Running (Chapter 23)
Title: Running
Pairing: Yoosu, ChangKi, Yunjae
Rating: PG-15
Genre: Angst, Comedy
Quotes:
"There is no such thing as [running] forever."
“I’m leaving.”
“What? Where? Are you coming back?”
The question wasn’t ‘When are you coming back?’ The question is ‘Are you coming back?’
“I’ll be back in time for dinner,” Changmin replied.
Kibum turned away sheepishly. “Okay, I’ll see you later.”
Changmin understood. Kibum was afraid. They hadn’t spoke much in the past two days after Yoochun and Junsu left. Neither knew what to say. Both were afraid to talk.
Where would they go from here?
Kibum didn’t know. He just didn’t want Changmin to leave. As a matter of fact, he didn’t want Changmin to keep working as an assassin. Sure, he made good money, but it was too dangerous and too…horrible. It’s wrong. Too wrong. But staying with Changmin felt right. Very right.
Changmin didn’t know where he’d go from here. He wanted to confess to Kibum. Because he’d finally admitted that he was helplessly in love. But…he was still an assassin, a part of the mafia. He couldn’t run from this identity. And this would put Kibum in danger too. Changmin now had a weakness and if any of his enemies, or if Bae found out, Kibum would be in danger.
He couldn’t risk that.
But he knew that no matter where he went, he’d still come back to Kibum.
Changmin put on his coat and opened the apartment door. He stopped in his track when he saw the three men standing in front of the other apartment. Kibum noticed and abandoned his laptop to stand next to Changmin.
“Junsu!” Kibum gasped. His first thought was whether Junsu was okay (because he saw the bandage around the man’s head).
Xiah looked at Kibum and then at Changmin. His eyes remained on Changmin. He wanted Changmin to speak; he wanted to see if he could recognize Changmin’s voice. Was Changmin the one who had cried out ‘Micky’ that second before Junho had been shot to death? Xiah couldn’t remember because he had been knocked unconscious before Changmin walked into view.
Was Changmin an assassin too? Did Changmin have a hand in killing his brother?
Why couldn’t Junsu remember Changmin’s voice? Another headache struck and Junsu clenched his fist to fight the pain. The doctor had warned him about this.
“Who…who are these people?” Kibum inquired, noting the hostility coming from the two strangers. Changmin’s eyes were on the tallest of the three. Both gazes were unwavering. No one spoke. No one knew what to say.
“Officer, officer, I have the keys here!”
Everyone turned to see the landlord appear from the elevator. He carried a key in his hand.
Kibum’s heart skipped a beat. ‘Officer’? So the two strangers are…
Changmin grabbed Kibum’s arm and pushed him back into the apartment. He locked the door, his expression telling Kibum that he was frustrated. Kibum was confused and frightened, but it wasn’t hard to put the pieces together.
The man out there was no longer ‘Junsu’.
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“I found this,” Jaejoong pulled the luggage out into the living room. “It was in the bedroom on the right. There’s a huge stuff bunny and a Superman figurine in there too.”
Xiah stared in the direction of the room that was once his own…before he started to share that one room with Yoo…with Micky Park.
“It’s just clothes and normal stuff,” Yunho informed. “And I doubt they belong to Park.”
Xiah looked at the luggage. It was his luggage, holding his belongings. Yoo…Micky never put this luggage onto the taxi. Was this what he ‘forgot’ and was ‘going back’ for?
“There’s nothing else in this apartment. No clues of where he could be,” Jaejoong was talking. “What should we do with this stuff?”
“Nothing.”
“Just…take it with us. I’ll go through it and see if I can remember some stuff,” Xiah offered. “Maybe I’ll find some clues to help you find him.”
“Okay, let’s grab the other stuff in the room and get out of here. We need to find another place to stay before those people find us again.”
Xiah nodded and followed the two. In his mind, he recalled yesterday’s lie.
[F.l.a.s.h.b.a.c.k]
“We went to the hospital to find you, but they told us that your brother had taken you home. They told us that you had amnesia and when I showed them a picture of Micky Park, they verified that he was the one who checked you out of the hospital,” Yunho retrieved a picture from his pocket and handed it to Xiah.
Xiah tried not to stare too long at the man in the picture. “Why would he kidnap me?”
