what will happen then?”
“I am head of the Choi family,” repeated Sikyu arrogantly.
“Families are not a law unto themselves,” said Kangin. “Not in Seoul, and they never will be. We are bound to the rules that are made by our government, we follow the laws of society. We have more leeway, it is true, but there is leeway, and then there is fucking around.”
“As we speak, the information on this disc is being sent to the head of police in the center. We have been promised that he will move as soon as he has the evidence he needs.”
“You have no evidence,” sneered Sikyu.
“Song Jun Woo,” said Eeteuk softly. “Killed for refusing to kill Jung Jiyoung, a woman who had passed information to the Lee family, five years ago.”
“Han Shinhye,” said Kangin. “Beaten on the 15th September, a year ago, for ‘looking at a Choi member the wrong way’.”
“And Go Minyoung,” said Eeteuk, voice a little sad. “His body was found three weeks ago in the Han river, and he was last seen in the company of two Choi members, who were, according to witnesses, ‘hostile and threatening’.”
“He was a traitor,” said Sikyu. “A sneak. He deserved to die.”
“No one deserves to die,” said Eeteuk. “Sikyu, you left us no choice, we had to do this.”
There was a moment where Sikyu seemed to realise that they weren’t messing around, and his eyes narrowed. “You have made a mistake,” he said. “A mistake that will cost you.”
“Why are you still here?” asked Kangin, grinning a little. “Shouldn’t you be protecting your family?”
Sikyu stood up slowly, glaring at them, hands pressed to the table. “You will pay for this,” he hissed.
“So they tell me,” said Kangin with a shrug. Sikyu glared at them one last time before turning and sweeping from the room. A few seconds later, Kibum came in.
“Did you send the information?” Eeteuk asked, as Kangin swept the snapped disc from the table, and crushed it under his foot.
“Yes,” said Kibum tensely, and then; “You let him go?”
“We had to,” said Kangin heavily. “We couldn’t keep him here, we aren’t the police - a fact he would have done well to remember.”
“So what happens now?” asked Kibum, sitting down.
“We don’t know,” admitted Eeteuk. “There’s no way Sikyu is going back to the Choi estate, but we’ve got men posted at the airport, there’s no way he’s getting through.”
“But he’ll know that already,” said Kangin.
“So he’ll go into hiding,” said Kibum.
“He’s the only one who knows,” said Kangin. “He can warn the others, but they aren’t going to get out in time. We might not have Choi Sikyu, but we have the rest of the family. They’ll pay for what they did.”
“Sikyu should pay for what he did,” said Kibum fiercely.
“I know,” said Kangin, laying a hand on Kibum’s shoulder. “I know that it’s not wonderful, Kibum, but you understand why, don’t you?”
“I do,” said Kibum. “I’m just not happy about it.”
“God, think about what Heechul’s going to say,” said Kangin. “He wants to rip Sikyu to pieces, after what he’s done to Hankyung and Siwon. I’ll be lucky to be left alive after Heechul finds out.”
“What happens with Siwon now?” asked Kibum.
“It depends,” said Kangin. “Technically it should be - but then, he signed over to - we don’t know.”
Kibum frowned in confusion, and Eeteuk intervened. “Kibum, how is Donghae?”
Kibum fell silent for a moment. “I haven’t spoken to him since he told me,” he said. “He - well, I was going to go talk to him.”
“Go,” said Eeteuk, with a slight smile, and Kibum nodded and left the room. Eeteuk turned to look at Kangin, smile fading.
“What does happen with Siwon?” he said.
“Sikyu never actually named another heir,” said Kangin. “I got a couple of people to check that. As he never changed the name of the heir, Siwon takes over the family.”
“But Sikyu isn’t dead,” pointed out Eeteuk.
“Bring me down, why don’t you?” grumbled Kangin, sitting down. “Anyway, that doesn’t matter. The second he is announced to be a wanted man, all of his assets will be transferred to his heir, and the heir by law is Siwon, and he - wait, you fucking know this already!”
“I know,” said Eeteuk with a smile, leaning his side against Kangin’s shoulder. “I just wanted to see if you remembered. I’m the brains, remember?”
“If you were the brains,” sniped Kangin, “we’d have been run aground years ago.”
“I’m going to rise above you,” said Eeteuk, standing back up. Kangin reached out and wrapped an arm around his waist.
