those who wander 2/?
Title: those who wander 2/?
Fandom: Super Junior
Rating: PG13
Pairing: teamfic with smatterings of pairings throughout, action adventure AU
Summary: Kyuhyun is on a mission, of sorts, and it takes him places he never would have considered. AU Action/Adventure.
A/N: Chap One found here. Feedback warmly welcomed. <3
CHAPTER TWO
Zhou Mi is two hundred feet away when he hears the pops, like a string of firecrackers going off or a car sputtering, and doesn’t think much of it until he hears the screams. He hesitates, thinking about running away, but someone is screaming for help and he doesn’t hear any more shots, doesn’t see any gun wielding maniacs. He runs towards the sounds instead of away, pulling his cellphone out as he goes.
Four teenagers stare at him with wide eyes, crying. One has her mobile pressed to her ear, and is hiccupping with hysteria I’m on hold oh god. A woman is lying on the ground, dead, and beside her a little girl is crying and trying to get up. A man is lying facedown in a puddle of blood and feces and other dark matter, and someone else is running away, stumbling into the street, where cars swerve and honk. Zhou Mi lands hard on his knees beside the little girl, and swallows hard at the sight of her mother’s unseeing eyes. He reaches to pick up the girl and take her away, and his hands come away red. He starts to cry, and tries to remember something, anything, about first aid. His hands are very warm and wet, and her cries start to lessen as she coughs and chokes, her breath bubbles and drags in her lungs.
Tires squeal and an unmarked car comes careening into the parking lot, a red light flashing insistently on the dash. Two men kick the doors open and crouch behind them, shouting and yelling, and there are guns pointed at him.
“Get on the ground,” they scream, orders all overlapping, the scanner crackles and roars with jargon and codes being called, two black and whites roar into the parking lot and skid to a stop, “let me see your hands, don’t move” and Zhou Mi rocks the little girl, wraps her in his jacket and begins to sob as she exhales once and stops crying.
“It’s all about confusion,” Heechul tells Kyuhyun, leading him from the car and the second dead body Kyuhyun’s ever seen in his life. “You should never plan on ever being in court but always provide for the possibility. See I killed someone with a sword earlier, who does that? No one, nowadays. And I killed another guy with a knife and left the sword on him. In two different cop districts. See? I can say well that guy killed the man at the library plus why the hell would I ever kill anyone with a sword? And always count on poor cooperation between agencies, on that you’ll never be wrong.” He beams cheerfully and Kyuhyun stares blankly.
“This isn’t happening,” he mumbles. Heechul sighs.
“I thought you’d be more adaptable,” he grumbles, and takes an abrupt turn into a small drugstore on the corner. Kyuhyun follows numbly, watches as he grabs boxes of hair dye, scissors, permanent markers.
“Okay,” Heechul says, after they pay in cash and leave, “the next thing is transportation. Where’s the best place to grab a taxi?”
“Jesus,” Donghae says, and feels old, feels tired. “Jesus.” Behind him he can hear Eunhyuk puking into the bushes, wet retching followed by dry heaves. An ashen faced patrolman comes up to him and bows slightly.
“The assistant medical examiner is ready for you,” he says, and cracks open a bottle of water, walks over to Eunhyuk. Donghae watches him go and wonders when he became the senior officer and how he managed to miss it happening. Over by the cluster of ambulances, a woman in a glossy jacket waves at him. He holds a hand up to her and heads over to the nearest curb, where a tall, lanky boy sits. Painfully skinny, his hair flops into his face and over one eye, as he huddles into the blanket an EMT tucks around him.
“Shock,” she says brusquely, packing up her kit and slinking it over her shoulder, “very mild, he’ll be fine. Well, maybe need some therapy but who doesn’t, nowdays.” She leaves, and Donghae sits down on the curb next to him. He looks about Kyuhyun’s age and Donghae feels a pang in his heart, the same one he felt when he heard on the scanner a shooting was in progress at the University Library, fumbling with the radio as he claimed first responder.
“Hey,” he says softly, “hey.” The boy looks up at him, and his eyes are red from crying. Donghae pauses, feels awkward. “I’m sorry for cuffing you,” he murmurs, “it was a bit crazy.” The boy says nothing, swallows hard.
“You did good,” Donghae says finally, at a loss. “You did all you could do, and more than most would.” Something lifts in the boy’s eyes, and Donghae thinks it’s better than nothing. Eunhyuk’s boots appear in the edge of his vision, and there’s a spot of vomit on the tip of the steel toe.
“My partner is going to ask you a couple of questions,” he says gently, “and ask you what happened one more time. Then he’ll get you a ride home, okay? You’ll be fine.” He clasps his shoulder for a moment, gently, and then leaves Eunhyuk to clean up the mess of living while he checks out the dead.
“Hey,” he greets, walking over, and the medical examiner nods solemnly. “What do you have for me?” he asks and she sighs, crouches down.
“The other bodies are all gunshots, mostly to the upper torso. Best we can figure, based on the shells we’ve got so far is a drive by. No one really accounts for how hard it is to aim out of a moving vehicle, which is why it’ll be difficult to determine if there was a specific victim or just a random act of violence. This one though,” she gestures down at a man, a big one, with cropped short hair and a hard face, and brusquely stands back up as more people in dark jacket lift him up onto a gurney and zip the black bag closed over his face. “This one is weird, it’ll take us a bit to get back to you on him.”
“How long?” Donghae asks sharply, “Little girl and her mom died, at a school library, no less. My kid cousin comes to this library all the time. Gonna be a lot of pressure.” There’s a faint pang at the mention of Kyuhyun, but Donghae shoves it to the back of his mind as the medical examiner shrugs.
“Is what it is,” she says, “you gonna pay for this to be a rush? There’s a backlog as it is, but we’ll probably get an okay to push this to the front pretty soon. Maybe a few days, maybe less. Only thing I can say is that our preliminary findings is that this one was done by a knife. A very long, slender knife, probably slightly curved and sharp on both sides, no serration.” Donghae stares at her.
“A sword?” he asks, voice disbelieving. She grins darkly.
“Sure, but you’ll never see that on our reports. Who does that?”
“You’ll be alright,” the officer says, not unkindly, “we’ll be round or give you a ring about all the rest, try and take it easy.” Zhou Mi nods, quietly, and stands from the curb, shrugs the shock blanket off and folds it, twisting his fingers in it nervously. “Do you need a ride home?” the officer asks gently, and Zhou Mi shakes his head, dazed.
“Think I’ll walk,” he says softly, and the officer only makes an obligatory argument before walking away. Zhou Mi stands there for a second more, takes a long look around the parking lot, cop cars and firetrucks and ambulances parked haphazardly, yellow tape stretching around trees and cars, various uniforms crouched on the ground or talking quietly to each other.
The EMT had given him a light scrub shirt, a thin dull aqua green loose weave of cheap cotton that does nothing to cut the wind chilling his chest and arms. They’d taken the black and grey button up he’d been wearing as evidence. He walks quietly, and the scrape of his shoes on concrete sounds very loud, the flash of the sirens are very bright.
“Hey,” someone calls out to him as he ducks low beneath the yellow tape, and he turns to be hit in the face with a white flash. Reeling, he blinks rapidly, only to see a small crowd drawing close around him, all speaking over and around each other. Before he can decide how to escape, he’s jerked backwards and a hand shoves the nearest reporter away with a palm to the face.
