05. terminus
Woohyun watches Kim Myungsoo through his window
(but no, not like that)
Here’s what he knows about Kim Myungsoo: five nights out of seven, he will have noodles for dinner and he has his favourites - udon, ramyun and spaghetti in that order; he wears suits to work and sleeps in plaid and he is fluent in Japanese, judging from the lifestyle magazines he has on his bedside table.
Tonight, Kim Myungsoo lounges around in a pair of plaid pajamas with a cup of coffee in his hand. Woohyun also knows he only drinks Illy coffee and when he sees Kim Myungsoo drip some onto the blue check patterns, Woohyun has to bite back a chuckle.
His finger tightens over the trigger almost like an afterthought because he already knows he can’t do it today.
Woohyun has four days left to kill Kim Myungsoo.
When he’s given the job, the necessary information does not come inside what you’d expect, like a dirty brown envelope or communicated via a self-destructing tape. He receives an email with a name and an address, and when Woohyun walks out of the café and into a taxi that brings him to the location, the taxi driver slips a key into his hand along with his change.
It’s the key to an apartment unit on the thirty-second floor. There is a glass dining room table and a gorgeous old-fashioned fridge, along with other impractical furnishings. What he’s most interested in is the view of this place: one side of the apartment faces Seoul’s skyline. The other overlooks the target’s studio apartment.
Kim Sunggyu has always been thorough, Woohyun thinks wryly as finds a briefcase under the couch and it’s a dismantled sniper.
Two hours later, another email comes in. Woohyun waits at the pay phone on the corner of the street, as instructed, and the phone rings at exactly five pm.
“This is a little fancy,” Woohyun says as a greeting. He’s used completing jobs like shooting people with silencers on the way out of trains or slipping cyanide into their cocktails.
“Kim Myungsoo is special,” Kim Sunggyu says before hanging up.
(day four)
Kim Myungsoo never has anyone over to his place. No friends; no men in stiff business suits or pretty girls in short dresses and coy smiles. Kim Myungsoo only spends time on his laptop or reading magazines and business journals or drinking coffee.
There’s something strange about the way Kim Myungsoo uses his laptop or rather, in the way he squints at the screen like he can’t believe what he’s seeing or understand what he’s reading.
Woohyun spends exactly half the day wondering if he’s watching porn and the other half wondering why he wonders.
(day three)
Today’s email reads, Pick up the phone when you see Kim Myungsoo on the phone.
At nine pm, Kim Myungsoo answers the phone and Woohyun follows suit.
“Hello, Sungyeol-hyung.” It’s embarrassing that Woohyun almost drops the receiver, because Kim Myungsoo has an odd but not unpleasant voice - it’s nasally but smooth.
“How are things?”
Woohyun can see Myungsoo’s expression falters even though his tone remains stable. “Progressing.”
There’s a dent of silence.
“It’s unsatisfactory.”
“I’m working on it.”
“Do better.”
The line dies and Kim Myungsoo stares at the phone before flinging it across the room.
He skips coffee and pours himself soju instead.
Woohyun can’t find any in his fridge (“It would help if you could provide alcohol in the fridge you obviously paid a fortune for,” Woohyun says into the pay phone. He hears Sunggyu laugh humourlessly through the receiver. “It would help if you could kill the target, like you’re supposed to.”) so he drinks water instead as he watches Kim Myungsoo down three entire bottles within the span of an hour.
(day two)
Kim Myungsoo stays home the entire day today.
Woohyun has seen Kim Myungsoo wear so much plaid today that he’s almost ready to kill him solely for that reason.
He doesn’t, because when it’s close to midnight, Kim Myungsoo places down his magazine. He pulls up the blanket to his chest as he stretches forward, a smooth expanse of skin is exposed and Woohyun decides it’s worth Sunggyu wrath to keep Kim Myungsoo alive for one more day.
(day one point five)
“It would be in your best interests to kill Kim Myungsoo as soon as possible.”
“When have you ever been concerned about my welfare?”
Kim Sunggyu’s voice is cloying and saccharine sweet. “You’ve always been my favourite, Nam Woohyun.”
There is a mix up, because Woohyun is supposed to kill Kim Myungsoo today.
He is supposed to aim a Heckler & Koch sniper rifle at Kim Myungsoo’s head and put a bullet clean through his head. It would be almost soundless, and nearly untraceable. Kim Sunggyu would bank close to a million dollars into an offshore account as Kim Myungsoo’s family pay their respects to a closed casket.
But this time it’s different because things don’t go according to plan.
Woohyun wakes up, on the couch, to Kim Myungsoo standing in his apartment with a gun aimed to his head.
“Hi,” he says. “My name is L.”
Oh, he thinks groggily. He is an agent too. “My name is Nam Woohyun.”
The gun clicks as Kim Myungsoo smiles sadly, and it literally takes his breath away.