'Cause We Need a Little Controversy 2/2
'Cause We Need a Little Controversy
itachibana13
PG-13; drama, action.
minho/key; 14,368 words.
Korea mourns over the death of the car racer for a week, turning off broadcasts and such. Kibum finds it annoying.
Jonghyun ends up not interested enough to watch the show, so all he says is “Well damn, that sucks,” and carries on as usual, not caring.
Minho’s pretty sad for a while, but then the soccer world cup starts, and he doesn’t even remember he likes car racing.
Kibum doesn’t give a damn. “They don’t really care,” he tells Jinki. “They say they do, but they forget so quickly.”
Jinki nods. “I think I agree, so wanna do another car mission?” Kibum glares at him. “I was kidding. So anyways,” he says, “I brought some files. Pick a case; these are the ones I liked.”
He hands Kibum his cell phone, and he scrolls through, reading them carefully. “Anyone except that one,” Kibum decides. “It’s too close to finals.”
“Will remember. By the way, your friend is here, so I’ll see you later.” Jinki grins at him, taking his cell phone.
“Bye.”
Minho arrives nearly a moment later. “Hey,” he greets him. “Who was that?”
Kibum waves back. “Random old acquaintance I ran into. So, let's go.”
They head towards to the movie theater, picking the film that looks like it has the most blood and violence. They barely speak during the movie, but it’s not an awkward kind of silence. It’s the comfortable kind, actually. Once they’re outside the movie theatre, they start to take a walk in a park nearby. Just because.
“That movie was pretty good,” Kibum starts.
Minho laughs. “Yeah, the best part was when that guy met the other guy, and the fight started.”
“Yeah! Oh my god, that was so cool. And then when the girl came in -”
“And everyone was like ‘what the hell!’” Minho finishes for him.
“Yeah!” They laugh and Kibum pauses for a second. “Oh hey, isn’t today June 14th? ‘Cause my sister was telling me about this concert thing going on nearby. It was next to the arcade. I don’t know who’s singing though; I don’t think they were very good. Could be worth a try?”
Minho grins. “Let’s stop and think for a second.” He raises his hands, as if to make a scale. “Unknown concert, arcade. Unknown concert, arcade. Unknown concert, arcade.”
Kibum shrugs, smiling. “Arcade it is, then.”
Kibum totally owns Minho at every single game. Racing, shooting, fighting, everything, even chance games.
Minho jabs Kibum in the stomach. “Oh! This is totally something I could beat you at. I’d wipe you clean.” Minho sneers, motion to the DDR set.
Kibum raises an eyebrow. “Have you ever even played DDR before?”
Minho opens his mouth, but then closes it. Then opens it again. “Well. I’ve played once or twice. But, it’s just stepping on a mat. That’s not hard at all, and therefore I will absolutely kill you at this game.”
“Why are you being so competitive?”
“Because I know I can beat you!”
Kibum shrugs, and they play.
And so Minho loses. Again.
“I don’t think I like you,” Minho states, putting in more quarters. “I demand a rematch.” He ignores Kibum’s roll of the eyes, and selects another song.
So he never actually wins, in the nine songs they play. Kibum laughs hysterically at him as they walk out of the building, clutching his sides while watching Minho’s face. If you stamp SORE LOSER on it, it really wouldn’t be much of a difference. At least, that’s what Kibum thinks.
“Anyways,” Minho starts, deciding to change the subject. Kibum snickers, receiving a well earned glare in return. “Have you ever danced before?”
Kibum laughs. “You don’t have to be a dancer to be good at DDR, but yeah. I’m a dancer.”
Minho’s mouth makes an ‘o’ shape. “Really? I want to see you dance. What type of dance do you do? Ballet?” He teases, attempting to get on his toes. Kibum watches him lose his balance and fall over.
“No, and that’s point, just so you know. I do hip hop.”
“I want to see!” Minho instantly states. “How come I never knew about this?”
“I don’t know - Jonghyun knew.”
Minho snorts. “Jonghyun knows everything that doesn’t have to do with academics.”
Kibum nods in agreement. “Should we go back?”
“You have to dance!”
“Can’t we like, do that at my dorm room or something?”
Minho pauses for a second. “We could, but your room is cramped as hell.”
“Yeah, well I don’t want to have to deal with whatever new girl Jonghyun brought,” Kibum retorts. “Besides, Jonghyun’s seen me dance enough times.” He wrinkles his nose. “Can you imagine what he’s doing with her?”
“Free porn?” Minho offers.
“My room it is then.”
“Whoo!” Minho cheers. “Free sex!”
“I’m not sure if you could keep up with me,” Kibum grins. “Come on, let’s get a taxi. It’s almost ten; I don’t want to walk all the way back to dorm.”
Kibum starts walking, and Minho follows behind him, teasing. “Ooh, Kibummie’s a freak in the sheets.”
“Minho’s gay for dancers,” Kibum replies, finally catching one. He opens the door for Minho, who climbs in and tells the driver the location of their dorm. “Likes the way their bodies move, right? Must wanna shake it up with them.”
They shamelessly make sexual innuendos towards each other all the back to Kibum’s room.
“Somebody’s eager to get into my room,” Kibum sneers.
Minho laughs, opening the door. “I just wonder if you’ll ever let me out.”
“That makes me sound like a pedophilic rapist,” Kibum complains, walking inside.
“You are one. What time is it, anyways?”
Kibum looks at the time. “Oh shit, it’s almost midnight. I have early classes tomorrow, so maybe some other time.”
“Oh,” Minho pouts. “Alright. Bye.”
“Bye.”
“So,” Kibum looks over his gun. “Lee Yunmin? What an ugly name.”
“Kim Kibum is kind of redundant too, you know.” Jinki retorts, emptying the contents of his gun.
“Shut up, Onew. And you’re not allowed to say my real name.” Kibum frowns. “And really man? Do you have a cell phone fetish or something? Another cell phone company CEO to kill.”
Jinki shrugs. “People pay lots of money for this, so I’m sold.”
They wait at the top of the building, looking through papers and loading their guns.
“So, which gun are you taking?” Kibum asks, eyeing one of the revolvers.
“This one. Is that okay?” Jinki picks up a shiny silver one - new, Kibum notes. He wanted that one. Oh well.
“Eh, I don’t need much. I’ll just take the classic pistol,” Kibum comments, picking up the gun. He looks it over, eyes grazing over the designs on the bullet cartridge.
Jinki raises an eyebrow. “That thing only has six bullets in it, are you sure?” Kibum nods, and Jinki shrugs, stuffing the gun in the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “Okay, well. Here is the thing. There’s practically no one here at the moment, since it’s a holiday. Try not to kill extra people.” He opens up a laptop, pressing the keys until a screen comes up.
“Ooh, nice,” Kibum grins. “Is that a blueprint of the building?”
Jinki nods. “You’re going to room two oh five. He’s talking to someone right now, but whatever. Just kill him and then get out of there.”
“The other person?”
Jinki shrugs. “Kill them. You got it?” Kibum nods. “Okay, I’ll be in the parking lot, so just find me when you’re done. If something goes wrong, tell me what’s up and I’ll try to help out.”
Kibum gives him a thumbs up, opening the door and walking down the steps to the second floor. He presses a hand to his ear. “Hey Jinki,” he says, “there’s only two people in the room right now, right?”
“Yeah. You could probably just walk in there and shoot them both you know.”
“Should I cover my face?”
“Nah, I destroyed the video cameras.”
Kibum shrugs, approaching the designated room. “This is probably the most easiest mission ever.”
He hears Jinki laugh though the earpiece. “Exactly why I picked it. Aren’t I a genius?”
He looks through the little window in the door to see two familiar people. In an instant he presses himself back against the wall breathing heavily, and holding his gun as close to him as possible. He leans his head against the wall in means to get him calmed down.
“Onew, Onew. Onew, that is fucking Minho in there. Why the fuck is Minho in there?”
There’s a rush of static in which he can hear Jinki pressing the keys of his laptop. Kibum tries to get a steady breathing rate, putting his other arm not holding a gun to his chest. He pounds on his chest twice, attempting to clear his head. “Onew, Onew -”
“I know, I know. Apparently he’s the son of Choi Yungyum, director of the management of technological communications in Samsung.”
Kibum freezes up and bile forms at the back of his throat. Well shit, he knew that already. “Onew, can we cancel this? I really don’t think I could do this.”
“Taemin would kill you. I’ve already hacked into the mainstream of the surveillance system; if I stop now without completely destroying the system, they could track us down.”
“Onew, please.”
Jinki sighs. “Key, I wish we could. J-just. Open the door, shoot, and run out. That’s not too hard. He might not even see you, and the stair case is right down the hallway. C’mon. And there’s seven grand waiting for us.”
Kibum laughs hoarsely. “You really love your money.”
“I go to Yonsei University, you can’t blame me. My dad’s fighting cancer, and my mom’s a hair stylist. I need this.”
And suddenly, Kibum feels really, really bad. He’s just doing this for college, and for kicks, really. He doesn’t really remember how he somehow ended up in the ‘hey-let’s-kill-people-for-money’ business. But Jinki is doing this for him and his family. He has an actual reason. What a selfish person, Kibum tells himself. Jinki’s reason is completely dignified, and Kibum just wants to pull the plug on it because he knows someone in there that he likes.
“How about… I go in there, kill him, and then kidnap Minho?”
He can feel Jinki’s smile through the headset. “Yeah, that’d be good. Or you could stay in the building with Minho until we figure something out.”
“I’m going in.”
He opens the door silently, neither Minho nor Yunmin notice him so he takes out a gun and points it at the latter.
The door behind him slams shut and they turn around. He can feel Minho’s facial expression changing, but he closes his eyes and presses the trigger twice. He hears someone scream but doesn’t register who it is.
“W-what the fuck did you just do?” Minho screams, staring at the dead body.
“I, uh. Yeah, about that.”
Minho backs away from him, pressing himself against the wall. “You just killed him!”
“Yeah, I did,” Kibum mumbles. “This is not the best time to talk about this. Can we get out of here first?”
“N-no! What the… what the fuck Kibum! You just… you just-!”
“He’s freaking out, Onew. What do I do?”
Jinki sighs. “You should just kill him.”
“But I like him.”
Minho’s still staring at him, unable to comprehend what just happened. “A-and you’re talking to yourself! Kibum, oh my God, tell me you’re not delusional. Why are you talking to yourself? And why did you kill him!”
“I think he thinks I’m talking to myself.”
“I think so too,” Jinki comments. “Seriously. You might as well kill him. If Taemin finds out, you’re kind of screwed. Just so you know.”
Kibum watches Minho freak out, looking around the room, panicking. He tries to look at every single spot that isn’t Lee Yunmin’s dead body. He walks around the room, and that’s when Kibum notices what he’s advancing to.
“Oh, crap. I’m going to have to talk to you later; he’s going to ring the alarm.”