“Come on,” his rescuer barks and drags him off to the side, shoves him into the passenger side of a car and shuts the door on the clamour outside. Zhou Mi sits for a while, and feels tears prick his eyes again. He wipes harshly at his face as the driver door opens and someone swings in.
“Hey,” the man says gently, and Zhou Mi looks up at him. A tie is hanging, knotted incorrectly and lopsided from his collar, and he’s wear the kind of holster that looks like suspenders, with no jacket to cover the sweat stains, even in this just-before-winter weather, and his hair is limp and falling into his eyes. He looks tired, and worn, the kind of weariness that isn’t from one or two days without rest but years of worry and stress and regret.
“I’m a detective,” he says, still in that soft tone, “my name is Donghae. We spoke briefly earlier, do you remember?”
“Yes,” Zhou Mi says hesitantly, and Donghae smiles encouragingly.
“Okay,” he says, and shifts to face forward, reaches for his seatbelt. “I’ll take you home, c’mon.” Zhou Mi nods, shakily, and fumbles for his own seatbelt, sweaty hands slipping off the buckle his first few tries. Donghae waits quietly for him to be finished and turns the engine over, and Zhou Mi mumbles a few directions to his apartment building.
“Do you go to the Uni?” Donghae asks, groping for conversation, and Zhou Mi clears his throat.
“Yeah,” he mutters, “I’m a music major.” Donghae smiles suddenly, making his face look five years younger, happier.
“My cousin goes there,” he says, and it’s with real affection. Then he face falls, and hardens again. “Used to, anyway.” Zhou Mi isn’t sure how to respond to that.
“It’s just the next right,” he says finally, and they drive the rest of the way in silence.
Heechul parks around the corner from the office and gets out. “Keep your head down,” he snaps to Kyuhyun, “I’ll be right back.” He steps briskly into the office and Kyuhyun looks around. The motel has one of those burnt neon signs that declares a a c n y and a sign with half its letters stolen advertising cable and porn. It’s painted a painful shade of green with peeling white trim and faded blue doors, numbers hanging off in rusted brass. The pool is long drained and a sledge of leaves and muck coats the lawn chairs. Kyuhyun flips his cheap phone open and closed, over and over against his thigh, and thinks about running from the car.
Heechul slides back in and starts the engine, pulls over to a space and parks properly, a room out of sight of what constitutes the main office. Kyuhyun gets out of the car and shuffles after Heechul, who shuts the door and locks it behind them. Heechul slings his small duffel bag onto one of the bedspreads, and a cockroach flees from under it to a crack in the wall. Heechul looks faintly disgusted.
“Okay,” he says, “let’s get some things straight. I’m tasked with your temporary protection. I’m not going to kill you, or maim you, or anything like that. This will only work if you work with me, because if you decide you don’t want to be around anymore I have better things to do than chase you around saving your skin.” Kyuhyun fists his hands and tries to gather conviction.
“Tell me what’s going on,” he demands, and Heechul snorts.
“I barely know. Look, here’s how it would work if you decided to stick with me. We enlist a few precautions and move one more time, where you hole up for about a week until Siwon comes to get you. Siwon, me, and you all move to a safe base. There, things will be made more clear and decisions will be made, make it or break it, et cetera. “
Kyuhyun hesitates, “A safe base?” Heechul smiles.
“Nothing we don’t want to get in would get in,” he promises, and Kyuhyun frowns.
“Do I have a choice?” he asks bitterly and Heechul shrugs.
“I guess,” he says, and starts to rifle through the duffel bag, “you could make a run of it on your own, but since you have no idea what’s going on that’s a bit stupid. Could go to the police I suppose, I hear they’re looking for you as well.” He looks up to smirk, and with his dyed red bangs falling into fake green eyes he looks as cold and alien as anyone Kyuhyun has ever seen.
“How do I know you won’t kill me like you killed that driver,” he asks, and his voice shakes. Heechul sighs, and pulls out the scissors and hair dye they’d bought earlier.
“The driver was a leak,” he explains, pulling a switchblade from his pocket and slicing the packaging open, “it’s how they knew where you were. Had to be dealt with quickly and efficiently, and as for your other question…” he pauses, and pulls two deadly looking handguns from the bag, checking them fluidly and setting them down on the tiny nightstand. Kyuhyun swallows hard. Heechul shrugs.
“You don’t, really. But I may never try to kill you and you can be sure the other guys will never stop, so look at it as the better and necessary evil. Okay, so if you’re all decided, then, take these and go shower.” He shoves scissors and hair dye into Kyuhyun’s hands and starts to fuss with a roll of duct tape and the blinds. Kyuhyun stares at the items in his hands, at Heechul cutting large strips of tape calmly and methodically, thinks of his smile when the driver gurgled and died, the reverence he handled the sword and the guns with, looks at the door and thinks of the man that had reached for him at the library.
“Who’s Siwon?” he asks, and Heechul smiles.
“You’ve met,” he says causally, and Kyuhyun’s mind flashes to the weird guy in his apartment spouting scripture. He blanches. Heechul grins.
“Yeah I feel that way too sometimes. Go on and shower.”
Donghae escorts Zhou Mi to his door and gives him his card, makes the department spiel about asking to keep it quiet with the press and to stand by in case of further questions or testimony. He hesitates, and then scribbles his personal cell number on the back of his card, and jogs back to his car, cursing his bleeding heart. He drives back to the station via a McDonalds, where he splurges on a cheeseburger and a strawberry milkshake, before trudging back to his car and to the office.
Eunhyuk nods to him as he walks over to their pairing of desks, and he tosses him a box of chicken nuggets. Eunhyuk brightens considerably and tears into the food, making happy noises. Donghae sighs, and opens the big heavy drawer on the bottom right of his desk, sliding out slim manila folders and triple duplicates of each form.
“Captain wants to see you,” Eunhyuk mumbles around a mouthful of breaded chicken parts, and Donghae groans again, shoving the folders aside into a messy pile on his desk and shoving to his feet, throwing his gun and holster into his locker on the way to the Captain’s office.
“Sit down, Lee,” he says, and it’s without his characteristic anger and frustration. His voice is soft and he won’t meet Donghae’s eyes. Donghae is forcibly reminded of the time Eunhyuk’s mother had fallen ill and been admitted to a hospital.
“That kid cousin of yours,” he says, and then stops, fiddles with his hat. Donghae suddenly notices that he’s in his full dress uniform, and something solidifies and sinks in his chest.
“Kyuhyun,” he says flatly, “his name is Cho Kyuhyun.” His Captain shifts on his feet, sighs again.
“We’ve issued a warrant for his arrest for the murder of Jung Grace,” he says finally, and Donghae feels sick. “I think it would be best if you stayed far away from that particular case, maybe even took some time off… you were quite close to him, and-” Donghae shoves to his feet.
“Thank you for your concern,” he snaps, “but I think the library shooting will keep me quite busy and away from your case.” He turns to storm out and has his hand on the handle before he’s stopped.
“Detective. The D.A. is fully on board with this decision. Just keep you and your badge out of it,” his Captain says, not unkindly. “Dismissed.”