“It’s been a while,” he said quietly. “Since we’ve been able to talk, together.”
“Been a while since other things too,” said Eeteuk with a wry smile, and Kangin grinned. “Don’t give me that, I know what you’re thinking, Kim Youngwoon.”
The sound of his old name made Kangin grow thoughtful; only Eeteuk ever got away with it now. “Do you think he’d say we did what was right?” he asked. Eeteuk understood who he meant without needing to ask.
“I don’t know,” he said. “We’ve just aided in the destruction of an old family, but - it was family that had gone to the wrong. They were almost out of control; a family is something that should instil respect and look after what happens, not something that rules out of fear. If a family becomes that, the country becomes like that.” His voice dipped down. “It’s what happened in China, after all. It’s why Yehsung’s parents were killed in Thailand. We couldn’t let that happen here.”
“We’re like super heroes,” said Kangin, breaking out of his thoughts with a wide grin. “We just saved Seoul from ultimate destruction.”
Eeteuk peered at him. “Have you been playing video games with Donghae or something?”
Kangin scoffed. “When do I have time to play games with Donghae?” he asked. “No, I’m too busy destroying renegade families and generally saving the world.”
“Whatever, Superman,” said Eeteuk, walking to the door. “If you’re so good, why don’t you be the one to work out how to tell Heechul about what happened with Sikyu?”
“Just throw me to the wolves, I’d rather that,” muttered Kangin. Eeteuk laughed.
“I’ll get someone to keep an eye on Sikyu,” he said. Kangin nodded, and Eeteuk left the room, where he paused and pulled out his phone, before ringing a contact. “It’s Eeteuk,” he said. “Listen, I need you to keep an eye on something for me. Yeah. It’s Choi Sikyu - no, he’s on the run. Yes. I know it’s - yes.”
Eeteuk hung up, and swallowed hard, hands shaking. They had just played a very dangerous game, and no matter how much they joked about it, they didn’t know where it might lead.
***
Kibum paused as he entered the corridor to where Zhou Mi’s room was. Donghae was lying across the seats outside, asleep, his suit jacket curled up underneath his head. Kibum watched him for a couple of seconds, a mixture of feelings swirling inside of him.
He had never seen Donghae sleep before. He has seen Donghae at night before, but never actually asleep, not completely. In those weeks that Donghae had been in the hospital, Kibum had seen him try to fall asleep so many times, but wake, terrified and screaming, due to the terrors that afflicted him while his subconscious had control.
Under morphine and heavy medication, it hadn’t been able to surface, so that it had first happened about a week after Donghae had arrived at the hospital. He had been off the painkillers and equipment for about two days, and Kibum had taken to sleeping in the room with him, simply to make Donghae feel safer. He still harboured thoughts and fears that whoever had held him hostage would come for him, and Eeteuk had ordered that someone stay with him overnight. Kibum had no jobs, could afford to do it - and what was more, he wanted to do it. Having been the one who had first noticed Donghae’s injuries, he felt some responsibility for him.
Kibum jerked awake at about 1am, woken by fearful yelling that he couldn’t place to begin with. He shot upright and saw Donghae flailing on the bed, body going tense before he thrashed out again, fighting against things that Kibum couldn’t see. Kibum moved faster than he had ever moved before, kneeling on the bed and trying to get a grip to shake Donghae awake. “Donghae-shi,” he yelled over the top of Donghae’s screams. “Hyung, wake up!”
Donghae’s eyes shot open, and when he saw Kibum kneeling over him, his eyes turned terrified and he lashed out, fist connecting with Kibum’s jaw and knocking him from the bed. Kibum half-lay on the floor, blinking in shock, before he sat up.
Donghae sat up on the bed, shivering but covered in sweat. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, avoiding Kibum’s eyes. Kibum shook his head.
“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s not your fault, you were half-asleep.” Except, really, he knew that Donghae hadn’t been. Donghae had just reacted in the only way that he could. “What were you dreaming about?”
“I - I can’t remember,” said Donghae, and there was another pause.
“You should sleep some more,” said Kibum after a while. “You need as much rest as you can.”
“Y-yes,” said Donghae, and lay back down, his back to Kibum, chest rising and falling sporadically. Kibum had no doubt that it took Donghae slightly longer than it took Kibum to fall back asleep, but that didn’t matter.