“He’s going to what?”
Kibum takes out the gun and shoots next to Minho’s hand, watching him scream and fall to the floor with his hands over his head.
“No, no, no, no,” Kibum starts, “you really can’t do that. I might just have to kill you too then.” He points the gun at Minho’s head for emphasis.
“You killed him,” Minho chokes out.
“Yeah, I kinda did,” Kibum frowns. He reasons with himself - there’s no point in sugarcoating it now.
“You’re a murderer!” Minho accuses.
Kibum sighs. “Yeah, I kinda am.”
Jinki speaks up again. “Key, seriously. I’m not kidding, as much as you love him, someone’s gonna need to die. So just kill him.”
“No!” Kibum instantly replies. “I don’t think I could bring myself to shoot him, anyways.”
Jinki sighs again. “Look, we’re running out of time, okay? If you don’t kill him, Taemin will kill you, him, or both. Oh, he might kill me too.”
Kibum bites his lip. There’s no way he could bring himself to kill Minho. Well, he could probably shoot him in the arm or something, and make him swear to not tell anyone about it. But Minho is the kind of righteous person, so he’d tell anyways.
However, suddenly a siren rings, and Kibum looks up to see the little light at the corner of the room flashing red. He looks towards Minho, and gasps. He’s pulled the alarm.
“Oh no, Onew, he’s rung the alarm. Um, Onew. You get out of here; I’ll take care of everything from here. You got it?”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. I’m disconnecting the headset, okay?”
“…okay.”
He hears the click of the headset and growls to himself. “This room isn’t safe anymore,” he grits through his teeth. “You,” he screams. Minho freezes, staring at him like a deer caught in headlights.
“I -”
Kibum walks over, grabbing him by the scruff of his collar, almost dragging him out of the doorway. He looks down the hallway quickly, and bolts for the staircase, dragging Minho with him. He runs up to the top floor, and enters the first door he sees, shooting the lock twice. It’s a small empty storage room, with lots of wires and pieces of electronics lining the shelves. There’s a small table in the middle of the room, in which he drags Minho to and finally lets go.
Minho collapses onto the floor gasping for breath and putting his hands to his throat. He scrambles away from Kibum, propping himself on one of the two chairs. He tries to look at the walls, the gadgets, not Kibum, but his eyes end up landing back on him. Kibum’s not really looking at anything though, he’s frantically thinking of what the hell to do and how to get them out of here and to make a decent story of why he killed a man, has a gun, and how he’s totally not an assassin.
Nothing comes, so he looks at Minho.
Minho finally gets up, glaring at Kibum. “You -”
“Don’t talk; you’re not going to be able to do anything to me.”
Minho clenches his teeth, watching Kibum pace back and forth.
“They’re going to find us,” Minho states, voice shaking and hands quivering.
Kibum laughs. “You have too much faith in the police.”
“How do you know?”
He shrugs. “Onew did something, most likely. He always does.”
“Who’s Onew?”
Kibum picks up one of the electronics on the desk, examining it. “No one you need to know.” After throwing the item to the side, Kibum walks over to the table, sitting in the chair across from Minho. Minho watches him for a moment, but also proceeds to sit across from Kibum. “So, what do you think we should do?”
Minho stares at him like he’s crazy, looking left and right, thinking. He hears a metal object hit the table and he looks over to see Kibum’s hand on top of a gun.
“Let’s play a game, Minho.”
Minho stares at him a little, confused.
“Do you know how to play Russian Roulette?”
Minho’s mouth goes dry, and he stares at Kibum in disbelief. “I, no, what?”
“No? Well. You have one bullet,” Kibum starts, and takes the bullet out of the gun. He shows him the empty bullet compartment. “And then you put the bullet in the gun, spin the compartment so you don’t know where the gun is.” He clicks the gun into place, and then places it on the table. “We take turns to shoot each other, and whoever gets the bullet is the lucky winner. Sound good?”
“This is… are you serious?”
Kibum gives him a look. “No, I’m not. Because we’re not trapped in a building and there’s no gun in front of us.”
Minho sniffs. “You make yourself sound innocent.”
“Aren’t I? You’re threatening to take away my job. And most likely my life.”
“That’s…”
“Okay? Okay. Let’s play. Oh, you should go first.”
Minho’s eyes widen and his mouth opens, gaping at Kibum. Kibum’s demeanor instantly changes, giving him a hard look with piercing eyes and deadly aura.
“I, no. I couldn’t…”
“But you can.” Kibum states, like its a fact. “And you will.”
Minho starts trembling, and he starts thinking of weird things, like how he really doesn’t like Kibum’s shirt. It’s all black, so not Kibum. Right now, he doesn’t care if Kibum’s closet looks like clouds shitting rainbows, it’s better than what he’s wearing now. “I…can’t.” He gulps hard, trying not to look at Kibum.
Kibum looks at him with an expression Minho has never seen on Kibum before. It’s like a mixture of anger, disappointment, and betrayal. It makes Minho even more nervous, and he tenses up, clenching his fists together and biting his lip.
“Pick up the gun, Minho.”
Now Minho’s chest heaves up and down, with sweat running down his face. This was some cruel, cruel joke. Jonghyun would jump out of the closet and scream something really retarded, and Kibum would laugh and shoot the gun, and bubbles would come out or something.
“N-no. This isn’t real.”
“The gun’s real Minho, now pick it up.”
The adrenaline rush starts to spread as his hands shake and head throbs. The actual fear hasn’t set in yet though. “You’re joking, why would I -”
“Pick up the goddamn gun and shoot, Minho!” Kibum screams, and Minho has never followed an order so quickly in his life. He scrambles for the revolver and immediately points and pulls the trigger. He blinks after, gasping out.
Kibum sits there, bored. “Damn,” he frowns, “death just doesn’t like me, does he.” He smirks. “Didn’t even have to think about how righteous that was. Doesn’t that make you the same as me?”
And then Minho freezes. The reality seeps in, chilling him to the bone. Even though he’s sweating all over, his throat dries up. He goes to speak, but it’s hard to swallow through the bile. It’s much harder to breath - he can see his hands shaking.
Kibum picks up the gun now; Minho’s eyes follow his hand as he picks it up and points it at Minho. He forces himself to swallow, and even though he’s getting cross eyed, he can’t bring himself to blink.
Kibum presses the trigger.
Minho jumps at the click of the gun, but pants heavily, looking around when he realizes he’s still alive. He hears the gun touch the table, and turns his face back to Kibum, who’s watching him silently. He stares at Kibum like a kid who needs to be told twice what to do, and still get it wrong.
“Pick it up Minho.”
“Why?” Minho forces out. It’s barely heard, sounding close to a squeak.
Kibum’s eyes widen for a moment, but then he regains his composure, leaning forward, resting his elbows on the table. “Well, it’s really not your fault Minho. It really isn’t. You’re just unlucky, I guess. But really, after what you saw and said, I can’t let this go. Either you die, or I die. So,” Kibum says, “pick up the gun.”
Minho’s hand trembles, but he picks up the gun, glancing behind him at the door. Pointing it at Kibum’s face, he closes his eyes and pulls the trigger, freezing at the sound. He sighs in relief, looking at Kibum.
Kibum doesn’t look pleased. “There’s two shots left,” he comments, picking up the gun. “Are you ready to die, Minho?”
Minho gulps, biting on his bottom lip. He closes his eyes, again, shouting at the sound of the gun.
He doesn’t even realize he’s crying by the time he’s almost bawling, putting his face in his hands, glad at the fact he’s still alive. He’s breathing and seeing and living and when he hears the gun touch the table, he realizes that Kibum won’t be doing those things shortly. Because of him. He doesn’t want to kill Kibum, doesn’t want to kill his best friend, doesn’t to kill the person he loves.
“Finally,” Kibum stretches his arms, leaning back in his chair. “The victor is me, after all. Of course it would be - why wouldn’t it?”
Minho picks up the gun, wiping away from tears, sniffing. “Do I have to do this?” he whispers.
“What are you so mad over?” Kibum rolls his eyes. “You’re going to get to live, the police will think it’s in self defense when they see my fingerprints on it, you’ll be a hero, in a sense, and you can go graduate with Jonghyun and be happy.”
“But you’ll -”
“Be dead, yes. I understand that. And therefore, less people will die. The world is already much better. If you have a better reason on why I shouldn’t die, then by all means, do tell.”
“Because. Because.” Minho racks his head for something, trying to stop himself from sobbing any more, even though tears are still falling.
“Just shoot the gun Minho. Seriously.”
“Because I love you,” Minho decides, pointing the gun to his temple.
He pulls the trigger.
He opens his eyes at the click of the gun, its contents empty. He gasps out in short breaths, not entirely believing what just happened. That was the last bullet. That was definitely the last bullet. “W-what…”
Something clanks onto the glass table, and Minho looks over to see a bullet rolling around. His head jerks up to Kibum, who has this smug look on his face.
“I told you that you wouldn’t have been able to do anything to me.”
Minho’s mouth is dry, and he’s at a loss of words. This was just not happening to him.
“But you. T-the bullet!”
“Wasn’t in the gun,” Kibum states, tilting his head and looking at Minho.
He still doesn’t know what to say, making dead fish faces at him in disbelief. “I hate you so much,” he ends up with, glaring teary eyes at him.
Kibum chuckles, looking to side before looking back at Minho. “I know, trust me. I know.”
Kibum takes little small glances at him before reaching over the table and cupping Minho’s face, and softly pressing his lips to his.
Minho inhales a sharp breath, but falls into it, moving slowly.
They pull apart, and Minho looks at him briefly before turning his head to the side, embarrassed.
"I have absolutely no idea what this means," Kibum says. "But I think we can work this out."
Minho still doesn't quite know what to say, so he decides that he'll just listen to whatever the assassin has to say.
Kibum frowns. "First thing is first - we gotta get out of here."
Minho raises an eyebrow. "Is that supposed to be easy?"
"Uh." Kibum stares blankly at him. "Let me get back to you on that."
Despite the situation, Minho suddenly snorts and rolls his eyes, smiling slightly.
"Hold on a second," Kibum states. He turns around, walking to the corner of the room, far away from Minho. "Hello?" Minho hears him say, but the rest is spoken in soft hushed tones.
Merely a minute later, Kibum instantly looks up and stares at Minho. "We gotta get out of here."
"What? but you said-"
"You do have too much faith in the police, I haven't changed my mind on that."
Minho stands in front of the door. "Wait, if it's not the police, then who’s outside."
"I, uh. no one important to you," Kibum dodges the subject, shoving Minho out of the way. "Well, no one important to you if we get out of this. Now just trust me, okay?"
Minho stares at him in disbelief. "I- you're kidding me, right?"
Kibum gives him thumbs up. "Haha, got you! I’m just kidding."
Minho stares at him.