Donghae slams out of the office, drawing quick pitying stares before eyes drop and paper is shuffled awkwardly. He storms out, ignoring Eunhyuk’s surprised shout as he grabs the library shooting file off the edge of their desks, and takes the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator. He doesn’t stop until he’s in his car with the engine running, with no place to go. He swallows his pride and his anger, and calls Eunhyuk.
“Hey,” Zhou Mi says woodenly to his roommate, who’s leaving on his way to work, and shuffles to the shower, having long decided that he’s not going to school for at least a few days. He runs the water for a long time before he gets in, and spends a while looking at his face in the mirror, looking for new lines or changes, and when he gets out he’s halfway dressed before he notices dark red under his fingernails. He scrubs frantically at his hands in the sink, ripping his pinky nail in half before he finally uses his teeth to suck it out, gagging at the taste of old blood.
He’s just wiping his mouth and fumbling with the toilet flush when there’s a knock at his door, and he quickly shoves a comb through his hair and pulls a new shirt on. It takes him three tries to undo the chain and the deadbolt.
“Hey,” Donghae says.
“Oh,” Zhou Mi says, startled. “Um, I haven’t gotten any calls or anything…” Donghae waves him off and smiles, strained. He’s still wearing the same clothes Zhou Mi had seen him in the day before.
“I was wondering if I could show you some pictures, see if you recognize anything, a face, tattoo, piercing, any distinguishing mark?” Zhou Mi shifts and gestures him inside, putters around putting the kettle on.
“I didn’t really see anything,” he says softly, “by the time I got there, I think. It was over.” he fumbles with the teacups and Donghae rises quickly, takes over putting the tea bags in a pot and setting cups on the table. Zhou Mi fusses with the threadbare edge of their tablecloth, twisting and folding it and letting go to watch the wrinkles relax and fade. It’s a good tablecloth.
“Zhou Mi,” Donghae says gently, making an effort to wrap his tongue around the foreign name, “maybe you saw something without realizing it, and something here could jog your memory. I could really use your help, if that’s okay?” Zhou Mi twists his fingers together, and raises his eyes briefly before dropping them again.
“Okay,” he says nervously, “I’ll try.” Donghae smiles a young boyish smile and opens the first folder.
“That’s all I could ask,” he says sincerely, and starts to move glossy photos in a spread across the table, murderers and gang symbols and dead bodies with symbols cut into them slowly covering the sheet music and half finished song lyrics.
Heechul swings out of the bathroom looking so normal Kyuhyun does a doubletake. The longish bright red hair and brilliantly green eyes are gone, replaced with shortly cropped black hair, spiked up with gel in a conservative businessman look and naturally brown pupils. Kyuhyun hardly recognizes him.
Heechul smirks smugly and then surveys Kyuhyun critically, frowning. Kyuhyun fingers the ends of his new blonde hair nervously, and thinks blonde seems a bit… striking, if the point is to blend in. On the other hand, he doesn’t much look like himself. Kyuhyun doesn’t much feel himself, either.
“Not bad,” Heechul says absently, and walks over to one of the windows. He’d taped the blinds against the walls, earlier, and then had cut a slit in one of the slats. He peers out the slit now, and nods brusquely.
“Okay,” he says, suddenly gathering up the handguns he’d cleaned earlier and placing them neatly in the dufflebag, the expensive kind made of black canvas with a nylon strap. “It’s time to hit the hay. Tomorrow we move to another hotel. There I’ll leave you, where you will be collected by my associate and escorted to a safe location. Clear? Any questions?”
“No,” Kyuhyun says. “Wait, yes. Why are we moving?” Heechul motions for Kyuhyun to get the bed, and he perches nervously on the edge of the mattress. Heechul opens the cupboard under the tiny television and pulls out another blanket, which he shakes out onto the floor.
“Just to leave a longer trail. More precautions. I paid for a whole week, and when we leave here I’m hoping our trail stays. The motel we’re going to is a known police stash house, so you’ll be protected without really being protected.” Heechul glances up and smiles again, and Kyuhyun is struck by the fact that Heechul doesn’t really look dangerous at all. He lies down hesitantly on the bed, wincing as springs dig into his side.
Heechul pulls out a shotgun, which looks inherently wrong until Kyuhyun realizes that the butt end has been sawed down, to make the shotgun smaller and easier to hide. Heechul sees him squinting and smiles.
“You know that sawing the front off is a serious crime but sawing this end is totally fine?” he props the gun against the end of the bed and sits down on the blankets, leaning against the wall with the gun across his lap, pulls out a book. “Kills people just as easy,” he says cheerfully, and clicks the main light off.
“Try and get some rest,” he says into the dark, and a tiny booklight clicks on, just bright enough for Kyuhyun to see it reflect off his eyes, “I’ll be gone when you wake up.”
Donghae leaves Zhou Mi’s apartment well after dark, discouraged and feeling more worn for it. Eunhyuk pulls up, three minutes late, and Donghae climbs into the passenger seat.
“Get anything?” Eunhyuk asks, and frowns in disappointment when Donghae grunts in the negative. “Maybe we should go back to the Medical Examiner, and lean on her a bit,” he says, pulling out onto the main road, and Donghae frowns.
“Stop reading my notes,” he grumbles and Eunhyuk flushes.
“Stop being so messy,” he retorts, and Donghae sighs.
“Tomorrow we’ll head down to the city morgue,” he agrees finally, and Eunhyuk grins. Donghae thinks he likes Eunhyuk well enough now, though at first he was cross at the idea of being the senior partner showing the ropes to the new guy. Eunhyuk is bright enough, he’s organized, polite-tends to talk before he thinks, which makes him seem dimmer than he is, but that sometimes works in his favour. Donghae smiles at him.
“You hungry?” he asks, and Eunhyuk’s face lights up.
Kyuhyun wakes to find a post-it note stuck to his forehead. bathroom counter it says, and underneath is the name of another motel they’d passed on the trip the night before, just up and across the street. Heechul is gone, the blanket on the floor neatly folded at the foot of the bed. Kyuhyun splashes water on his face and tries to tame his hair, before picking up the key on the counter, with a small keychain attached 216, and another post-it note with a symbol Kyuhyun doesn’t recognize, something that looks like a mangled character. Kyuhyun squints at it for a moment, then shrugs and stuffs it in his pocket, pulls on his hoodie and the baseball cap, and grabs the small knapsack that had been left by the door.
The new motel looks only marginally better than the last one, but inside it’s cleaner, with a kitchenette, and Kyuhyun pulls out instant noodles and a candy bar from his bag.
He’s reasonably certain that he managed to avoid detection on his way in, head down and hidden under his hood and cap, and the few people he’d seen were doing the same. He clicks the television around its small channel set over and over again, listless, and sips at the noodle broth. He wishes Heechul had gotten him some tea. And a book. Kyuhyun pulls out the small flashdrive from where he’d secured it earlier and flips it over and over in his fingers. The USB stick is capped by a tiny Darth Vader head, a gift from Donghae his freshman year of high school. Kyuhyun remembers sneering in his face and turning away, and the way Donghae’s face fell and the snick of the door when it closed behind him.