Kibum was woken up two hours later by Donghae’s screams again, only this time there were words in the screams, leave me alone, get off me, it hurts, and when Donghae woke again, he was sobbing.
It only got worse as the night went on.
Kibum knelt down next to the chairs and lay his hand softly on Donghae’s shoulder. “Hyung,” he said quietly, shaking his shoulder a little, making sure that he was fair away enough to not be a threat. “Hyung.”
Donghae’s eyes fluttered open and he blinked, confused, at Kibum before he sat up, yawning. He stretched, and then stopped moving, his arms falling to his sides. “Oh,” he said.
“How are you?” asked Kibum.
“I’m - how’s Zhou Mi?”
Kibum shrugged, even though Donghae had his back to him. “I don’t know, I’ve only just come from talking to Eeteuk and Kangin.”
“Did you - tell them?” Kibum nodded, and Donghae was silent. “What did they say?”
“Nothing,” said Kibum. “They understand why you didn’t want to speak out before. They’ve - it’s confusing.”
“What is?” Donghae frowned.
“They overthrew Choi Sikyu,” said Kibum, speaking quickly as if to lessen the pain Donghae might feel at Sikyu’s name. “They had information on attacks and murders that he had committed or been responsible for, spanning over 20 years, and they asked me to transfer it to the police, so I did, and then - I think they may have just destroyed the Choi family.
Donghae blinked at him. “Wait, what?”
“I don’t know!” said Kibum, giving a confused laugh. “I don’t know what’s going on. But - I think Sikyu may have escaped. There’s no way he’ll have gone back to his family, not now that he knows that they’re under attack from the authorities. I don’t know where he will have gone.”
Donghae was silent. “I don’t care,” he said after a short while. “Revenge is so tiring.” He grinned, and for the first time that Kibum had known him, he looked him directly in the eyes, and actually smiled at him. “Don’t you think?”
Kibum didn’t answer; he straightened up a little instead and leant in slowly, as if testing the waters - after all, he didn’t want to push it. Donghae’s smile became wider, and Kibum swayed forward and kissed him again.
After two years, Kibum’s desperation was almost ridiculous, his joy almost crippling. He shifted Donghae back, blood roaring in his ears, so that soon Donghae was pressed against the wall, his hands around the top of Donghae’s arms. Then he felt Donghae go very still very quickly, and he pulled away, letting go of him as if burnt.
“Sorry,” he gasped, struggling to catch his breath. Donghae just shook his head, and then with something like exhilaration in his eyes, jumped forward and kissed Kibum hard, hands clutching at his collar.
“I’ll get over it,” he murmured into Kibum’s ear, lips brushing skin. “So don’t ever stop, okay?”
“Fuck,” said Kibum, and Donghae’s laugh made his heart jump.
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: Kibum/Donghae, Kyuhyun/Zhou Mi, Kangin/Eeteuk
Word Count: 4,610
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: You read that right :( It should probably be 26 chapters - these next two chapters are kind of long, but they aren't long enough to split! Story of my life.
Apologies to my flist, who I have teased without remorse for the past week or so ♥
Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8 / Chapter 9 / Chapter 10 / Chapter 11 / Chapter 12 / Chapter 13 / Chapter 14 / Chapter 15 / Chapter 16 / Chapter 17 / Chapter 18 / Chapter 19 / Chapter 20 / Chapter 21 / Chapter 22 / Chapter 23 / Chapter 24
Donghae’s eyes were focused on the clock above the doorway, watching the hand tick past, each second another second of silence. Kibum, sitting a couple of seats along, was staring at his feet, trying to work out what to say. Kyuhyun sat at the other end of the corridor next to the door where Zhou Mi had been taken, his head in his hands. Kibum and Donghae were keeping guard on the door next to them, the one that would lead out onto the front entrance, after Kyuhyun had been wrestled back by Sungmin and Shindong to stop him from going out and killing Choi Sikyu like he wanted to. No one had said anything to him - there was nothing they could say.
To Donghae, however, Kibum did have something he wanted to say, but he couldn’t work out how. He couldn’t work out how to word it without it seeming like he was simply prying; Kibum was quiet anyway, a man of few words, and even those were failing him. He coughed a little, and then Donghae spoke before he could.
“Thank you,” he said.
Kibum turned to him with a blank expression. “What for?” he asked.
“For stopping me,” said Donghae, his voice dropping. “If I had done that, I’d have been just as bad as him. It would have been premeditated, I’d have - we kill in self-defence, not for revenge.”