"Just get out, okay?" he waves Minho over and they run down the hallway down the elevator.
"Not the stairs?"
"Too dangerous."
"Oh?"
Kibum smiles sweetly. "Have you ever, by any chance, gone elevator hopping?"
Minho gapes. "No! What the, have you actually? You could die!"
"Oh, you're so funny Minho." Kibum replies sarcastically, kicking the elevator door. "How did Onew show this to me again..." he takes out his gun again, slamming it into the elevator buttons. One of the button breaks, and he kicks the door again. "Ah," he smiles, prying the elevator door open with his hands.
"Thank god," Minho gasps out.
The elevator is only one floor beneath them, so they simply walk onto the top of the elevator.
Kibum opens the top of the elevator, and climbs down. He presses a button and comes up.
"Well that wasn't so hard."
Minho wobbles as he looks around, horrified at the fact he's actually elevator riding. "I, uh. This is not real."
"Shall I pinch your arm for you?"
Minho glares at him. “So then, have you thought up a plan yet?”
“Yeah. It’s called Let’s Get the Fuck Out and Think Later.”
Minho stares at him again, baffled. Until the elevator next to them starts moving down. Then Minho shouts and jumps back, almost losing his balance. Kibum grabs the cuff of his shirt, keeping him on his feet. “Was that supposed to happen?” Minho asks.
“No, it wasn’t.” Kibum frowns, taking his gun out again. Their elevator stops, they hear the door below them open. Kibum orders, “Minho. Get that door open.”
Minho stares at him.
“Like right fucking now.”
Minho moves, kicking and banging the door.
Key smirks. “Good thing I kept the last bullet.”
“Kimmie! So glad to see you.”
Minho looks up to see who’s on the other elevator.
“Minho, keep moving.” Kibum hisses, and looks towards the newcomer. “Shouldn’t you have died of old age yet?”
The man crosses his arm. “I’m only twenty seven, little fucker.”
“Still sounds pretty ancient to me, Eeteuk.”
“Not the point.” He calls. “So, you either kill that guy, or I kill you both.”
“You’re funny.”
“Lemme do it, hyung,” a second person says, and Jungsu steps back.
“Hey kid, you know what you’re doing, right?”
Kibum laughs. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be doing it now would I, Yesung?”
Jongwoon frowns. “Then you know the consequences,” he says, pointing his gun at Kibum.
“I do, but I’m going also going to get the reward.” Kibum shoots the last bullet. “Bye hyung.”
The bullet hits the cable, breaking it. The elevator drops, and Kibum jumps to the elevator door, shoving Minho aside and prying it open. They leap inside the hallway and Kibum looks down to see the other elevator hit the bottom and explode.
Minho pants, staring at him. “Isn’t that only supposed to happen in movies?”
“Welcome to the world of assassins,” Kibum says, “but right now, we have a really big problem. If those two were here, the other thirteen people have probably come then.”
Minho chokes on his saliva. “Thirteen?”
Kibum nods. “Shindong, Ryeowook, Sungmin, Heechul, Hangeng, Eunhyuk, Donghae, Siwon, Kangin, Henry, Zhoumi, Kibum, and Kyuhyun.”
“And you have no bullets?” Minho asks, watching Kibum nod. “I’m think I’m going to cry.”
They walk down the hall cautiously, Kibum picking a random room and walking inside. He looks out the window. “D’you think you could jump out? That would be easier.”
Minho stares out the window. “That’s, uh. A long way down.”
“Five stories.”
Minho shakes his head. “I couldn’t even do two, okay.”
“Make my life more complicated, why don’t you,” Kibum mumbles, opening the window. He pokes his head out, and immediately comes back inside when a bullet goes right past his head. “Nevermind,” he says. “Henry and Ryeowook’s out there.”
They leave the room and run down a few flight of stairs - Kibum somehow knocks out one of the guys and takes his gun.
“How did you - who was that?”
“Kibum. He’s always been on the weak side anyways.” He ignores Minho’s glance. “Not me Kibum, you retard. Anyways, we’re at the bottom floor, so I guess we can hope to find a door that no one’s guarding.”
“What door do you suspect that would be?”
Kibum thinks for a moment. “Not the front door.”
Minho stares at him. “How did you pass kindergarten?”
Kibum starts walking down the hallway, holding his gun against his shoulder. “Actually, I didn’t. I went straight to first grade.” They near the stairwell by the emergency exit door. “Should we go out of here? The door is glass, and I don’t see anyone outside.”
Minho bites his bottom lip. “I’m not sure.”
“Flip a coin?”
“This is how you judge life and death? A coin?”
Kibum waves him off. “Shut up, it’s worked before. Do you have a coin on you?”
Minho pulls a coin won out of his pocket. “If we die, it’s all your fault.”
“You can tell me that in the afterlife.”
Minho attempts to calm his heart, fails, and resorts to tossing the coin up in the air.
They hear a loud bang, and the next thing Minho registers is Kibum kicking him in the stomach, and he crashes behind the staircase.
“You’re not very good at hiding, hyung.”
Minho watches from behind the steps, and spots something on the floor. It’s the coin, with a bullet embedded in it. He gulps.
“Taemin-ah, hey. I thought it was just Super squad that came.”
Taemin smiles innocently. “I’m a part of every squad. Even yours.”
“Actually, I’m in the Onkey duo, not the Ontaekey trio.” He points his gun at Taemin’s face. “Now move.”
Taemin puts his hands up, and walks towards Kibum anyways. “I really don’t think you’d kill me.”
“I killed Eeteuk and Yesung.” Kibum states, his hold on the gun tightening, trying to stop his legs from shaking.
“No one cares about Jungsu and Jongwoon.” Taemin is standing right in front of Kibum, and he puts his hand on top of the gun, lowering it so Kibum’s arm lays limp against his side. He chuckles, low and dangerous into his ear. “Are you still going to kill me, hyung?”
Kibum’s voice catches in his throat and he gulps, trying to regain himself. He can feel his strength draining away, and can’t bring himself to lift his arm again.
Minho watches silently from behind the staircase, then turns to look around him. There’s scraps of paper, clumps of dust, and other miscellaneous objects. He grabs the nearest thing and looks at the pen in the hand. He has no time to think, so he chucks it at Taemin, hoping to poke out an eye or something.
He misses and hits Kibum’s hand.
Kibum flinches, dropping the gun and they both turn to look at Minho. He blinks, stupefied. Kibum and Taemin share a glance and look down at the gun next to their feet. There’s a split second where they know what the other is thinking and react. Except that Kibum is faster and drags Taemin to the floor, Taemin’s gun sliding far away. They exchange punches and kicks, rolling across the floor. Taemin attempts to choke Kibum at one point, but Kibum punches his stomach and rolls on top.
“Stop!”
The two men pause, looking down the hallway to see Jinki staring at them, holding a gun with trembling hands.
Taemin laughs from beneath Kibum. “Onew, perfect timing.” He looks one glance up at Kibum, and punches him in the stomach. Kibum grunts, falls over and curls up in pain. Taemin gets up and walks over to Jinki with his signature smile still on his face, despite the blood trickling down his lip and the bruise forming on his cheek. “Onew, you know whose side you’re on, right?”
Jinki’s lip quivers, and looks like he’s about to cry. Kibum stares at him, hoping, hoping so much, that he’ll put the gun down, that he’ll keep Kibum alive.
The gun is still pointed at him.
Jinki’s voice trembles. “K-Kibum. Y-you know why I’m doing this. M-my father…I just. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
He closes his eyes and shoots.
Kibum lets out a choked cry and moans, putting a hand on the wounded area between his shoulder and collarbone.
“Once more,” Taemin orders, staring at Kibum.
“Jinki, please…” Kibum coughs out; Jinki’s fingers grip the handle even tighter.
Kibum makes out a tear falling down Jinki’s face before the second bullet impales him in the stomach.
Jinki stares at the Kibum, now unconscious before breaking out into a sob. He goes to wipe his face before he hears Taemin whisper against his ear harshly.
“Don’t. Don’t take your hand off the gun. There’s one more.”
Jinki shuts his eyes, breathing in deeply, trying to calm his body down. “Taemin, he won’t do anything. Do I really have to -”
“It’s okay,” Taemin breathes softly, putting his hand around Jinki’s, and points his arm towards the staircase, where Minho’s petrified.
Jinki inhales, staring at Minho in the eyes, and shoots.
Taemin shrugs. “One shot should do it. Alright, let’s go back,” he grins, going up and down on his toes like a kid.
“What about the bodies?”
“We’ll get Zhoumi to do it or something.” Taemin turns around to see Kibum one more time. “How long do you think it’ll take to lose all the blood in his body?”
Jinki shudders. “I think the body would clot before it runs out?”
“Oh,” Taemin mutters. “Should we shoot one more time?”
“No!” Jinki shrieks, wiping at his tears again. “No, and my gun’s out.”
“Pity,” Taemin mumbles, and opens the door. He turns to Jinki, “Go dump the bodies with Zhoumi somewhere. Come back to headquarters when you’re done.”
Jinki bites his lip, nodding, and sucks in a breath, and walks off to find Zhoumi.
One knocked out man and two dead bodies later, Jinki finds himself in the back emergency room of nearest hospital with the doors barred. This probably isn’t the best idea, but he can’t think of anything else. With trembling hands, he grabs the forceps and gulps. Jinki tries to tell myself that this isn’t vivisection, but he has no access to any sedatives, so he just hopes that the younger boys will stay unconscious.
Two hours later, he puts his hands under the warm water from the sink and splashes his face. Sighing, Jinki turns his head to inspect the two bandaged bodies. They’re alive, and the operation had gone successfully. He glances at the clock, now reading four in the morning, which is not good, because Jinki should’ve been back at headquarters half an hour ago, and Taemin knows Jinki’s always punctual. He grabs the nearest piece of paper and finds a spare pen in the bottom of the cabinet. After scribbling something, he bolts for the exit.
Kibum wakes up around 7AM, and groans in pain, letting out a choked cry. His muscles are sore, and his shoulder and abdomen hurt like fucking hell. He grits his teeth, tilting his head back. It fucking hurts to move his arm, but he does it anyways to brush the hair out of his eyes. That’s when he notices he is not in the same place he last remembered being. After looking around, which also hurts like shit, Kibum can only say he’s in a hospital. He doesn’t know what type either; he could’ve easily landed himself in a mental ward, with all of last night’s events going through his head. He supposes Taemin could’ve done it, telling the psychiatrists that he went crazy, thinking he was an assassin with the job of killing the head of a phone company. With Taemin’s connections, it could actually happen.
He thinks about getting up for a second, but almost screams at the pain when he arches back, so he takes it to lying in the bed and staring at the ceiling. Two hours later, he hears someone behind him groan and tries to twist his body to see the other room occupant. For some reason, he seems surprised to see that it’s Minho shifting in the bed and groaning.