“Yah, keep off!” Donghae says, and fends Eunhyuk away from his egg with one hand. He’s smiling at Eunhyuk in a relaxed way he hasn’t felt in years, and he likes the way Eunhyuk keeps trying to snatch food off his plate, the easy way he dropped the formal speech fairly early on into their partnership, the way he likes being called hyung. Eunhyuk grins back that silly smile that makes him look no older than fourteen, and Donghae’s about to relent and order him an extra helping when his phone trills its tedious polyphonic ringtone. He makes a sharp threatening motion towards Eunhyuk and flips his mobile open.
“Lee Donghae,” he answers automatically, and snags a piece of beef from Eunhyuk’s bowl, smirking as Eunhyuk gapes at him in comical outrage.
“Detective?” a voice responds, hesitant, “it’s uh, it’s Zhou Mi. You were at my apartment earlier today?” he trails off the end of the question and Donghae is struck with the mental image of something small and fuzzy cringing on the other end of the line. He frowns.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, turning slightly away from the clatter of cheap bamboo chopsticks on earthenware bowls and the low hum of chatter to hear better.
“I think… I think I’m in trouble,” Zhou Mi says, and he does sound scared. “I think there are people coming towards my apartment.”
“Okay,” Donghae says, soothing, as he throws bills on the table, stands, and gestures impatiently at Eunhyuk, who peers quizzically up at him and sputters an incoherent question through a mouthful of egg. “Stay where you are,” he orders, reaching over and yanking Eunhyuk up by the collar, “I’m coming to get you.”
When Donghae jogs up the flight of stairs leading to Zhou Mi’s floor, he’s not really expecting anything other than to reassure a frightened witness, spooked by the traumatic shooting and seeing bogeyman in the shadows. He raps brusquely on the door twice, and it swings open slowly under the force of his knocks, squeaking in a high-pitched whine until he reaches out and stops its movement. Cautiously, he ducks inside.
“Zhou Mi?” he calls into the darkened apartment, “it’s Detective-” The wall four inches to the right of his face explodes, and Donghae reels backwards, throwing himself out of the apartment and kicking the door closed, fumbling for his service weapon. Heart racing, he curses himself for not bringing his radio up with him, and is just climbing to his feet, unsure what to do, when a man kicks the door open and levels a gun at him.
“Oh shit!” Donghae shouts, and raises his gun and fires, blindly, eyes closed, and he hears the man’s surprised grunt, the thud as his body hits the floor and the gurgling sound his lungs make as he spasms for breath. He shoves himself to his feet, panting harshly, and tries not to look at the red mess that is the man’s chest. There’s a ringing in his ears, and it smells like blood and urine and death. He curses himself for not bringing the radio up with him some more, and balks at the threshold, thinking he should go back down, find Eunhyuk, wait for back-up. He remembers promising Zhou Mi he would come get him, and they way Zhou Mi accepted his word as truth.
“Oh fuck me,” he mutters, “fuck me hard,” and he readies his gun just the way they taught him at the Academy shooting range and simulation runs, and nudges the door open, ducks through and presses himself against the nearest wall. He starts to clear the apartment, trying desperately to remember what he’d been taught about one-man sweeping.
“Zhou Mi!,” he calls sharply, “Zhou Mi!” There’s a clatter from the last room and Donghae smacks his funny bone on the cheap hardwood flooring as he scrambles to get low and find cover.
“Here!” a slightly panicked voice answers, and it cracks on the second half of the sentence, “I’m in here.”
“Okay,” Donghae calls back, and he tries to speak calmly and rationally, and without the tinge of hysteria all his conversations seemed to hold lately. “Okay just-” Donghae stops near a table with a long linen tablecloth, the one he’d sat at with Zhou Mi just earlier that day. There’s a sneaker sticking out from under the cloth. Donghae swallows hard, and pulls the cloth up in one smooth motion.
It’s a young boy, in faded jeans with artificially ripped holes in the knees and a lilac sweatervest over a pinstriped button up. His sweater is twisted on his body, and the end of the purple tie hangs over the side of his body onto the floor. Donghae swallows again.
“Okay,” he says to Zhou Mi, “I’m coming,” and he drops the tablecloth and jogs into the bedroom, where he has to pull up hard to avoid tripping over another dead body. “Jesusfuck,” he swears, backpedaling and leaning on the doorframe, breathing heavily. There’s a shiny Glock on the carpet a foot from the body, and it’s a hard looking man, with little white scars on his hands and a nastier, puckered one under his collarbone. He’s also missing about half his skull, features obscured by blood and hair and pieces of bone, all smashed in. Zhou Mi is sitting in the corner, wiping vomit from his mouth. Donghae gapes at him. He’s cradling a fire extinguisher, and the corner is dripping red.
“I hit him,” Zhou Mi says in a small voice, and he sounds bewildered, “I hit him.” Donghae takes a deep breath and steps over the body, shaking off his cheap blazer and dropping it over the dead guy’s face.
“C’mon,” he says, hands shaking, and hauls Zhou Mi to his feet. Zhou Mi resists, still looking almost ccomically shocked.
“I only hit him once,” he says numbly. “That’s not how it looks in the movies.” Donghae can smell the blood, and it burns his nostrils and makes bile rise in his throat. He pulls at Zhou Mi more harshly.
“C’mon we gotta go, come on.” He drags Zhou Mi through the apartment, and feels him tense as they pass the man Donghae had killed at the door.
“My roommate,” Zhou Mi says suddenly, still very white and shaky. Donghae wonders if he knows that he has blood droplets on the legs of his jeans and the laces of his shoes. “My roommate, he’s in class at the University, someone has to tell him.” Donghae thinks of purple sweater lying under the table with a hole in his forehead and the back of his skull and brain splattered against the floor.
“We’ll send someone to find him,” he says through his teeth, and pulls Zhou Mi towards the stairs.
“Oh my God,” Eunhyuk says as he catches sight of them, and the car radio falls from his fingers. “Oh my fucking God.” Donghae shoves Zhou Mi into the backseat and gestures sharply for Eunhyuk to drive.
“Come on,” he says, holstering his weapon and fumbling with the restraining snap, fingertips slick with sweat, “let’s go, we’re heading to a secure location. No one was even supposed to know we had a witness.”
“I called for back-up,” Eunhyuk says, still staring at him with something akin to horror, “I heard the shots, so I-you’ve got blood all over you.” Donghae blinks and looks down.
“Oh,” he says simply, and feels his stomach flip. His mouth still tastes like gunpowder. “Blowback,” he says shortly, and his right index finger twitches. “We’ll call dispatch as we go, first to the station and then work it out from there. Let’s move.” He slumps into the car and doesn’t bother to buckle his seatbelt, leans his head on the cold glass window. His first Academy instructor is speaking inside his mind.
ninety seven percent of police officers only ever use their weapon on the shooting range
It’s been almost a week, and Kyuhyun’s getting nervous. He doesn’t know how long the room has been paid for, and he’s running low on packages of instant noodles and the number of crime drama marathons he can stand. Heechul hadn’t told him where the supposed safe location is, or even a way of contacting him or Siwon. Finally, he slings the knapsack over his shoulder and visits the ATM in front of the main office, nervously keeping to corners and hugging the edges of the buildings. He pulls all the cash he can off the cards Donghae had given him, tosses them into a nearby dumpster, and feels better for the feel of the bills in his hand.