Yunho and Jaejoong exchanged glances. They didn’t want to be putting too much on Xiah since he was still recovering.
Just minutes ago, when Yunho had asked Xiah what had happened to him in the past months that he’d gone missing, Xiah had claimed that he couldn’t remember anything about that certain period.
“Xiah, Junho was…in the mafia. He worked for one of the worst leaders; the leader’s name is Bae. The group was involved in drugs, prostitution, and murder,” Yunho explained. He really didn’t want to ruin Junho’s image in Xiah’s heart. “For some reason, Junho got a hold of a microchip that had information on all the illegal transactions between the mafia’s leader and hundreds of other dealers.”
Xiah remained quiet and expressionless throughout the explanation. “Xiah, do you want to rest?” Jaejoong offered.
“No, please, continue.”
Yunho nodded. “When he tried to blackmail Bae…”
“For money?” Xiah inquired. He never thought his brother was the greedy type.
“I don’t know. Junho wouldn’t tell me,” Yunho paused. “And I didn’t blame him. We’re childhood friends, but we are on opposing ends.”
“So they killed him…for the microchip?”
“Yes and I would assume that after they killed him, they thought that you would know where the microchip is.”
“I don’t.”
“They don’t know that. They didn’t expect you to suffer from the amnesia so they had no choice, but to kidnap you. I guess Micky Park was assigned to take care of you until you recovered and he could get the information out of you.”
“And then kill me,” Xiah murmured. Yunho and Jaejoong exchanged glances. They couldn’t quite read the emotion in Xiah’s tone. He was definitely upset and that was normal.
They just didn’t know that Xiah was upset for a reason unknown to them.
[E.n.d.F.l.a.s.h.b.a.c.k]
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“What the hell is going on?”
“Changmin, calm down.”
“Calm down? I called you twenty times and you didn’t pick up!”
“I picked up now.”
“Damn it, Yoochun, what the hell is going on?” Changmin shouted into the phone.
Kibum grabbed the phone from Changmin and spoke in a softer voice, “Chunnie, are you okay? Are you safe?”
“I’m fine, Kibum,” Yoochun replied, but the fatigue in his voice was evident. Fatigue…and many other melancholic emotions.
Changmin grabbed the phone back and put it on speaker phone. “Start talking,” he demanded.
“What is there to say?” Yoochun’s hoarse voice came through the speaker. Had he been crying?
“You set it all up, didn’t you?”
“I did, although…I didn’t expect him to get his memory back so soon.”
Changmin looked at Kibum. They shared confused expression. “What do you mean? Didn’t you leave him because he got his memory back?”
Yoochun went ahead and relayed the scene in front of the park to them. Ending with, “…I’m just glad Junsu is okay now.”
“Yes, he seems okay. They wouldn’t have let him leave the hospital so soon if his injury was serious,” Kibum tried to make Yoochun feel better.
“It wasn’t serious, but it was enough to bring his memory back. What the hell is this? Some kind of movie?” Changmin exclaimed, running a hand through his hair in frustration. “Okay, so he got his memory back after that incident. Then…why did you plan on leaving him when he didn’t even have his memory back? Did he have another, more vivid, dream?”
“No.”
“Chunnie, please don’t make us drag every word out of you. We want to help you,” Kibum begged. He wanted so much to hug Yoochun right now, to comfort the hurting man.
Yoochun sighed and the two could sense his surrender. “I had someone locate Jung Yunho’s location. He was living in a small apartment thirty minutes away from us. I asked my friend…”
“Who?” Changmin wanted to know. He got a feeling it was someone from the mafia, one of their (few) former comrades.
Yoochun ignored the question, “…to place a picture and a note in front of Jung’s door. I timed it so that they would arrive in front of the park around the same time that we would be there.”
“Why, Chunnie? If Junsu still didn’t have his memory at that time, why did you do it? I thought the only reason you would let Junsu go was…if he got his memory back. If he hadn’t hit his head when you tried to leave him, then he probably wouldn’t have gotten his memory back. You could have stayed with him longer.”
The phone was silent for a few, long seconds before Yoochun spoke again, “Because something unexpected happened.”
Chapter 24 // “It’s not supposed to happen.”