“Minho?” he asks. His voice comes out groggy, like he hasn’t spoken in a while. “Is that you?”
Minho makes a weird sound that sounds somewhat like a yes. “Kibum,” he mutters, “my arm hurts.”
“My whole fucking body hurts. Do you know how we got here?”
Minho shakes his head, even though he knows Kibum can’t see him. “I just remember your fucking ass of a friend shooting me. How long have we been here for?”
“No idea,” Kibum says. “I think we’ve been here for a while though.”
They stay in silence for another three hours, except for the sounds of shuffling on the beds. Whether it be exhaustion or something more, neither of them say a word.
The door finally opens, and they both look to see who it is.
Jinki steps through the door and closes it behind him, staring the two boys looking back at him.
“I, um. Hi?” Jinki glances down at his feet, but then looks back up and walks over to Minho. He shuffles away from him defensively.
“You shot me,” he says.
“I did,” Jinki replies. “But I also took the bullet out of your arm. And your abdomen and shoulder.”
Kibum frowns, crossing his arms. “Well, um. Thanks. But now what are we supposed to do? This is Taemin we’re talking about.”
Jinki nods, sitting on the edge of Kibum’s bed. He stares at Kibum’s feet, and then up at Minho’s face. He stares back, with the same emotionless gaze.
“You’d have to leave,” he whispers. “And never come back.”
Kibum looks up at him and bites his lip. He turns to glance at Minho, who looks back with a helpless face.
“To where?”
Jinki sighs, trying to read Kibum’s expression. It’s sorrow, confusion, and the one that breaks Jinki’s heart - guilt. “I’m not sure,” he confesses. “But not Korea. You can’t stay here, not anymore.” He pauses for a moment, and studies the room. “Speaking of not staying here, you can’t stay in this hospital room. They’re going to check this room sooner or later - I’m surprised they haven’t already - and if we’re still here, they’ll call the cops.”
Jinki ends up making the two crash in his room, and he skips the next five days of classes, probably not good for his next biochem exam, but there are clearly more important matters at hand.
They spend the days staring at Jinki’s laptop, picking out countries and cities and analyzing the chances of there being a subsection of their assassination industry over there. The whole Middle East is crossed out, parts of the US, and half of Europe.
On the sixth day, Minho finally manages to kick Jinki out and force him to go to his lecture. He spends the next hour lazing around on the couch and going through Jinki’s ipod.
“So,” Kibum says slowly, sitting on the chair so that the back is against his chest, “what do you think?”
Minho looks up, surprised at the sudden question. “What do I think?”
“I’m surprised,” Kibum admits. “I would expect you to have been traumatized. Petrified, never be able to trust anyone ever again. Some more in depth psychological damage. You just met me a couple months ago, you know?”
“Has it really? It seemed a lot longer.”
Kibum nods. “A lot.”
Minho shrugs, playing around with some app, turning on a game. “I’m not too sure myself,” he says. “I guess I just haven’t digested it all yet.”
Kibum snorts, rolling his eyes. “What is there to digest? You found out your friend was an assassin after he killed your father’s potential business partner, made out with him on the same day when stuck in the storage closet while playing Russian Roulette, got shot in the arm by someone two years younger than you, was operated on by a college student who’s also an assassin, and are now in their dorm room, about to flee the country.”
“That’s a lot,” Minho points out.
Kibum pauses, thinking about what he just said. “Wait, that is. Still - I don’t get it. You shouldn’t be this calm. It’s unusual. Very, very unusual. You act like you’ve been through this five times before. Don’t you just want to, you know, erase everything from your mind?”
Minho nods. “Yeah, not gonna lie. I do. Well, erase everything except for the making out part.”
He barely avoids a flying pencil case, laughing into his pillow.
“You’re an asshole,” Kibum says, rolling the chair over to the bed. Grabbing the itouch from Minho, he moves his finger around the screen, finishing the level Minho was having trouble with. He throws it back to him and Minho barely catches it, raising an eyebrow at Kibum.
“Why are you so mad?”
Kibum takes a deep breath and shakes his head, trying to sort his thoughts out. “Because,” he starts, “this isn’t right. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.” He looks up at Minho, who stares back with the same indifferent expression. Indifferent, disinterested, not caring, bored, it all pisses him off. “We were just supposed to be friends, and then, you know, have a normal college-like relationship. Go out to clubs, fuck girls-” he ignores Minho’s smirk, and rolls his eyes. “Be stupid kids. Then maybe we could work something out between us.”
“And when does the ‘I’m an assassin’ confession come in?” Minho says, waiting for a response. He’s completely serious, the ipod put down, flung somewhere in-between the blankets. Kibum bites his lip, watches Minho out of the corner of his eye, and hopes he gets the message so Kibum doesn’t have to say the words. “You don’t, right?”
It stings more than it should have, something about the way Minho says it makes Kibum want to shrink away, blend in with the chair and become invisible from Minho’s sharp gaze. “No,” he sighs, “I don’t.”
Minho watches him carefully, studying his appearance, taking it all in. He leans forward and spins the chair around so Kibum is facing him. Kibum’s caught off guard, blinking at Minho with wide eyes. When Minho leans forward, he’s surprised to see Kibum flinch and shrink into the chair. He knows it’s a reflex, but the fact that it’s Kibum comes off as shocked make himself even a little amazed. It makes him a little curious, even feeling a little good, knowing that he was the one who just did that. He decides to experiment a little - which there is no point to, because they’re already kissed before, despite the situation. Minho grabs Kibum’s wrist, dragging him off the chair and onto the bed on top of him.
Kibum stares down at him, bewilderment clouding his face as Minho fists the collar of his shirt and pulls down, pressing their mouths together. Kibum’s lips feel hard and chapped against his smooth ones, which is slightly ironic, because he’d think it’d be the other way around, but he pushes that thought to the back of his mind when Kibum tilts his head to the side and runs a hand through his hair, sighing contentedly. Minho shoves his tongue into Kibum's mouth, hot and dirty as Kibum groans from above him, shoving a thigh in between his legs and Minho presses against it wantonly.
They pull away minutes later, panting and gasping for breath from their so-called high. Kibum turns his head to face Minho, who’s still looking at the ceiling, breathing harshly.
“You know,” Minho says hoarsely, “I think I’m glad it happened this way. Because now I’m here. Typical college romances. Who the fuck needs those.”
Kibum raises an eyebrow before laughing, slapping Minho’s arm and resting his head on Minho’s shoulder. “You’re going to regret it,” Kibum says, trying to sound like he really is going to regret it, but the smile in his voice gives it away.
They spend the next ten minutes talking about random nonsensical things when Jinki walks in, placing his bag down and looking at the two lying together on the bed.
“Wow, um. That was fast.”
Kibum shrugs, pointing to his computer. “So, uh. Have you figured out anything yet?”
“Yeah,” Jinki says. “Just about everything, really. I even transferred all your college transcripts and documents already,” he shrugs. “So much for actually paying attention in class. Anyways, your flight is in two days. You know the destination, right? I sent you a text message, but I guess you didn’t see it, since you two were, um. Busy.”
Minho raises an eyebrow. “How do you know that?”
Jinki gestures to the mess of a bed and the pillows and blankets strewn all over the floor. “I make my bed before I leave. I hope you guys didn’t do anything that requires me to drag all that stuff to the laundry machines.”
“Not yet,” Kibum states.
“Good,” Jinki replies. “Please to be keeping that way for two more days. Anyways, since you didn’t look at your phone, I went ahead and reserved the tickets anyways. I could always change them if you want, but right now you guys are headed towards France and I would totally tell you the name of the college if I could pronounce it.”
“France,” Kibum repeats, looking at Minho.
Minho nods approvingly. “France.”
Two nights later Minho finds himself standing at the security check of the airport. Two security men pat him down, and with a disinterested nod, one of them motions for him to go through. Minho walks past, grabbing his messenger bag and grabbing his shoes from the conveyer belt.
“This is it,” Minho whispers when they’re sitting at the gate, fingers interlocked with Kibum’s.
“Yeah,” Kibum says, “this is it.” He gives Minho’s hand a reassuring squeeze, and Minho smiles back at him a little helplessly.
A flight attendant comes out and directs the First Class people to their seat, and then calls out for the Economy class.
They sit down in their seats, which are too close to the front of the plane for Kibum’s liking, but he sucks it up and sits at the window seat, pulling Minho down beside him. There ends up being no one sitting on Minho’s other side, which makes Kibum relieved because he can see the taller boy tensing with each passing minute. Like everything that’s happened has finally sunk in and the emotions are slowly coming, one by one. Minho looks like he’s airsick, even though the seatbelt sign hasn’t even lit up yet and there’s still ten minutes until they take off. He pokes Minho and flashes him a smile before the speakers in the airplane turn on; the pilot is telling them the usual procedures. Kibum puts his seat belt on and proceeds to put on Minho’s as well, since he seems to be too clammy and the buckle slips out of his grasp the first two times before Kibum grabs it from him.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Kibum asks slowly, watching Minho carefully. “The airplane hasn’t moved yet, you can still leave.”
He watches Minho’s adam’s apple bob up and down, and even though the plane is freezing, his forehead is shiny with sweat and he turns to face Kibum.
“N-no,” he whispers. “Too late,” he says, and it sounds more like he’s telling himself them telling Kibum. “I need to do this.”
Kibum gives him one lasting look before the plane propellers start to go, and soon enough it’s rolling down the runway, and takes off into the skies.
It’s three hours into the flight when Minho finally breaks down, sobbing into Kibum’s shoulder. He pats Minho’s hair, running his fingers through it and muttering nonsensical things into his ear, in hopes of calming him down.
Minho sniffs one last time before grabbing Kibum’s hand, playing with his fingers. He whispers to himself, though Kibum’s sure Minho knows that he’s listening. “I don’t regret this,” he mumbles. “I don’t regret this at all. I don’t.”
Kibum watches for a moment before he stares out the window, looking out towards the stars in the night sky, then down at the city lights. He prefers the stars better, and smiles a little. They’ll keep flying, they’ll keep soaring, because they know no limits.
And when one knows no limits, what could possible stop them?
Part I || Part II
the end ♥
_________________________
so, um. thank you for reading, everybody! \o/ tbh the more i wrote the more i thought it got bad, but. hopefully it wasn't that bad. also! i would love concrit. lots and lots of it. if you have to go anon to do it, that's totally cool. anyways, one more thing. the russian roulette scene i based off an indian movie i saw called dhoom 2. you guys should watch the movie. anyways, i'm done here.
edit: HEY GUYS HEY HEY HEY i was cleaning out my notebooks and i found this comic i drew that describes the very first assassination scene at the party where jonghyun shines a flashlight in key's face. LOOK AT MY PRESTIGE OUTLINING SKILLS. huhuhu i felt as if this should be shared ): also apparently at the time it's pseudo name was assassin's creed.
itachibana13
PG-13; drama, action.
minho/key; 14,368 words.