He’s walking back to his room, thinking about whether he should go to the office and talk about paying for longer, or just discounting everything Heechul said and going to the police, or even just doing what Donghae had said and running, try and get out of the country, when he rounds a corner and walks straight into another person. He doesn’t even manage to get his hands up in time, and he stumbles backwards, grabbing at the strap of his bag to keep it from sliding off his shoulder. The person he’d walked into hadn’t fared as gracefully, and was pushing himself to his feet after sprawling over loose asphalt and dirty pavement.
“Ow,” he says, and Kyuhyun tries to duck around him and keep walking, heart racing. “Hey,” the guy says, and grabs his elbow, “sorry about this, I-” Kyuhyun jerks himself out of the stranger’s grasp and glares at him, looking at him properly for the first time. He’s tall, but very skinny, all sharp angles and awkwardness, and his face is thin and pinched, his hair dyed a deep dark brown. He’s also gaping at Kyuhyun, brow furrowed, like he’s trying to place him. Recognition starts to dawn, and Kyuhyun ducks his head again, pulling his hat lower, but it’s too late.
“Kyuhyun!” the boy says, and he sounds cheerful again, “What are you doing here?” When Kyuhyun looks up again, resigned, the boy is smiling a bright sunny smile that looks too big for his face.
“Oh!” Kyuhyun says, shifting uneasily on his feet and trying desperately to place the boy, “oh, yes, um hello there, uh…” He trails off, and the other boy blinks and then looks soul crushingly sad.
“Zhou Mi,” he mumbles, now also shifting awkwardly. “We were in the same music class last semester.” Kyuhyun nods furiously and takes a small step backwards.
“Oh, yeah, sorry. Fell asleep a lot in that class, you know how it is,” he tries for a laugh and it comes out brittle and forced.
“We were partners on our final project,” Zhou Mi says, and he’s staring at the ground.
“Oh.” Kyuhyun says, and feels a little like an asshole.
“We take the same bus to school every day,” Zhou Mi adds, and Kyuhyun flushes.
“So, uh, what are you doing here?” he adds, trying for small talk, and then a lightbulb goes off, “-Ah! wait! You tried to give me coffee one time.” Zhou Mi beams at him.
“Yeah!” he says, and they smile genuinely at each other for a second before it becomes awkward again. Kyuhyun coughs to break the silence, and Zhou Mi clears his throat quietly.
“Do you want some tea?” Zhou Mi asks suddenly, and Kyuhyun sighs, relieved.
“Please.”
Zhou Mi’s room is pretty much the same layout as Kyuhyun’s, and he putters around in nervously, straightening the bedclothes and putting water on the stove for tea. He smiles nervously at Kyuhyun.
“Did you see it too?” he blurts, and Kyuhyun blinks.
“What?” he asks, and Zhou Mi flushes.
“I’m here because I saw the shooting at the library,” he confesses in a rush, “and I see you there all the time, so I, I thought…” he trails off, and stares at the ground.
“You were there?” asks Kyuhyun without thinking, and kicks himself for admitting his own presence. Zhou Mi looks relieved.
“I’m so glad I’m not the only one here,” he says, getting up for teabags and chipped plastic cups, “it’s been a little nervewracking.” Kyuhyun nods, unsure of what to say, and moves to pick up a sheaf of paper on the table to make room for the cups.
“Oh,” he says, “did you write this?” There’s a hand drawn WTF on the paper, with notes and lyrics written in a clean neat cursive underneath. Zhou Mi flushes and reaches for the papers, mumbling, and Kyuhyun pulls them out of his reach, grinning. Then he frowns in concentration and sings the first few lines, stumbling as he works out the right key and timing.
“This part is awkward to sing,” he announces, and Zhou Mi sets down the cups on the stove and leans over his chair.
“What do you think I should change?” he asks, Kyuhyun sings it again under his breath.
“I need a pen.” he announces.
“I’ll walk you to your room,” Zhou Mi says some time later, black frame glasses sliding sideways down his face, “I’ll take some noodles to give to you, Donghae gives me some every few days.” Kyuhyun stops halfway through his smile at Zhou Mi’s hair standing nearly straight up, and drops his pen.
“Donghae? You know Donghae?” Zhou Mi leans over to fuss with a canvas bag on the floor, fishing out a couple cartoons of just-add-hot-water noodles.
“Yeah,” he answers, stacking them to carry in one hand, “Detective Lee is really nice, he’s been great.” He pauses, and looks more somber. “He even came and got me when someone attacked my apartment.”
“Someone attacked Donghae?” Kyuhyun asks sharply, and his fingernails punch through the thin paper covering of the Cup O Noodles. “Is he okay? What happened?” Zhou Mi digs through a pile of paper, coins and a few other odds and ends, looking for his keys.
“Yeah, he was really fantastic. He came and got me in my apartment and took me to the police station, and then arranged for me to get protective custody.”
“He’s my cousin,” Kyuhyun says, and shrugs, uncomfortable. “He took care of me when we were growing up.”
“Oh,” Zhou Mi says, picking up on the sudden tension.
“Let’s go,” Kyuhyun says abruptly, “I have a few more ideas I can tell you about in my room.” Zhou Mi beams, and is careful to lock the door behind them.
“It doesn’t have to rhyme,” Zhou Mi argues, “it’s the thoughts they provoke, the prose, Kui Xian.” Kyuhyun pulls up short from putting his key in the lock.
“Kui Xian?” he questions, and Zhou Mi flushes faintly.
“I like it better,” he says, and raises his chin defiantly. Kyuhyun rolls his eyes and unlocks the door, feeling for the light switch. His shoes crunch over something that feels hard and brittle, and he trips over something on the floor.
“What the fuck,” Kyuhyun mumbles, and slaps at the light switch. Zhou Mi gasps in an exceedingly girly fashion, and squeaks a little for good measure. Kyuhyun swears again, and looks around at the destruction in front of them. All of the cupboards have been ransacked, and cheap cutlery and mis-matched plates are scattered and shattered on the floor, the chair and the desk overturned.
“Oh my god,” Zhou Mi says, “I’ll call Donghae.”
“No!” Kyuhyun says sharply. “No, uh. Because-” Before he can come up with a good excuse, someone comes up from behind both of them and shoves them in the room.
“Eek!” Zhou Mi shrieks again, and flails at their assailant as Kyuhyun stumbles forward and trips over the debris on the floor again, sprawling out on the floor.
“Ow holy shit, stop that,” the man says, and shoves Zhou Mi hard away from him and the door. Kyuhyun curls his fingers around a shard of broken lamp on the floor, and looks up at him. He’s shorter than Zhou Mi, with lean practical looking muscles and medium length brown hair. He’s also got three long thin scratches the length of his cheek, seeping red, and is looking pretty sulky about it.
“What do you want,” Kyuhyun snaps, and stands, holding his tiny weapon behind his leg, and he’s thinking about the surprise in the eyes of the man Heechul had killed at the library, and the single second of surprised shout the driver of the car had managed before his throat was cut and he bled to death on custom black leather upholstery. His fingers clench the jagged glazed porcelain so hard it hurts.
“I am here for you,” the man says, and he has the same soft pronunciation as Zhou Mi, “my name is Hankyung.”