“It was self-defence,” said Kibum, playing devil’s advocate. “In a way.”
Donghae shook his head. “It wasn’t, it was revenge. I wanted to go in there and find out who it had been, but then my anger took me over.”
Kibum was silent, waiting to see if Donghae wanted to speak some more. “He’s always been there,” said Donghae after a moment. “Always - I can still see him every time I sleep, his face, twisted with smug pleasure hanging over me. I’ve lived for so long under the fear that he would find me and come to take me back to that prison that I grew used to it. That wasn’t living, he took my life from me.”
“There was a room, in that house. It was attached to his bedroom, and it was just big enough for a camp bed and a small amount of space to walk in. I don’t think it was ever supposed to be - it was where I slept, where I supposedly lived. It was really just a prison.”
“They took me to - him - when I arrived and no one told me what was happening. He just looked at me and nodded and then they pushed me into the room and left me there for a day and a half. Then he seemed to remember that I was there, and brought me out into his room and gave me a small amount of food. Then, after talking to me for a while, he said that he had something to attend to, and asked me to go back into the room. I was so grateful for the food that I did so - and he locked the door after me.”
“It became a routine. He’d leave me to starve for a couple of days, letting me out at night for the bathroom if I needed it - not that I ever did - and then give me something to eat - my gratitude for the food was something he thrived on. Soon he was letting me out for longer periods of time, and then he gave me jobs to do, jobs that were impossible to do - cleaning the floor of his bathroom with a toothbrush, counting all the confetti in a jar, he would come up with something new every day, and every time I failed, his reaction would get more and more violent until he hit me.”
“’Donghae,’ he’d say, hunkering down to look at me, where I lay on the floor after he’d knocked me there. ‘Donghae, if you just did what I said, I wouldn’t have to punish you, would I?’ I didn’t have the strength to fight back; I didn’t have the urge to do it. I had nowhere to go, and no one to turn to, I was alone in my one room. I didn’t understand what was going on.”
“Soon, he was beating me when I failed. Then, he beat me for looking at him the wrong way. Then, he simply beat me. After a while, his excuses, his reasons, they began to make sense. Maybe if I’d been more obedient, my family would have wanted me. Maybe if I wasn’t so stupid, I would be able to complete the tasks. Maybe if I didn’t fail, he really wouldn’t have to punish me. It got too much.”
He pulled his sleeves back to show Kibum the scars on his wrists, scars that Kibum had noticed while looking after him at the hospital but never felt confident enough to ask about back then, and then later wasn’t in a position to. “I tried to kill myself,” said Donghae quietly. “He left the room one day, leaving me with a French novel he wanted me to translate that day, and I went into his bathroom and stole his razor and cut my wrists.”
“They found me almost immediately - he had, after all, only left the room for a minute, which is why he hadn’t locked me back in the room - and rushed me to the hospital where they quickly bandaged me up, and sent me back. He ordered that I be treated for the bare minimum, he didn’t want to waste money on me. So they took me back to his bedroom and put me down and as I lay there, weak, barely able to move from lack of blood, he raped me.”
He brought a leg up to his chest, foot resting on the chair. “I - it was the start. It went on for a year, and I no longer had the strength to fight back. I was submissive and I was obedient and I was quiet - apart from when - I was everything he wanted me to be. He called me his pet, his whore, his thing, and he took what he wanted from me. My days became a constant routine of being locked in a room, then brought out, beaten and sexual assaulted in some way. It was living hell, and if I hadn’t taken the chance to escape when I did, I think I’d still be there.”
“That night, it was the worst it had ever been. He was angry about something, and took it out on me. He beat me viciously, using anything he could get his hands on, plus the cane that he kept in his room on purpose. His anger is so cold, his self-control terrifying - even as he beat me almost unseeingly, he was listening to when I screamed the loudest, and then he’d focus there. It was relaxing, to him. Then someone came with a message, and he left quickly, and forgot to lock the door after him.”
“I don’t remember how I escaped, it was like being in a dream. I fell asleep leaving the room and woke just as I met Sungmin - I told him we had to escape, and then there is nothing until we were wandering around the old Lee estate. I turned to him and said I didn’t feel well; it was like I couldn’t remember what had happened to me. Then, I fell unconscious, and woke up in hospital.”