Korea mourns over the death of the car racer for a week, turning off broadcasts and such. Kibum finds it annoying.
Jonghyun ends up not interested enough to watch the show, so all he says is “Well damn, that sucks,” and carries on as usual, not caring.
Minho’s pretty sad for a while, but then the soccer world cup starts, and he doesn’t even remember he likes car racing.
Kibum doesn’t give a damn. “They don’t really care,” he tells Jinki. “They say they do, but they forget so quickly.”
Jinki nods. “I think I agree, so wanna do another car mission?” Kibum glares at him. “I was kidding. So anyways,” he says, “I brought some files. Pick a case; these are the ones I liked.”
He hands Kibum his cell phone, and he scrolls through, reading them carefully. “Anyone except that one,” Kibum decides. “It’s too close to finals.”
“Will remember. By the way, your friend is here, so I’ll see you later.” Jinki grins at him, taking his cell phone.
“Bye.”
Minho arrives nearly a moment later. “Hey,” he greets him. “Who was that?”
Kibum waves back. “Random old acquaintance I ran into. So, let's go.”
They head towards to the movie theater, picking the film that looks like it has the most blood and violence. They barely speak during the movie, but it’s not an awkward kind of silence. It’s the comfortable kind, actually. Once they’re outside the movie theatre, they start to take a walk in a park nearby. Just because.
“That movie was pretty good,” Kibum starts.
Minho laughs. “Yeah, the best part was when that guy met the other guy, and the fight started.”
“Yeah! Oh my god, that was so cool. And then when the girl came in -”
“And everyone was like ‘what the hell!’” Minho finishes for him.
“Yeah!” They laugh and Kibum pauses for a second. “Oh hey, isn’t today June 14th? ‘Cause my sister was telling me about this concert thing going on nearby. It was next to the arcade. I don’t know who’s singing though; I don’t think they were very good. Could be worth a try?”
Minho grins. “Let’s stop and think for a second.” He raises his hands, as if to make a scale. “Unknown concert, arcade. Unknown concert, arcade. Unknown concert, arcade.”
Kibum shrugs, smiling. “Arcade it is, then.”
Kibum totally owns Minho at every single game. Racing, shooting, fighting, everything, even chance games.
Minho jabs Kibum in the stomach. “Oh! This is totally something I could beat you at. I’d wipe you clean.” Minho sneers, motion to the DDR set.
Kibum raises an eyebrow. “Have you ever even played DDR before?”
Minho opens his mouth, but then closes it. Then opens it again. “Well. I’ve played once or twice. But, it’s just stepping on a mat. That’s not hard at all, and therefore I will absolutely kill you at this game.”
“Why are you being so competitive?”
“Because I know I can beat you!”
Kibum shrugs, and they play.
And so Minho loses. Again.
“I don’t think I like you,” Minho states, putting in more quarters. “I demand a rematch.” He ignores Kibum’s roll of the eyes, and selects another song.
So he never actually wins, in the nine songs they play. Kibum laughs hysterically at him as they walk out of the building, clutching his sides while watching Minho’s face. If you stamp SORE LOSER on it, it really wouldn’t be much of a difference. At least, that’s what Kibum thinks.
“Anyways,” Minho starts, deciding to change the subject. Kibum snickers, receiving a well earned glare in return. “Have you ever danced before?”
Kibum laughs. “You don’t have to be a dancer to be good at DDR, but yeah. I’m a dancer.”
Minho’s mouth makes an ‘o’ shape. “Really? I want to see you dance. What type of dance do you do? Ballet?” He teases, attempting to get on his toes. Kibum watches him lose his balance and fall over.
“No, and that’s point, just so you know. I do hip hop.”
“I want to see!” Minho instantly states. “How come I never knew about this?”
“I don’t know - Jonghyun knew.”
Minho snorts. “Jonghyun knows everything that doesn’t have to do with academics.”
Kibum nods in agreement. “Should we go back?”
“You have to dance!”
“Can’t we like, do that at my dorm room or something?”
Minho pauses for a second. “We could, but your room is cramped as hell.”
“Yeah, well I don’t want to have to deal with whatever new girl Jonghyun brought,” Kibum retorts. “Besides, Jonghyun’s seen me dance enough times.” He wrinkles his nose. “Can you imagine what he’s doing with her?”
“Free porn?” Minho offers.
“My room it is then.”
“Whoo!” Minho cheers. “Free sex!”
“I’m not sure if you could keep up with me,” Kibum grins. “Come on, let’s get a taxi. It’s almost ten; I don’t want to walk all the way back to dorm.”
Kibum starts walking, and Minho follows behind him, teasing. “Ooh, Kibummie’s a freak in the sheets.”
“Minho’s gay for dancers,” Kibum replies, finally catching one. He opens the door for Minho, who climbs in and tells the driver the location of their dorm. “Likes the way their bodies move, right? Must wanna shake it up with them.”
They shamelessly make sexual innuendos towards each other all the back to Kibum’s room.
“Somebody’s eager to get into my room,” Kibum sneers.
Minho laughs, opening the door. “I just wonder if you’ll ever let me out.”
“That makes me sound like a pedophilic rapist,” Kibum complains, walking inside.
“You are one. What time is it, anyways?”
Kibum looks at the time. “Oh shit, it’s almost midnight. I have early classes tomorrow, so maybe some other time.”
“Oh,” Minho pouts. “Alright. Bye.”
“Bye.”
“So,” Kibum looks over his gun. “Lee Yunmin? What an ugly name.”
“Kim Kibum is kind of redundant too, you know.” Jinki retorts, emptying the contents of his gun.
“Shut up, Onew. And you’re not allowed to say my real name.” Kibum frowns. “And really man? Do you have a cell phone fetish or something? Another cell phone company CEO to kill.”
Jinki shrugs. “People pay lots of money for this, so I’m sold.”
They wait at the top of the building, looking through papers and loading their guns.
“So, which gun are you taking?” Kibum asks, eyeing one of the revolvers.
“This one. Is that okay?” Jinki picks up a shiny silver one - new, Kibum notes. He wanted that one. Oh well.
“Eh, I don’t need much. I’ll just take the classic pistol,” Kibum comments, picking up the gun. He looks it over, eyes grazing over the designs on the bullet cartridge.
Jinki raises an eyebrow. “That thing only has six bullets in it, are you sure?” Kibum nods, and Jinki shrugs, stuffing the gun in the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “Okay, well. Here is the thing. There’s practically no one here at the moment, since it’s a holiday. Try not to kill extra people.” He opens up a laptop, pressing the keys until a screen comes up.
“Ooh, nice,” Kibum grins. “Is that a blueprint of the building?”
Jinki nods. “You’re going to room two oh five. He’s talking to someone right now, but whatever. Just kill him and then get out of there.”
“The other person?”
Jinki shrugs. “Kill them. You got it?” Kibum nods. “Okay, I’ll be in the parking lot, so just find me when you’re done. If something goes wrong, tell me what’s up and I’ll try to help out.”
Kibum gives him a thumbs up, opening the door and walking down the steps to the second floor. He presses a hand to his ear. “Hey Jinki,” he says, “there’s only two people in the room right now, right?”
“Yeah. You could probably just walk in there and shoot them both you know.”
“Should I cover my face?”
“Nah, I destroyed the video cameras.”
Kibum shrugs, approaching the designated room. “This is probably the most easiest mission ever.”
He hears Jinki laugh though the earpiece. “Exactly why I picked it. Aren’t I a genius?”
He looks through the little window in the door to see two familiar people. In an instant he presses himself back against the wall breathing heavily, and holding his gun as close to him as possible. He leans his head against the wall in means to get him calmed down.
“Onew, Onew. Onew, that is fucking Minho in there. Why the fuck is Minho in there?”
There’s a rush of static in which he can hear Jinki pressing the keys of his laptop. Kibum tries to get a steady breathing rate, putting his other arm not holding a gun to his chest. He pounds on his chest twice, attempting to clear his head. “Onew, Onew -”
“I know, I know. Apparently he’s the son of Choi Yungyum, director of the management of technological communications in Samsung.”
Kibum freezes up and bile forms at the back of his throat. Well shit, he knew that already. “Onew, can we cancel this? I really don’t think I could do this.”
“Taemin would kill you. I’ve already hacked into the mainstream of the surveillance system; if I stop now without completely destroying the system, they could track us down.”
“Onew, please.”
Jinki sighs. “Key, I wish we could. J-just. Open the door, shoot, and run out. That’s not too hard. He might not even see you, and the stair case is right down the hallway. C’mon. And there’s seven grand waiting for us.”
Kibum laughs hoarsely. “You really love your money.”
“I go to Yonsei University, you can’t blame me. My dad’s fighting cancer, and my mom’s a hair stylist. I need this.”
And suddenly, Kibum feels really, really bad. He’s just doing this for college, and for kicks, really. He doesn’t really remember how he somehow ended up in the ‘hey-let’s-kill-people-for-money’ business. But Jinki is doing this for him and his family. He has an actual reason. What a selfish person, Kibum tells himself. Jinki’s reason is completely dignified, and Kibum just wants to pull the plug on it because he knows someone in there that he likes.
“How about… I go in there, kill him, and then kidnap Minho?”
He can feel Jinki’s smile through the headset. “Yeah, that’d be good. Or you could stay in the building with Minho until we figure something out.”
“I’m going in.”
He opens the door silently, neither Minho nor Yunmin notice him so he takes out a gun and points it at the latter.
The door behind him slams shut and they turn around. He can feel Minho’s facial expression changing, but he closes his eyes and presses the trigger twice. He hears someone scream but doesn’t register who it is.
“W-what the fuck did you just do?” Minho screams, staring at the dead body.
“I, uh. Yeah, about that.”
Minho backs away from him, pressing himself against the wall. “You just killed him!”
“Yeah, I did,” Kibum mumbles. “This is not the best time to talk about this. Can we get out of here first?”
“N-no! What the… what the fuck Kibum! You just… you just-!”
“He’s freaking out, Onew. What do I do?”
Jinki sighs. “You should just kill him.”
“But I like him.”
Minho’s still staring at him, unable to comprehend what just happened. “A-and you’re talking to yourself! Kibum, oh my God, tell me you’re not delusional. Why are you talking to yourself? And why did you kill him!”
“I think he thinks I’m talking to myself.”
“I think so too,” Jinki comments. “Seriously. You might as well kill him. If Taemin finds out, you’re kind of screwed. Just so you know.”
Kibum watches Minho freak out, looking around the room, panicking. He tries to look at every single spot that isn’t Lee Yunmin’s dead body. He walks around the room, and that’s when Kibum notices what he’s advancing to.
“Oh, crap. I’m going to have to talk to you later; he’s going to ring the alarm.”