Author Note Alright so I have some major concerns for my writing in this fic. I think it's a little too rushed, and maybe not quite a compelling read. I'm concerned for the pacing, but mostly I think I'm not maybe fleshing it out as much as I should be :/. I'm working on it, and hoping that I just need more practice with this style. I'm not used to writing so much dialogue and action, but I am working hard. Please let me know if you have any feedback or thoughts on my writing because I would really appreciate it and it would help me a lot. Thank you :)
Fandom: Super Junior
Rating: PG13
Pairing: teamfic with smatterings of pairings throughout, action adventure AU
Summary: Kyuhyun is on a mission, of sorts, and it takes him places he never would have considered. AU Action/Adventure.
A/N: Chap One found here. Feedback warmly welcomed. <3
CHAPTER TWO
Zhou Mi is two hundred feet away when he hears the pops, like a string of firecrackers going off or a car sputtering, and doesn’t think much of it until he hears the screams. He hesitates, thinking about running away, but someone is screaming for help and he doesn’t hear any more shots, doesn’t see any gun wielding maniacs. He runs towards the sounds instead of away, pulling his cellphone out as he goes.
Four teenagers stare at him with wide eyes, crying. One has her mobile pressed to her ear, and is hiccupping with hysteria I’m on hold oh god. A woman is lying on the ground, dead, and beside her a little girl is crying and trying to get up. A man is lying facedown in a puddle of blood and feces and other dark matter, and someone else is running away, stumbling into the street, where cars swerve and honk. Zhou Mi lands hard on his knees beside the little girl, and swallows hard at the sight of her mother’s unseeing eyes. He reaches to pick up the girl and take her away, and his hands come away red. He starts to cry, and tries to remember something, anything, about first aid. His hands are very warm and wet, and her cries start to lessen as she coughs and chokes, her breath bubbles and drags in her lungs.
Tires squeal and an unmarked car comes careening into the parking lot, a red light flashing insistently on the dash. Two men kick the doors open and crouch behind them, shouting and yelling, and there are guns pointed at him.
“Get on the ground,” they scream, orders all overlapping, the scanner crackles and roars with jargon and codes being called, two black and whites roar into the parking lot and skid to a stop, “let me see your hands, don’t move” and Zhou Mi rocks the little girl, wraps her in his jacket and begins to sob as she exhales once and stops crying.
“It’s all about confusion,” Heechul tells Kyuhyun, leading him from the car and the second dead body Kyuhyun’s ever seen in his life. “You should never plan on ever being in court but always provide for the possibility. See I killed someone with a sword earlier, who does that? No one, nowadays. And I killed another guy with a knife and left the sword on him. In two different cop districts. See? I can say well that guy killed the man at the library plus why the hell would I ever kill anyone with a sword? And always count on poor cooperation between agencies, on that you’ll never be wrong.” He beams cheerfully and Kyuhyun stares blankly.
“This isn’t happening,” he mumbles. Heechul sighs.
“I thought you’d be more adaptable,” he grumbles, and takes an abrupt turn into a small drugstore on the corner. Kyuhyun follows numbly, watches as he grabs boxes of hair dye, scissors, permanent markers.
“Okay,” Heechul says, after they pay in cash and leave, “the next thing is transportation. Where’s the best place to grab a taxi?”
“Jesus,” Donghae says, and feels old, feels tired. “Jesus.” Behind him he can hear Eunhyuk puking into the bushes, wet retching followed by dry heaves. An ashen faced patrolman comes up to him and bows slightly.
“The assistant medical examiner is ready for you,” he says, and cracks open a bottle of water, walks over to Eunhyuk. Donghae watches him go and wonders when he became the senior officer and how he managed to miss it happening. Over by the cluster of ambulances, a woman in a glossy jacket waves at him. He holds a hand up to her and heads over to the nearest curb, where a tall, lanky boy sits. Painfully skinny, his hair flops into his face and over one eye, as he huddles into the blanket an EMT tucks around him.
“Shock,” she says brusquely, packing up her kit and slinking it over her shoulder, “very mild, he’ll be fine. Well, maybe need some therapy but who doesn’t, nowdays.” She leaves, and Donghae sits down on the curb next to him. He looks about Kyuhyun’s age and Donghae feels a pang in his heart, the same one he felt when he heard on the scanner a shooting was in progress at the University Library, fumbling with the radio as he claimed first responder.
“Hey,” he says softly, “hey.” The boy looks up at him, and his eyes are red from crying. Donghae pauses, feels awkward. “I’m sorry for cuffing you,” he murmurs, “it was a bit crazy.” The boy says nothing, swallows hard.
“You did good,” Donghae says finally, at a loss. “You did all you could do, and more than most would.” Something lifts in the boy’s eyes, and Donghae thinks it’s better than nothing. Eunhyuk’s boots appear in the edge of his vision, and there’s a spot of vomit on the tip of the steel toe.
“My partner is going to ask you a couple of questions,” he says gently, “and ask you what happened one more time. Then he’ll get you a ride home, okay? You’ll be fine.” He clasps his shoulder for a moment, gently, and then leaves Eunhyuk to clean up the mess of living while he checks out the dead.
“Hey,” he greets, walking over, and the medical examiner nods solemnly. “What do you have for me?” he asks and she sighs, crouches down.
“The other bodies are all gunshots, mostly to the upper torso. Best we can figure, based on the shells we’ve got so far is a drive by. No one really accounts for how hard it is to aim out of a moving vehicle, which is why it’ll be difficult to determine if there was a specific victim or just a random act of violence. This one though,” she gestures down at a man, a big one, with cropped short hair and a hard face, and brusquely stands back up as more people in dark jacket lift him up onto a gurney and zip the black bag closed over his face. “This one is weird, it’ll take us a bit to get back to you on him.”
“How long?” Donghae asks sharply, “Little girl and her mom died, at a school library, no less. My kid cousin comes to this library all the time. Gonna be a lot of pressure.” There’s a faint pang at the mention of Kyuhyun, but Donghae shoves it to the back of his mind as the medical examiner shrugs.
“Is what it is,” she says, “you gonna pay for this to be a rush? There’s a backlog as it is, but we’ll probably get an okay to push this to the front pretty soon. Maybe a few days, maybe less. Only thing I can say is that our preliminary findings is that this one was done by a knife. A very long, slender knife, probably slightly curved and sharp on both sides, no serration.” Donghae stares at her.
“A sword?” he asks, voice disbelieving. She grins darkly.
“Sure, but you’ll never see that on our reports. Who does that?”
“You’ll be alright,” the officer says, not unkindly, “we’ll be round or give you a ring about all the rest, try and take it easy.” Zhou Mi nods, quietly, and stands from the curb, shrugs the shock blanket off and folds it, twisting his fingers in it nervously. “Do you need a ride home?” the officer asks gently, and Zhou Mi shakes his head, dazed.
“Think I’ll walk,” he says softly, and the officer only makes an obligatory argument before walking away. Zhou Mi stands there for a second more, takes a long look around the parking lot, cop cars and firetrucks and ambulances parked haphazardly, yellow tape stretching around trees and cars, various uniforms crouched on the ground or talking quietly to each other.
The EMT had given him a light scrub shirt, a thin dull aqua green loose weave of cheap cotton that does nothing to cut the wind chilling his chest and arms. They’d taken the black and grey button up he’d been wearing as evidence. He walks quietly, and the scrape of his shoes on concrete sounds very loud, the flash of the sirens are very bright.