“I didn’t know his name and I lived for so long in fear of him finding where I was. It lessened over time, but never when I was alone. Sleep was impossible when I dreamt that he was standing over me, always poised to attack but drawing out my suspense. Silence killed me when all I could hear was him whispering my name. And then you-”
“And I?” Kibum asked, voice slightly hushed, as Kyuhyun had looked up and was looking over with a confused expression; he couldn’t hear what they were saying, but could tell they were talking. That, it had to be said, was weird enough for even Kyuhyun to notice - Donghae, after all, didn’t speak to Kibum.
“I don’t like feeling vulnerable,” said Donghae. “When I was around you, I began to feel like I was undefended, that I had no way of protecting myself against - whatever I was beginning to feel. You don't - can you understand what that's like, to feel your heart race and only associate that with a beating about to come? To feel your hands shake and to immediately think of a key sliding in a lock? To - see you smile at me and know that there's no way of protecting myself other than to do what I had done earlier, to sink myself into the obedience and submission that I'd used to cope with those fearful feelings before?"
"But I don't understand why," said Kibum. "I mean - not about Sikyu, I will never, ever understand - but me, I can't understand it."
"I - you-" And then Donghae took a deep breath, shut his eyes, and leant in and kissed Kibum. Kibum's eyes were frozen wide as he struggled to work through the necessary thoughts that would get him closer to kissing back; it almost came too late, he realised as Donghae was pulling away, and he jerked forward to keep their mouths connected - and then they shot apart as a doctor stepped through the double doors at the end of the corridor.
Kyuhyun was immediately at his side. "How is he?" he asked.
The doctor, Kibum noticed as he stood up, didn't look sad, but neither did he look happy. "Are you family?" he asked.
"I'm - he's - I-"
"He's part of the Kim family," said Kibum, and showed the doctor his ID card. The doctor nodded.
"He's stable," he said. "He lost a lot of blood, but he seems to be fine right now. Tonight will let us know further, but we think he should be quite alright."
"Oh thank god," said Kyuhyun, sitting down heavily, his head in his hands. "I could just - thank you, so much."
"I'll go tell Kangin," said Kibum. "I-" He turned to Donghae, who avoided his eyes. With a squeeze of Kyuhyun's shoulder, he turned and left the room.
***
Eeteuk smiled a little as he noticed the excitement radiating off Kangin. "God," muttered Kangin under his breath. "I really hope that this works. We could be free-"
"Don't get too hopeful," said Eeteuk, laying a hand on his shoulder. "It might not work as well as we're hoping."
"It will," said Kangin. "It will because we're - it will." And he slipped his arm around Eeteuk's waist, pulled him close and kissed him. Eeteuk smiled slightly and kissed him back until there was a knock at the door. Then he pulled away and lay his forehead against Kangin's.
"We can celebrate later," he said. Kangin grinned and let go of him, before sitting down at the desk. "Come in," called Eeteuk.
Shindong opened the door and stepped in. "I brought Choi Sikyu," he said, not sounding happy about it. "Like you said."
"Send him in," said Eeteuk with a grin in spite of himself. Shindong frowned at him, clearly believing him to be quite mad, and then Choi Sikyu stormed into the room, sweeping down onto one of the chairs and sitting back with a glare. Eeteuk felt a thrill run through him at the sight of his sneering, hostile face; he had never felt more disgust for a person, but soon it would be different. “We needed to talk to you,” said Eeteuk, voice mild.
“I believe it’s the other way around,” snapped Sikyu. “Do you have any idea what your family has done? You have taken two things that belong to me, and I have stopped my family from attacking until I get them back. I want those two things back.
Kangin and Eeteuk exchanged glances. “Go on,” said Eeteuk, leaning forward in mock interest. It was, he could see, angering Sikyu that it was he who spoke, and not the actual Kim. “What have we taken?”
“The first is my son,” said Sikyu.
“Ah, yes,” said Eeteuk. “Siwon. He’s a bit of a controversial subject, but we hope that his problem will be resolved soon enough. I believe we’ll come back to him. The second?”
Sikyu looked severely annoyed at his first being swept under the rug, but continued nonetheless. “Lee Donghae.”
“Donghae is a Kim,” said Kangin coldly. Sikyu’s eyes flicked to his face, sneering.
“He is a Lee,” he said. “And I bought him - he belongs to me.”