“He’s going to what?”
Kibum takes out the gun and shoots next to Minho’s hand, watching him scream and fall to the floor with his hands over his head.
“No, no, no, no,” Kibum starts, “you really can’t do that. I might just have to kill you too then.” He points the gun at Minho’s head for emphasis.
“You killed him,” Minho chokes out.
“Yeah, I kinda did,” Kibum frowns. He reasons with himself - there’s no point in sugarcoating it now.
“You’re a murderer!” Minho accuses.
Kibum sighs. “Yeah, I kinda am.”
Jinki speaks up again. “Key, seriously. I’m not kidding, as much as you love him, someone’s gonna need to die. So just kill him.”
“No!” Kibum instantly replies. “I don’t think I could bring myself to shoot him, anyways.”
Jinki sighs again. “Look, we’re running out of time, okay? If you don’t kill him, Taemin will kill you, him, or both. Oh, he might kill me too.”
Kibum bites his lip. There’s no way he could bring himself to kill Minho. Well, he could probably shoot him in the arm or something, and make him swear to not tell anyone about it. But Minho is the kind of righteous person, so he’d tell anyways.
However, suddenly a siren rings, and Kibum looks up to see the little light at the corner of the room flashing red. He looks towards Minho, and gasps. He’s pulled the alarm.
“Oh no, Onew, he’s rung the alarm. Um, Onew. You get out of here; I’ll take care of everything from here. You got it?”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. I’m disconnecting the headset, okay?”
“…okay.”
He hears the click of the headset and growls to himself. “This room isn’t safe anymore,” he grits through his teeth. “You,” he screams. Minho freezes, staring at him like a deer caught in headlights.
“I -”
Kibum walks over, grabbing him by the scruff of his collar, almost dragging him out of the doorway. He looks down the hallway quickly, and bolts for the staircase, dragging Minho with him. He runs up to the top floor, and enters the first door he sees, shooting the lock twice. It’s a small empty storage room, with lots of wires and pieces of electronics lining the shelves. There’s a small table in the middle of the room, in which he drags Minho to and finally lets go.
Minho collapses onto the floor gasping for breath and putting his hands to his throat. He scrambles away from Kibum, propping himself on one of the two chairs. He tries to look at the walls, the gadgets, not Kibum, but his eyes end up landing back on him. Kibum’s not really looking at anything though, he’s frantically thinking of what the hell to do and how to get them out of here and to make a decent story of why he killed a man, has a gun, and how he’s totally not an assassin.
Nothing comes, so he looks at Minho.
Minho finally gets up, glaring at Kibum. “You -”
“Don’t talk; you’re not going to be able to do anything to me.”
Minho clenches his teeth, watching Kibum pace back and forth.
“They’re going to find us,” Minho states, voice shaking and hands quivering.
Kibum laughs. “You have too much faith in the police.”
“How do you know?”
He shrugs. “Onew did something, most likely. He always does.”
“Who’s Onew?”
Kibum picks up one of the electronics on the desk, examining it. “No one you need to know.” After throwing the item to the side, Kibum walks over to the table, sitting in the chair across from Minho. Minho watches him for a moment, but also proceeds to sit across from Kibum. “So, what do you think we should do?”
Minho stares at him like he’s crazy, looking left and right, thinking. He hears a metal object hit the table and he looks over to see Kibum’s hand on top of a gun.
“Let’s play a game, Minho.”
Minho stares at him a little, confused.
“Do you know how to play Russian Roulette?”
Minho’s mouth goes dry, and he stares at Kibum in disbelief. “I, no, what?”
“No? Well. You have one bullet,” Kibum starts, and takes the bullet out of the gun. He shows him the empty bullet compartment. “And then you put the bullet in the gun, spin the compartment so you don’t know where the gun is.” He clicks the gun into place, and then places it on the table. “We take turns to shoot each other, and whoever gets the bullet is the lucky winner. Sound good?”
“This is… are you serious?”
Kibum gives him a look. “No, I’m not. Because we’re not trapped in a building and there’s no gun in front of us.”
Minho sniffs. “You make yourself sound innocent.”
“Aren’t I? You’re threatening to take away my job. And most likely my life.”
“That’s…”
“Okay? Okay. Let’s play. Oh, you should go first.”
Minho’s eyes widen and his mouth opens, gaping at Kibum. Kibum’s demeanor instantly changes, giving him a hard look with piercing eyes and deadly aura.
“I, no. I couldn’t…”
“But you can.” Kibum states, like its a fact. “And you will.”
Minho starts trembling, and he starts thinking of weird things, like how he really doesn’t like Kibum’s shirt. It’s all black, so not Kibum. Right now, he doesn’t care if Kibum’s closet looks like clouds shitting rainbows, it’s better than what he’s wearing now. “I…can’t.” He gulps hard, trying not to look at Kibum.
Kibum looks at him with an expression Minho has never seen on Kibum before. It’s like a mixture of anger, disappointment, and betrayal. It makes Minho even more nervous, and he tenses up, clenching his fists together and biting his lip.
“Pick up the gun, Minho.”
Now Minho’s chest heaves up and down, with sweat running down his face. This was some cruel, cruel joke. Jonghyun would jump out of the closet and scream something really retarded, and Kibum would laugh and shoot the gun, and bubbles would come out or something.
“N-no. This isn’t real.”
“The gun’s real Minho, now pick it up.”
The adrenaline rush starts to spread as his hands shake and head throbs. The actual fear hasn’t set in yet though. “You’re joking, why would I -”
“Pick up the goddamn gun and shoot, Minho!” Kibum screams, and Minho has never followed an order so quickly in his life. He scrambles for the revolver and immediately points and pulls the trigger. He blinks after, gasping out.
Kibum sits there, bored. “Damn,” he frowns, “death just doesn’t like me, does he.” He smirks. “Didn’t even have to think about how righteous that was. Doesn’t that make you the same as me?”
And then Minho freezes. The reality seeps in, chilling him to the bone. Even though he’s sweating all over, his throat dries up. He goes to speak, but it’s hard to swallow through the bile. It’s much harder to breath - he can see his hands shaking.
Kibum picks up the gun now; Minho’s eyes follow his hand as he picks it up and points it at Minho. He forces himself to swallow, and even though he’s getting cross eyed, he can’t bring himself to blink.
Kibum presses the trigger.
Minho jumps at the click of the gun, but pants heavily, looking around when he realizes he’s still alive. He hears the gun touch the table, and turns his face back to Kibum, who’s watching him silently. He stares at Kibum like a kid who needs to be told twice what to do, and still get it wrong.
“Pick it up Minho.”
“Why?” Minho forces out. It’s barely heard, sounding close to a squeak.
Kibum’s eyes widen for a moment, but then he regains his composure, leaning forward, resting his elbows on the table. “Well, it’s really not your fault Minho. It really isn’t. You’re just unlucky, I guess. But really, after what you saw and said, I can’t let this go. Either you die, or I die. So,” Kibum says, “pick up the gun.”
Minho’s hand trembles, but he picks up the gun, glancing behind him at the door. Pointing it at Kibum’s face, he closes his eyes and pulls the trigger, freezing at the sound. He sighs in relief, looking at Kibum.
Kibum doesn’t look pleased. “There’s two shots left,” he comments, picking up the gun. “Are you ready to die, Minho?”
Minho gulps, biting on his bottom lip. He closes his eyes, again, shouting at the sound of the gun.
He doesn’t even realize he’s crying by the time he’s almost bawling, putting his face in his hands, glad at the fact he’s still alive. He’s breathing and seeing and living and when he hears the gun touch the table, he realizes that Kibum won’t be doing those things shortly. Because of him. He doesn’t want to kill Kibum, doesn’t want to kill his best friend, doesn’t to kill the person he loves.
“Finally,” Kibum stretches his arms, leaning back in his chair. “The victor is me, after all. Of course it would be - why wouldn’t it?”
Minho picks up the gun, wiping away from tears, sniffing. “Do I have to do this?” he whispers.
“What are you so mad over?” Kibum rolls his eyes. “You’re going to get to live, the police will think it’s in self defense when they see my fingerprints on it, you’ll be a hero, in a sense, and you can go graduate with Jonghyun and be happy.”
“But you’ll -”
“Be dead, yes. I understand that. And therefore, less people will die. The world is already much better. If you have a better reason on why I shouldn’t die, then by all means, do tell.”
“Because. Because.” Minho racks his head for something, trying to stop himself from sobbing any more, even though tears are still falling.
“Just shoot the gun Minho. Seriously.”
“Because I love you,” Minho decides, pointing the gun to his temple.
He pulls the trigger.
He opens his eyes at the click of the gun, its contents empty. He gasps out in short breaths, not entirely believing what just happened. That was the last bullet. That was definitely the last bullet. “W-what…”
Something clanks onto the glass table, and Minho looks over to see a bullet rolling around. His head jerks up to Kibum, who has this smug look on his face.
“I told you that you wouldn’t have been able to do anything to me.”
Minho’s mouth is dry, and he’s at a loss of words. This was just not happening to him.
“But you. T-the bullet!”
“Wasn’t in the gun,” Kibum states, tilting his head and looking at Minho.
He still doesn’t know what to say, making dead fish faces at him in disbelief. “I hate you so much,” he ends up with, glaring teary eyes at him.
Kibum chuckles, looking to side before looking back at Minho. “I know, trust me. I know.”
Kibum takes little small glances at him before reaching over the table and cupping Minho’s face, and softly pressing his lips to his.
Minho inhales a sharp breath, but falls into it, moving slowly.
They pull apart, and Minho looks at him briefly before turning his head to the side, embarrassed.
"I have absolutely no idea what this means," Kibum says. "But I think we can work this out."
Minho still doesn't quite know what to say, so he decides that he'll just listen to whatever the assassin has to say.
Kibum frowns. "First thing is first - we gotta get out of here."
Minho raises an eyebrow. "Is that supposed to be easy?"
"Uh." Kibum stares blankly at him. "Let me get back to you on that."
Despite the situation, Minho suddenly snorts and rolls his eyes, smiling slightly.
"Hold on a second," Kibum states. He turns around, walking to the corner of the room, far away from Minho. "Hello?" Minho hears him say, but the rest is spoken in soft hushed tones.
Merely a minute later, Kibum instantly looks up and stares at Minho. "We gotta get out of here."
"What? but you said-"
"You do have too much faith in the police, I haven't changed my mind on that."
Minho stands in front of the door. "Wait, if it's not the police, then who’s outside."
"I, uh. no one important to you," Kibum dodges the subject, shoving Minho out of the way. "Well, no one important to you if we get out of this. Now just trust me, okay?"
Minho stares at him in disbelief. "I- you're kidding me, right?"
Kibum gives him thumbs up. "Haha, got you! I’m just kidding."
Minho stares at him.
"Just get out, okay?" he waves Minho over and they run down the hallway down the elevator.