“Hey,” someone calls out to him as he ducks low beneath the yellow tape, and he turns to be hit in the face with a white flash. Reeling, he blinks rapidly, only to see a small crowd drawing close around him, all speaking over and around each other. Before he can decide how to escape, he’s jerked backwards and a hand shoves the nearest reporter away with a palm to the face.
“Come on,” his rescuer barks and drags him off to the side, shoves him into the passenger side of a car and shuts the door on the clamour outside. Zhou Mi sits for a while, and feels tears prick his eyes again. He wipes harshly at his face as the driver door opens and someone swings in.
“Hey,” the man says gently, and Zhou Mi looks up at him. A tie is hanging, knotted incorrectly and lopsided from his collar, and he’s wear the kind of holster that looks like suspenders, with no jacket to cover the sweat stains, even in this just-before-winter weather, and his hair is limp and falling into his eyes. He looks tired, and worn, the kind of weariness that isn’t from one or two days without rest but years of worry and stress and regret.
“I’m a detective,” he says, still in that soft tone, “my name is Donghae. We spoke briefly earlier, do you remember?”
“Yes,” Zhou Mi says hesitantly, and Donghae smiles encouragingly.
“Okay,” he says, and shifts to face forward, reaches for his seatbelt. “I’ll take you home, c’mon.” Zhou Mi nods, shakily, and fumbles for his own seatbelt, sweaty hands slipping off the buckle his first few tries. Donghae waits quietly for him to be finished and turns the engine over, and Zhou Mi mumbles a few directions to his apartment building.
“Do you go to the Uni?” Donghae asks, groping for conversation, and Zhou Mi clears his throat.
“Yeah,” he mutters, “I’m a music major.” Donghae smiles suddenly, making his face look five years younger, happier.
“My cousin goes there,” he says, and it’s with real affection. Then he face falls, and hardens again. “Used to, anyway.” Zhou Mi isn’t sure how to respond to that.
“It’s just the next right,” he says finally, and they drive the rest of the way in silence.
Heechul parks around the corner from the office and gets out. “Keep your head down,” he snaps to Kyuhyun, “I’ll be right back.” He steps briskly into the office and Kyuhyun looks around. The motel has one of those burnt neon signs that declares a a c n y and a sign with half its letters stolen advertising cable and porn. It’s painted a painful shade of green with peeling white trim and faded blue doors, numbers hanging off in rusted brass. The pool is long drained and a sledge of leaves and muck coats the lawn chairs. Kyuhyun flips his cheap phone open and closed, over and over against his thigh, and thinks about running from the car.
Heechul slides back in and starts the engine, pulls over to a space and parks properly, a room out of sight of what constitutes the main office. Kyuhyun gets out of the car and shuffles after Heechul, who shuts the door and locks it behind them. Heechul slings his small duffel bag onto one of the bedspreads, and a cockroach flees from under it to a crack in the wall. Heechul looks faintly disgusted.
“Okay,” he says, “let’s get some things straight. I’m tasked with your temporary protection. I’m not going to kill you, or maim you, or anything like that. This will only work if you work with me, because if you decide you don’t want to be around anymore I have better things to do than chase you around saving your skin.” Kyuhyun fists his hands and tries to gather conviction.
“Tell me what’s going on,” he demands, and Heechul snorts.
“I barely know. Look, here’s how it would work if you decided to stick with me. We enlist a few precautions and move one more time, where you hole up for about a week until Siwon comes to get you. Siwon, me, and you all move to a safe base. There, things will be made more clear and decisions will be made, make it or break it, et cetera. “
Kyuhyun hesitates, “A safe base?” Heechul smiles.
“Nothing we don’t want to get in would get in,” he promises, and Kyuhyun frowns.
“Do I have a choice?” he asks bitterly and Heechul shrugs.
“I guess,” he says, and starts to rifle through the duffel bag, “you could make a run of it on your own, but since you have no idea what’s going on that’s a bit stupid. Could go to the police I suppose, I hear they’re looking for you as well.” He looks up to smirk, and with his dyed red bangs falling into fake green eyes he looks as cold and alien as anyone Kyuhyun has ever seen.
“How do I know you won’t kill me like you killed that driver,” he asks, and his voice shakes. Heechul sighs, and pulls out the scissors and hair dye they’d bought earlier.
“The driver was a leak,” he explains, pulling a switchblade from his pocket and slicing the packaging open, “it’s how they knew where you were. Had to be dealt with quickly and efficiently, and as for your other question…” he pauses, and pulls two deadly looking handguns from the bag, checking them fluidly and setting them down on the tiny nightstand. Kyuhyun swallows hard. Heechul shrugs.
“You don’t, really. But I may never try to kill you and you can be sure the other guys will never stop, so look at it as the better and necessary evil. Okay, so if you’re all decided, then, take these and go shower.” He shoves scissors and hair dye into Kyuhyun’s hands and starts to fuss with a roll of duct tape and the blinds. Kyuhyun stares at the items in his hands, at Heechul cutting large strips of tape calmly and methodically, thinks of his smile when the driver gurgled and died, the reverence he handled the sword and the guns with, looks at the door and thinks of the man that had reached for him at the library.
“Who’s Siwon?” he asks, and Heechul smiles.
“You’ve met,” he says causally, and Kyuhyun’s mind flashes to the weird guy in his apartment spouting scripture. He blanches. Heechul grins.
“Yeah I feel that way too sometimes. Go on and shower.”
Donghae escorts Zhou Mi to his door and gives him his card, makes the department spiel about asking to keep it quiet with the press and to stand by in case of further questions or testimony. He hesitates, and then scribbles his personal cell number on the back of his card, and jogs back to his car, cursing his bleeding heart. He drives back to the station via a McDonalds, where he splurges on a cheeseburger and a strawberry milkshake, before trudging back to his car and to the office.
Eunhyuk nods to him as he walks over to their pairing of desks, and he tosses him a box of chicken nuggets. Eunhyuk brightens considerably and tears into the food, making happy noises. Donghae sighs, and opens the big heavy drawer on the bottom right of his desk, sliding out slim manila folders and triple duplicates of each form.
“Captain wants to see you,” Eunhyuk mumbles around a mouthful of breaded chicken parts, and Donghae groans again, shoving the folders aside into a messy pile on his desk and shoving to his feet, throwing his gun and holster into his locker on the way to the Captain’s office.
“Sit down, Lee,” he says, and it’s without his characteristic anger and frustration. His voice is soft and he won’t meet Donghae’s eyes. Donghae is forcibly reminded of the time Eunhyuk’s mother had fallen ill and been admitted to a hospital.
“That kid cousin of yours,” he says, and then stops, fiddles with his hat. Donghae suddenly notices that he’s in his full dress uniform, and something solidifies and sinks in his chest.
“Kyuhyun,” he says flatly, “his name is Cho Kyuhyun.” His Captain shifts on his feet, sighs again.
“We’ve issued a warrant for his arrest for the murder of Jung Grace,” he says finally, and Donghae feels sick. “I think it would be best if you stayed far away from that particular case, maybe even took some time off… you were quite close to him, and-” Donghae shoves to his feet.
“Thank you for your concern,” he snaps, “but I think the library shooting will keep me quite busy and away from your case.” He turns to storm out and has his hand on the handle before he’s stopped.