“He may not be a Kim in name,” said Eeteuk, “but he is part of the Kim family, and the Kim family takes care of those in its fold. Donghae is under our protection.” He folded his arms and leant forward, elbows on the table. “You place too much importance on name, and not enough on actual family loyalty. A name is not enough to guarantee unwavering support.”
Sikyu glared at Kangin, the offence too much for him to take. “Who is a Park to speak to me like this?” he asked, outraged. “You would do well to reign in your whores, Youngwoon.”
Eeteuk sighed and laid a hand on Kangin’s arm to stop him from reacting to that. “This is getting us nowhere. I will speak to you in terms that you will be able to understand.” He opened the folder in front of him, pulled out a disc and held it up between two fingers. “On this disc is information on more than one hundred murders that you ordered yourself, over fifty that you have a part in, and uncountable assaults, attacks and killings which, as Choi head, you are responsible for.”
“I wonder how the police would view all this,” said Kangin with a wry smile.
Sikyu looked unimpressed. “I am head of the Choi family,” he said.
Eeteuk shrugged. “You think that will protect you? Like I said, you place too much importance on name, and not enough on building loyalty.”
“You use your name as a shield, fear as a weapon,” said Kangin, “but it’s fascinating how easy it is to gain information from people who do not truly respect you, or who fear you.”
“Here,” said Eeteuk, pushing the disc towards Sikyu. “You might want to check everything is correct - I’d hate for our information to be wrong.” Sikyu picked the disc up and in one movement snapped it in half. Eeteuk laughed at that, a noise of triumph - Kangin felt a rush of emotion, he had never seen Eeteuk so in control. “You think that that is the only copy we have? No, we have plenty of those, plenty of information. Once we hand it over to the police, well, I wonder what will happen then?”
“I am head of the Choi family,” repeated Sikyu arrogantly.
“Families are not a law unto themselves,” said Kangin. “Not in Seoul, and they never will be. We are bound to the rules that are made by our government, we follow the laws of society. We have more leeway, it is true, but there is leeway, and then there is fucking around.”
“As we speak, the information on this disc is being sent to the head of police in the center. We have been promised that he will move as soon as he has the evidence he needs.”
“You have no evidence,” sneered Sikyu.
“Song Jun Woo,” said Eeteuk softly. “Killed for refusing to kill Jung Jiyoung, a woman who had passed information to the Lee family, five years ago.”
“Han Shinhye,” said Kangin. “Beaten on the 15th September, a year ago, for ‘looking at a Choi member the wrong way’.”
“And Go Minyoung,” said Eeteuk, voice a little sad. “His body was found three weeks ago in the Han river, and he was last seen in the company of two Choi members, who were, according to witnesses, ‘hostile and threatening’.”
“He was a traitor,” said Sikyu. “A sneak. He deserved to die.”
“No one deserves to die,” said Eeteuk. “Sikyu, you left us no choice, we had to do this.”
There was a moment where Sikyu seemed to realise that they weren’t messing around, and his eyes narrowed. “You have made a mistake,” he said. “A mistake that will cost you.”
“Why are you still here?” asked Kangin, grinning a little. “Shouldn’t you be protecting your family?”
Sikyu stood up slowly, glaring at them, hands pressed to the table. “You will pay for this,” he hissed.
“So they tell me,” said Kangin with a shrug. Sikyu glared at them one last time before turning and sweeping from the room. A few seconds later, Kibum came in.
“Did you send the information?” Eeteuk asked, as Kangin swept the snapped disc from the table, and crushed it under his foot.
“Yes,” said Kibum tensely, and then; “You let him go?”
“We had to,” said Kangin heavily. “We couldn’t keep him here, we aren’t the police - a fact he would have done well to remember.”
“So what happens now?” asked Kibum, sitting down.
“We don’t know,” admitted Eeteuk. “There’s no way Sikyu is going back to the Choi estate, but we’ve got men posted at the airport, there’s no way he’s getting through.”
“But he’ll know that already,” said Kangin.
“So he’ll go into hiding,” said Kibum.
“He’s the only one who knows,” said Kangin. “He can warn the others, but they aren’t going to get out in time. We might not have Choi Sikyu, but we have the rest of the family. They’ll pay for what they did.”
“Sikyu should pay for what he did,” said Kibum fiercely.
“I know,” said Kangin, laying a hand on Kibum’s shoulder. “I know that it’s not wonderful, Kibum, but you understand why, don’t you?”