"Not the stairs?"
"Too dangerous."
"Oh?"
Kibum smiles sweetly. "Have you ever, by any chance, gone elevator hopping?"
Minho gapes. "No! What the, have you actually? You could die!"
"Oh, you're so funny Minho." Kibum replies sarcastically, kicking the elevator door. "How did Onew show this to me again..." he takes out his gun again, slamming it into the elevator buttons. One of the button breaks, and he kicks the door again. "Ah," he smiles, prying the elevator door open with his hands.
"Thank god," Minho gasps out.
The elevator is only one floor beneath them, so they simply walk onto the top of the elevator.
Kibum opens the top of the elevator, and climbs down. He presses a button and comes up.
"Well that wasn't so hard."
Minho wobbles as he looks around, horrified at the fact he's actually elevator riding. "I, uh. This is not real."
"Shall I pinch your arm for you?"
Minho glares at him. “So then, have you thought up a plan yet?”
“Yeah. It’s called Let’s Get the Fuck Out and Think Later.”
Minho stares at him again, baffled. Until the elevator next to them starts moving down. Then Minho shouts and jumps back, almost losing his balance. Kibum grabs the cuff of his shirt, keeping him on his feet. “Was that supposed to happen?” Minho asks.
“No, it wasn’t.” Kibum frowns, taking his gun out again. Their elevator stops, they hear the door below them open. Kibum orders, “Minho. Get that door open.”
Minho stares at him.
“Like right fucking now.”
Minho moves, kicking and banging the door.
Key smirks. “Good thing I kept the last bullet.”
“Kimmie! So glad to see you.”
Minho looks up to see who’s on the other elevator.
“Minho, keep moving.” Kibum hisses, and looks towards the newcomer. “Shouldn’t you have died of old age yet?”
The man crosses his arm. “I’m only twenty seven, little fucker.”
“Still sounds pretty ancient to me, Eeteuk.”
“Not the point.” He calls. “So, you either kill that guy, or I kill you both.”
“You’re funny.”
“Lemme do it, hyung,” a second person says, and Jungsu steps back.
“Hey kid, you know what you’re doing, right?”
Kibum laughs. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be doing it now would I, Yesung?”
Jongwoon frowns. “Then you know the consequences,” he says, pointing his gun at Kibum.
“I do, but I’m going also going to get the reward.” Kibum shoots the last bullet. “Bye hyung.”
The bullet hits the cable, breaking it. The elevator drops, and Kibum jumps to the elevator door, shoving Minho aside and prying it open. They leap inside the hallway and Kibum looks down to see the other elevator hit the bottom and explode.
Minho pants, staring at him. “Isn’t that only supposed to happen in movies?”
“Welcome to the world of assassins,” Kibum says, “but right now, we have a really big problem. If those two were here, the other thirteen people have probably come then.”
Minho chokes on his saliva. “Thirteen?”
Kibum nods. “Shindong, Ryeowook, Sungmin, Heechul, Hangeng, Eunhyuk, Donghae, Siwon, Kangin, Henry, Zhoumi, Kibum, and Kyuhyun.”
“And you have no bullets?” Minho asks, watching Kibum nod. “I’m think I’m going to cry.”
They walk down the hall cautiously, Kibum picking a random room and walking inside. He looks out the window. “D’you think you could jump out? That would be easier.”
Minho stares out the window. “That’s, uh. A long way down.”
“Five stories.”
Minho shakes his head. “I couldn’t even do two, okay.”
“Make my life more complicated, why don’t you,” Kibum mumbles, opening the window. He pokes his head out, and immediately comes back inside when a bullet goes right past his head. “Nevermind,” he says. “Henry and Ryeowook’s out there.”
They leave the room and run down a few flight of stairs - Kibum somehow knocks out one of the guys and takes his gun.
“How did you - who was that?”
“Kibum. He’s always been on the weak side anyways.” He ignores Minho’s glance. “Not me Kibum, you retard. Anyways, we’re at the bottom floor, so I guess we can hope to find a door that no one’s guarding.”
“What door do you suspect that would be?”
Kibum thinks for a moment. “Not the front door.”
Minho stares at him. “How did you pass kindergarten?”
Kibum starts walking down the hallway, holding his gun against his shoulder. “Actually, I didn’t. I went straight to first grade.” They near the stairwell by the emergency exit door. “Should we go out of here? The door is glass, and I don’t see anyone outside.”
Minho bites his bottom lip. “I’m not sure.”
“Flip a coin?”
“This is how you judge life and death? A coin?”
Kibum waves him off. “Shut up, it’s worked before. Do you have a coin on you?”
Minho pulls a coin won out of his pocket. “If we die, it’s all your fault.”
“You can tell me that in the afterlife.”
Minho attempts to calm his heart, fails, and resorts to tossing the coin up in the air.
They hear a loud bang, and the next thing Minho registers is Kibum kicking him in the stomach, and he crashes behind the staircase.
“You’re not very good at hiding, hyung.”
Minho watches from behind the steps, and spots something on the floor. It’s the coin, with a bullet embedded in it. He gulps.
“Taemin-ah, hey. I thought it was just Super squad that came.”
Taemin smiles innocently. “I’m a part of every squad. Even yours.”
“Actually, I’m in the Onkey duo, not the Ontaekey trio.” He points his gun at Taemin’s face. “Now move.”
Taemin puts his hands up, and walks towards Kibum anyways. “I really don’t think you’d kill me.”
“I killed Eeteuk and Yesung.” Kibum states, his hold on the gun tightening, trying to stop his legs from shaking.
“No one cares about Jungsu and Jongwoon.” Taemin is standing right in front of Kibum, and he puts his hand on top of the gun, lowering it so Kibum’s arm lays limp against his side. He chuckles, low and dangerous into his ear. “Are you still going to kill me, hyung?”
Kibum’s voice catches in his throat and he gulps, trying to regain himself. He can feel his strength draining away, and can’t bring himself to lift his arm again.
Minho watches silently from behind the staircase, then turns to look around him. There’s scraps of paper, clumps of dust, and other miscellaneous objects. He grabs the nearest thing and looks at the pen in the hand. He has no time to think, so he chucks it at Taemin, hoping to poke out an eye or something.
He misses and hits Kibum’s hand.
Kibum flinches, dropping the gun and they both turn to look at Minho. He blinks, stupefied. Kibum and Taemin share a glance and look down at the gun next to their feet. There’s a split second where they know what the other is thinking and react. Except that Kibum is faster and drags Taemin to the floor, Taemin’s gun sliding far away. They exchange punches and kicks, rolling across the floor. Taemin attempts to choke Kibum at one point, but Kibum punches his stomach and rolls on top.
“Stop!”
The two men pause, looking down the hallway to see Jinki staring at them, holding a gun with trembling hands.
Taemin laughs from beneath Kibum. “Onew, perfect timing.” He looks one glance up at Kibum, and punches him in the stomach. Kibum grunts, falls over and curls up in pain. Taemin gets up and walks over to Jinki with his signature smile still on his face, despite the blood trickling down his lip and the bruise forming on his cheek. “Onew, you know whose side you’re on, right?”
Jinki’s lip quivers, and looks like he’s about to cry. Kibum stares at him, hoping, hoping so much, that he’ll put the gun down, that he’ll keep Kibum alive.
The gun is still pointed at him.
Jinki’s voice trembles. “K-Kibum. Y-you know why I’m doing this. M-my father…I just. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
He closes his eyes and shoots.
Kibum lets out a choked cry and moans, putting a hand on the wounded area between his shoulder and collarbone.
“Once more,” Taemin orders, staring at Kibum.
“Jinki, please…” Kibum coughs out; Jinki’s fingers grip the handle even tighter.
Kibum makes out a tear falling down Jinki’s face before the second bullet impales him in the stomach.
Jinki stares at the Kibum, now unconscious before breaking out into a sob. He goes to wipe his face before he hears Taemin whisper against his ear harshly.
“Don’t. Don’t take your hand off the gun. There’s one more.”
Jinki shuts his eyes, breathing in deeply, trying to calm his body down. “Taemin, he won’t do anything. Do I really have to -”
“It’s okay,” Taemin breathes softly, putting his hand around Jinki’s, and points his arm towards the staircase, where Minho’s petrified.
Jinki inhales, staring at Minho in the eyes, and shoots.
Taemin shrugs. “One shot should do it. Alright, let’s go back,” he grins, going up and down on his toes like a kid.
“What about the bodies?”
“We’ll get Zhoumi to do it or something.” Taemin turns around to see Kibum one more time. “How long do you think it’ll take to lose all the blood in his body?”
Jinki shudders. “I think the body would clot before it runs out?”
“Oh,” Taemin mutters. “Should we shoot one more time?”
“No!” Jinki shrieks, wiping at his tears again. “No, and my gun’s out.”
“Pity,” Taemin mumbles, and opens the door. He turns to Jinki, “Go dump the bodies with Zhoumi somewhere. Come back to headquarters when you’re done.”
Jinki bites his lip, nodding, and sucks in a breath, and walks off to find Zhoumi.
One knocked out man and two dead bodies later, Jinki finds himself in the back emergency room of nearest hospital with the doors barred. This probably isn’t the best idea, but he can’t think of anything else. With trembling hands, he grabs the forceps and gulps. Jinki tries to tell myself that this isn’t vivisection, but he has no access to any sedatives, so he just hopes that the younger boys will stay unconscious.
Two hours later, he puts his hands under the warm water from the sink and splashes his face. Sighing, Jinki turns his head to inspect the two bandaged bodies. They’re alive, and the operation had gone successfully. He glances at the clock, now reading four in the morning, which is not good, because Jinki should’ve been back at headquarters half an hour ago, and Taemin knows Jinki’s always punctual. He grabs the nearest piece of paper and finds a spare pen in the bottom of the cabinet. After scribbling something, he bolts for the exit.
Kibum wakes up around 7AM, and groans in pain, letting out a choked cry. His muscles are sore, and his shoulder and abdomen hurt like fucking hell. He grits his teeth, tilting his head back. It fucking hurts to move his arm, but he does it anyways to brush the hair out of his eyes. That’s when he notices he is not in the same place he last remembered being. After looking around, which also hurts like shit, Kibum can only say he’s in a hospital. He doesn’t know what type either; he could’ve easily landed himself in a mental ward, with all of last night’s events going through his head. He supposes Taemin could’ve done it, telling the psychiatrists that he went crazy, thinking he was an assassin with the job of killing the head of a phone company. With Taemin’s connections, it could actually happen.
He thinks about getting up for a second, but almost screams at the pain when he arches back, so he takes it to lying in the bed and staring at the ceiling. Two hours later, he hears someone behind him groan and tries to twist his body to see the other room occupant. For some reason, he seems surprised to see that it’s Minho shifting in the bed and groaning.
“Minho?” he asks. His voice comes out groggy, like he hasn’t spoken in a while. “Is that you?”
Minho makes a weird sound that sounds somewhat like a yes. “Kibum,” he mutters, “my arm hurts.”
“My whole fucking body hurts. Do you know how we got here?”
Minho shakes his head, even though he knows Kibum can’t see him. “I just remember your fucking ass of a friend shooting me. How long have we been here for?”
“No idea,” Kibum says. “I think we’ve been here for a while though.”
They stay in silence for another three hours, except for the sounds of shuffling on the beds. Whether it be exhaustion or something more, neither of them say a word.
The door finally opens, and they both look to see who it is.
Jinki steps through the door and closes it behind him, staring the two boys looking back at him.
“I, um. Hi?” Jinki glances down at his feet, but then looks back up and walks over to Minho. He shuffles away from him defensively.
“You shot me,” he says.
“I did,” Jinki replies. “But I also took the bullet out of your arm. And your abdomen and shoulder.”
Kibum frowns, crossing his arms. “Well, um. Thanks. But now what are we supposed to do? This is Taemin we’re talking about.”
Jinki nods, sitting on the edge of Kibum’s bed. He stares at Kibum’s feet, and then up at Minho’s face. He stares back, with the same emotionless gaze.
“You’d have to leave,” he whispers. “And never come back.”
Kibum looks up at him and bites his lip. He turns to glance at Minho, who looks back with a helpless face.
“To where?”
Jinki sighs, trying to read Kibum’s expression. It’s sorrow, confusion, and the one that breaks Jinki’s heart - guilt. “I’m not sure,” he confesses. “But not Korea. You can’t stay here, not anymore.” He pauses for a moment, and studies the room. “Speaking of not staying here, you can’t stay in this hospital room. They’re going to check this room sooner or later - I’m surprised they haven’t already - and if we’re still here, they’ll call the cops.”
Jinki ends up making the two crash in his room, and he skips the next five days of classes, probably not good for his next biochem exam, but there are clearly more important matters at hand.
They spend the days staring at Jinki’s laptop, picking out countries and cities and analyzing the chances of there being a subsection of their assassination industry over there. The whole Middle East is crossed out, parts of the US, and half of Europe.
On the sixth day, Minho finally manages to kick Jinki out and force him to go to his lecture. He spends the next hour lazing around on the couch and going through Jinki’s ipod.
“So,” Kibum says slowly, sitting on the chair so that the back is against his chest, “what do you think?”
Minho looks up, surprised at the sudden question. “What do I think?”
“I’m surprised,” Kibum admits. “I would expect you to have been traumatized. Petrified, never be able to trust anyone ever again. Some more in depth psychological damage. You just met me a couple months ago, you know?”
“Has it really? It seemed a lot longer.”
Kibum nods. “A lot.”
Minho shrugs, playing around with some app, turning on a game. “I’m not too sure myself,” he says. “I guess I just haven’t digested it all yet.”
Kibum snorts, rolling his eyes. “What is there to digest? You found out your friend was an assassin after he killed your father’s potential business partner, made out with him on the same day when stuck in the storage closet while playing Russian Roulette, got shot in the arm by someone two years younger than you, was operated on by a college student who’s also an assassin, and are now in their dorm room, about to flee the country.”
“That’s a lot,” Minho points out.
Kibum pauses, thinking about what he just said. “Wait, that is. Still - I don’t get it. You shouldn’t be this calm. It’s unusual. Very, very unusual. You act like you’ve been through this five times before. Don’t you just want to, you know, erase everything from your mind?”
Minho nods. “Yeah, not gonna lie. I do. Well, erase everything except for the making out part.”
He barely avoids a flying pencil case, laughing into his pillow.
“You’re an asshole,” Kibum says, rolling the chair over to the bed. Grabbing the itouch from Minho, he moves his finger around the screen, finishing the level Minho was having trouble with. He throws it back to him and Minho barely catches it, raising an eyebrow at Kibum.
“Why are you so mad?”
Kibum takes a deep breath and shakes his head, trying to sort his thoughts out. “Because,” he starts, “this isn’t right. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.” He looks up at Minho, who stares back with the same indifferent expression. Indifferent, disinterested, not caring, bored, it all pisses him off. “We were just supposed to be friends, and then, you know, have a normal college-like relationship. Go out to clubs, fuck girls-” he ignores Minho’s smirk, and rolls his eyes. “Be stupid kids. Then maybe we could work something out between us.”
“And when does the ‘I’m an assassin’ confession come in?” Minho says, waiting for a response. He’s completely serious, the ipod put down, flung somewhere in-between the blankets. Kibum bites his lip, watches Minho out of the corner of his eye, and hopes he gets the message so Kibum doesn’t have to say the words. “You don’t, right?”
It stings more than it should have, something about the way Minho says it makes Kibum want to shrink away, blend in with the chair and become invisible from Minho’s sharp gaze. “No,” he sighs, “I don’t.”
Minho watches him carefully, studying his appearance, taking it all in. He leans forward and spins the chair around so Kibum is facing him. Kibum’s caught off guard, blinking at Minho with wide eyes. When Minho leans forward, he’s surprised to see Kibum flinch and shrink into the chair. He knows it’s a reflex, but the fact that it’s Kibum comes off as shocked make himself even a little amazed. It makes him a little curious, even feeling a little good, knowing that he was the one who just did that. He decides to experiment a little - which there is no point to, because they’re already kissed before, despite the situation. Minho grabs Kibum’s wrist, dragging him off the chair and onto the bed on top of him.
Kibum stares down at him, bewilderment clouding his face as Minho fists the collar of his shirt and pulls down, pressing their mouths together. Kibum’s lips feel hard and chapped against his smooth ones, which is slightly ironic, because he’d think it’d be the other way around, but he pushes that thought to the back of his mind when Kibum tilts his head to the side and runs a hand through his hair, sighing contentedly. Minho shoves his tongue into Kibum's mouth, hot and dirty as Kibum groans from above him, shoving a thigh in between his legs and Minho presses against it wantonly.
They pull away minutes later, panting and gasping for breath from their so-called high. Kibum turns his head to face Minho, who’s still looking at the ceiling, breathing harshly.
“You know,” Minho says hoarsely, “I think I’m glad it happened this way. Because now I’m here. Typical college romances. Who the fuck needs those.”
Kibum raises an eyebrow before laughing, slapping Minho’s arm and resting his head on Minho’s shoulder. “You’re going to regret it,” Kibum says, trying to sound like he really is going to regret it, but the smile in his voice gives it away.
They spend the next ten minutes talking about random nonsensical things when Jinki walks in, placing his bag down and looking at the two lying together on the bed.
“Wow, um. That was fast.”
Kibum shrugs, pointing to his computer. “So, uh. Have you figured out anything yet?”
“Yeah,” Jinki says. “Just about everything, really. I even transferred all your college transcripts and documents already,” he shrugs. “So much for actually paying attention in class. Anyways, your flight is in two days. You know the destination, right? I sent you a text message, but I guess you didn’t see it, since you two were, um. Busy.”
Minho raises an eyebrow. “How do you know that?”
Jinki gestures to the mess of a bed and the pillows and blankets strewn all over the floor. “I make my bed before I leave. I hope you guys didn’t do anything that requires me to drag all that stuff to the laundry machines.”
“Not yet,” Kibum states.
“Good,” Jinki replies. “Please to be keeping that way for two more days. Anyways, since you didn’t look at your phone, I went ahead and reserved the tickets anyways. I could always change them if you want, but right now you guys are headed towards France and I would totally tell you the name of the college if I could pronounce it.”
“France,” Kibum repeats, looking at Minho.
Minho nods approvingly. “France.”
Two nights later Minho finds himself standing at the security check of the airport. Two security men pat him down, and with a disinterested nod, one of them motions for him to go through. Minho walks past, grabbing his messenger bag and grabbing his shoes from the conveyer belt.
“This is it,” Minho whispers when they’re sitting at the gate, fingers interlocked with Kibum’s.
“Yeah,” Kibum says, “this is it.” He gives Minho’s hand a reassuring squeeze, and Minho smiles back at him a little helplessly.
A flight attendant comes out and directs the First Class people to their seat, and then calls out for the Economy class.
They sit down in their seats, which are too close to the front of the plane for Kibum’s liking, but he sucks it up and sits at the window seat, pulling Minho down beside him. There ends up being no one sitting on Minho’s other side, which makes Kibum relieved because he can see the taller boy tensing with each passing minute. Like everything that’s happened has finally sunk in and the emotions are slowly coming, one by one. Minho looks like he’s airsick, even though the seatbelt sign hasn’t even lit up yet and there’s still ten minutes until they take off. He pokes Minho and flashes him a smile before the speakers in the airplane turn on; the pilot is telling them the usual procedures. Kibum puts his seat belt on and proceeds to put on Minho’s as well, since he seems to be too clammy and the buckle slips out of his grasp the first two times before Kibum grabs it from him.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Kibum asks slowly, watching Minho carefully. “The airplane hasn’t moved yet, you can still leave.”
He watches Minho’s adam’s apple bob up and down, and even though the plane is freezing, his forehead is shiny with sweat and he turns to face Kibum.
“N-no,” he whispers. “Too late,” he says, and it sounds more like he’s telling himself them telling Kibum. “I need to do this.”
Kibum gives him one lasting look before the plane propellers start to go, and soon enough it’s rolling down the runway, and takes off into the skies.
It’s three hours into the flight when Minho finally breaks down, sobbing into Kibum’s shoulder. He pats Minho’s hair, running his fingers through it and muttering nonsensical things into his ear, in hopes of calming him down.
Minho sniffs one last time before grabbing Kibum’s hand, playing with his fingers. He whispers to himself, though Kibum’s sure Minho knows that he’s listening. “I don’t regret this,” he mumbles. “I don’t regret this at all. I don’t.”
Kibum watches for a moment before he stares out the window, looking out towards the stars in the night sky, then down at the city lights. He prefers the stars better, and smiles a little. They’ll keep flying, they’ll keep soaring, because they know no limits.
And when one knows no limits, what could possible stop them?
Part I || Part II
the end ♥
_________________________
so, um. thank you for reading, everybody! \o/ tbh the more i wrote the more i thought it got bad, but. hopefully it wasn't that bad. also! i would love concrit. lots and lots of it. if you have to go anon to do it, that's totally cool. anyways, one more thing. the russian roulette scene i based off an indian movie i saw called dhoom 2. you guys should watch the movie. anyways, i'm done here.
edit: HEY GUYS HEY HEY HEY i was cleaning out my notebooks and i found this comic i drew that describes the very first assassination scene at the party where jonghyun shines a flashlight in key's face. LOOK AT MY PRESTIGE OUTLINING SKILLS. huhuhu i felt as if this should be shared ): also apparently at the time it's pseudo name was assassin's creed.