“I do,” said Kibum. “I’m just not happy about it.”
“God, think about what Heechul’s going to say,” said Kangin. “He wants to rip Sikyu to pieces, after what he’s done to Hankyung and Siwon. I’ll be lucky to be left alive after Heechul finds out.”
“What happens with Siwon now?” asked Kibum.
“It depends,” said Kangin. “Technically it should be - but then, he signed over to - we don’t know.”
Kibum frowned in confusion, and Eeteuk intervened. “Kibum, how is Donghae?”
Kibum fell silent for a moment. “I haven’t spoken to him since he told me,” he said. “He - well, I was going to go talk to him.”
“Go,” said Eeteuk, with a slight smile, and Kibum nodded and left the room. Eeteuk turned to look at Kangin, smile fading.
“What does happen with Siwon?” he said.
“Sikyu never actually named another heir,” said Kangin. “I got a couple of people to check that. As he never changed the name of the heir, Siwon takes over the family.”
“But Sikyu isn’t dead,” pointed out Eeteuk.
“Bring me down, why don’t you?” grumbled Kangin, sitting down. “Anyway, that doesn’t matter. The second he is announced to be a wanted man, all of his assets will be transferred to his heir, and the heir by law is Siwon, and he - wait, you fucking know this already!”
“I know,” said Eeteuk with a smile, leaning his side against Kangin’s shoulder. “I just wanted to see if you remembered. I’m the brains, remember?”
“If you were the brains,” sniped Kangin, “we’d have been run aground years ago.”
“I’m going to rise above you,” said Eeteuk, standing back up. Kangin reached out and wrapped an arm around his waist.
“It’s been a while,” he said quietly. “Since we’ve been able to talk, together.”
“Been a while since other things too,” said Eeteuk with a wry smile, and Kangin grinned. “Don’t give me that, I know what you’re thinking, Kim Youngwoon.”
The sound of his old name made Kangin grow thoughtful; only Eeteuk ever got away with it now. “Do you think he’d say we did what was right?” he asked. Eeteuk understood who he meant without needing to ask.
“I don’t know,” he said. “We’ve just aided in the destruction of an old family, but - it was family that had gone to the wrong. They were almost out of control; a family is something that should instil respect and look after what happens, not something that rules out of fear. If a family becomes that, the country becomes like that.” His voice dipped down. “It’s what happened in China, after all. It’s why Yehsung’s parents were killed in Thailand. We couldn’t let that happen here.”
“We’re like super heroes,” said Kangin, breaking out of his thoughts with a wide grin. “We just saved Seoul from ultimate destruction.”
Eeteuk peered at him. “Have you been playing video games with Donghae or something?”
Kangin scoffed. “When do I have time to play games with Donghae?” he asked. “No, I’m too busy destroying renegade families and generally saving the world.”
“Whatever, Superman,” said Eeteuk, walking to the door. “If you’re so good, why don’t you be the one to work out how to tell Heechul about what happened with Sikyu?”
“Just throw me to the wolves, I’d rather that,” muttered Kangin. Eeteuk laughed.
“I’ll get someone to keep an eye on Sikyu,” he said. Kangin nodded, and Eeteuk left the room, where he paused and pulled out his phone, before ringing a contact. “It’s Eeteuk,” he said. “Listen, I need you to keep an eye on something for me. Yeah. It’s Choi Sikyu - no, he’s on the run. Yes. I know it’s - yes.”
Eeteuk hung up, and swallowed hard, hands shaking. They had just played a very dangerous game, and no matter how much they joked about it, they didn’t know where it might lead.
***
Kibum paused as he entered the corridor to where Zhou Mi’s room was. Donghae was lying across the seats outside, asleep, his suit jacket curled up underneath his head. Kibum watched him for a couple of seconds, a mixture of feelings swirling inside of him.
He had never seen Donghae sleep before. He has seen Donghae at night before, but never actually asleep, not completely. In those weeks that Donghae had been in the hospital, Kibum had seen him try to fall asleep so many times, but wake, terrified and screaming, due to the terrors that afflicted him while his subconscious had control.
Under morphine and heavy medication, it hadn’t been able to surface, so that it had first happened about a week after Donghae had arrived at the hospital. He had been off the painkillers and equipment for about two days, and Kibum had taken to sleeping in the room with him, simply to make Donghae feel safer. He still harboured thoughts and fears that whoever had held him hostage would come for him, and Eeteuk had ordered that someone stay with him overnight. Kibum had no jobs, could afford to do it - and what was more, he wanted to do it. Having been the one who had first noticed Donghae’s injuries, he felt some responsibility for him.
Kibum jerked awake at about 1am, woken by fearful yelling that he couldn’t place to begin with. He shot upright and saw Donghae flailing on the bed, body going tense before he thrashed out again, fighting against things that Kibum couldn’t see. Kibum moved faster than he had ever moved before, kneeling on the bed and trying to get a grip to shake Donghae awake. “Donghae-shi,” he yelled over the top of Donghae’s screams. “Hyung, wake up!”
Donghae’s eyes shot open, and when he saw Kibum kneeling over him, his eyes turned terrified and he lashed out, fist connecting with Kibum’s jaw and knocking him from the bed. Kibum half-lay on the floor, blinking in shock, before he sat up.
Donghae sat up on the bed, shivering but covered in sweat. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, avoiding Kibum’s eyes. Kibum shook his head.
“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s not your fault, you were half-asleep.” Except, really, he knew that Donghae hadn’t been. Donghae had just reacted in the only way that he could. “What were you dreaming about?”
“I - I can’t remember,” said Donghae, and there was another pause.
“You should sleep some more,” said Kibum after a while. “You need as much rest as you can.”
“Y-yes,” said Donghae, and lay back down, his back to Kibum, chest rising and falling sporadically. Kibum had no doubt that it took Donghae slightly longer than it took Kibum to fall back asleep, but that didn’t matter.
Kibum was woken up two hours later by Donghae’s screams again, only this time there were words in the screams, leave me alone, get off me, it hurts, and when Donghae woke again, he was sobbing.
It only got worse as the night went on.
Kibum knelt down next to the chairs and lay his hand softly on Donghae’s shoulder. “Hyung,” he said quietly, shaking his shoulder a little, making sure that he was fair away enough to not be a threat. “Hyung.”
Donghae’s eyes fluttered open and he blinked, confused, at Kibum before he sat up, yawning. He stretched, and then stopped moving, his arms falling to his sides. “Oh,” he said.
“How are you?” asked Kibum.
“I’m - how’s Zhou Mi?”
Kibum shrugged, even though Donghae had his back to him. “I don’t know, I’ve only just come from talking to Eeteuk and Kangin.”
“Did you - tell them?” Kibum nodded, and Donghae was silent. “What did they say?”
“Nothing,” said Kibum. “They understand why you didn’t want to speak out before. They’ve - it’s confusing.”
“What is?” Donghae frowned.
“They overthrew Choi Sikyu,” said Kibum, speaking quickly as if to lessen the pain Donghae might feel at Sikyu’s name. “They had information on attacks and murders that he had committed or been responsible for, spanning over 20 years, and they asked me to transfer it to the police, so I did, and then - I think they may have just destroyed the Choi family.
Donghae blinked at him. “Wait, what?”
“I don’t know!” said Kibum, giving a confused laugh. “I don’t know what’s going on. But - I think Sikyu may have escaped. There’s no way he’ll have gone back to his family, not now that he knows that they’re under attack from the authorities. I don’t know where he will have gone.”
Donghae was silent. “I don’t care,” he said after a short while. “Revenge is so tiring.” He grinned, and for the first time that Kibum had known him, he looked him directly in the eyes, and actually smiled at him. “Don’t you think?”
Kibum didn’t answer; he straightened up a little instead and leant in slowly, as if testing the waters - after all, he didn’t want to push it. Donghae’s smile became wider, and Kibum swayed forward and kissed him again.
After two years, Kibum’s desperation was almost ridiculous, his joy almost crippling. He shifted Donghae back, blood roaring in his ears, so that soon Donghae was pressed against the wall, his hands around the top of Donghae’s arms. Then he felt Donghae go very still very quickly, and he pulled away, letting go of him as if burnt.
“Sorry,” he gasped, struggling to catch his breath. Donghae just shook his head, and then with something like exhilaration in his eyes, jumped forward and kissed Kibum hard, hands clutching at his collar.
“I’ll get over it,” he murmured into Kibum’s ear, lips brushing skin. “So don’t ever stop, okay?”
“Fuck,” said Kibum, and Donghae’s laugh made his heart jump.