“Detective. The D.A. is fully on board with this decision. Just keep you and your badge out of it,” his Captain says, not unkindly. “Dismissed.”
Donghae slams out of the office, drawing quick pitying stares before eyes drop and paper is shuffled awkwardly. He storms out, ignoring Eunhyuk’s surprised shout as he grabs the library shooting file off the edge of their desks, and takes the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator. He doesn’t stop until he’s in his car with the engine running, with no place to go. He swallows his pride and his anger, and calls Eunhyuk.
“Hey,” Zhou Mi says woodenly to his roommate, who’s leaving on his way to work, and shuffles to the shower, having long decided that he’s not going to school for at least a few days. He runs the water for a long time before he gets in, and spends a while looking at his face in the mirror, looking for new lines or changes, and when he gets out he’s halfway dressed before he notices dark red under his fingernails. He scrubs frantically at his hands in the sink, ripping his pinky nail in half before he finally uses his teeth to suck it out, gagging at the taste of old blood.
He’s just wiping his mouth and fumbling with the toilet flush when there’s a knock at his door, and he quickly shoves a comb through his hair and pulls a new shirt on. It takes him three tries to undo the chain and the deadbolt.
“Hey,” Donghae says.
“Oh,” Zhou Mi says, startled. “Um, I haven’t gotten any calls or anything…” Donghae waves him off and smiles, strained. He’s still wearing the same clothes Zhou Mi had seen him in the day before.
“I was wondering if I could show you some pictures, see if you recognize anything, a face, tattoo, piercing, any distinguishing mark?” Zhou Mi shifts and gestures him inside, putters around putting the kettle on.
“I didn’t really see anything,” he says softly, “by the time I got there, I think. It was over.” he fumbles with the teacups and Donghae rises quickly, takes over putting the tea bags in a pot and setting cups on the table. Zhou Mi fusses with the threadbare edge of their tablecloth, twisting and folding it and letting go to watch the wrinkles relax and fade. It’s a good tablecloth.
“Zhou Mi,” Donghae says gently, making an effort to wrap his tongue around the foreign name, “maybe you saw something without realizing it, and something here could jog your memory. I could really use your help, if that’s okay?” Zhou Mi twists his fingers together, and raises his eyes briefly before dropping them again.
“Okay,” he says nervously, “I’ll try.” Donghae smiles a young boyish smile and opens the first folder.
“That’s all I could ask,” he says sincerely, and starts to move glossy photos in a spread across the table, murderers and gang symbols and dead bodies with symbols cut into them slowly covering the sheet music and half finished song lyrics.
Heechul swings out of the bathroom looking so normal Kyuhyun does a doubletake. The longish bright red hair and brilliantly green eyes are gone, replaced with shortly cropped black hair, spiked up with gel in a conservative businessman look and naturally brown pupils. Kyuhyun hardly recognizes him.
Heechul smirks smugly and then surveys Kyuhyun critically, frowning. Kyuhyun fingers the ends of his new blonde hair nervously, and thinks blonde seems a bit… striking, if the point is to blend in. On the other hand, he doesn’t much look like himself. Kyuhyun doesn’t much feel himself, either.
“Not bad,” Heechul says absently, and walks over to one of the windows. He’d taped the blinds against the walls, earlier, and then had cut a slit in one of the slats. He peers out the slit now, and nods brusquely.
“Okay,” he says, suddenly gathering up the handguns he’d cleaned earlier and placing them neatly in the dufflebag, the expensive kind made of black canvas with a nylon strap. “It’s time to hit the hay. Tomorrow we move to another hotel. There I’ll leave you, where you will be collected by my associate and escorted to a safe location. Clear? Any questions?”
“No,” Kyuhyun says. “Wait, yes. Why are we moving?” Heechul motions for Kyuhyun to get the bed, and he perches nervously on the edge of the mattress. Heechul opens the cupboard under the tiny television and pulls out another blanket, which he shakes out onto the floor.
“Just to leave a longer trail. More precautions. I paid for a whole week, and when we leave here I’m hoping our trail stays. The motel we’re going to is a known police stash house, so you’ll be protected without really being protected.” Heechul glances up and smiles again, and Kyuhyun is struck by the fact that Heechul doesn’t really look dangerous at all. He lies down hesitantly on the bed, wincing as springs dig into his side.
Heechul pulls out a shotgun, which looks inherently wrong until Kyuhyun realizes that the butt end has been sawed down, to make the shotgun smaller and easier to hide. Heechul sees him squinting and smiles.
“You know that sawing the front off is a serious crime but sawing this end is totally fine?” he props the gun against the end of the bed and sits down on the blankets, leaning against the wall with the gun across his lap, pulls out a book. “Kills people just as easy,” he says cheerfully, and clicks the main light off.
“Try and get some rest,” he says into the dark, and a tiny booklight clicks on, just bright enough for Kyuhyun to see it reflect off his eyes, “I’ll be gone when you wake up.”
Donghae leaves Zhou Mi’s apartment well after dark, discouraged and feeling more worn for it. Eunhyuk pulls up, three minutes late, and Donghae climbs into the passenger seat.
“Get anything?” Eunhyuk asks, and frowns in disappointment when Donghae grunts in the negative. “Maybe we should go back to the Medical Examiner, and lean on her a bit,” he says, pulling out onto the main road, and Donghae frowns.
“Stop reading my notes,” he grumbles and Eunhyuk flushes.
“Stop being so messy,” he retorts, and Donghae sighs.
“Tomorrow we’ll head down to the city morgue,” he agrees finally, and Eunhyuk grins. Donghae thinks he likes Eunhyuk well enough now, though at first he was cross at the idea of being the senior partner showing the ropes to the new guy. Eunhyuk is bright enough, he’s organized, polite-tends to talk before he thinks, which makes him seem dimmer than he is, but that sometimes works in his favour. Donghae smiles at him.
“You hungry?” he asks, and Eunhyuk’s face lights up.
Kyuhyun wakes to find a post-it note stuck to his forehead. bathroom counter it says, and underneath is the name of another motel they’d passed on the trip the night before, just up and across the street. Heechul is gone, the blanket on the floor neatly folded at the foot of the bed. Kyuhyun splashes water on his face and tries to tame his hair, before picking up the key on the counter, with a small keychain attached 216, and another post-it note with a symbol Kyuhyun doesn’t recognize, something that looks like a mangled character. Kyuhyun squints at it for a moment, then shrugs and stuffs it in his pocket, pulls on his hoodie and the baseball cap, and grabs the small knapsack that had been left by the door.
The new motel looks only marginally better than the last one, but inside it’s cleaner, with a kitchenette, and Kyuhyun pulls out instant noodles and a candy bar from his bag.
He’s reasonably certain that he managed to avoid detection on his way in, head down and hidden under his hood and cap, and the few people he’d seen were doing the same. He clicks the television around its small channel set over and over again, listless, and sips at the noodle broth. He wishes Heechul had gotten him some tea. And a book. Kyuhyun pulls out the small flashdrive from where he’d secured it earlier and flips it over and over in his fingers. The USB stick is capped by a tiny Darth Vader head, a gift from Donghae his freshman year of high school. Kyuhyun remembers sneering in his face and turning away, and the way Donghae’s face fell and the snick of the door when it closed behind him.
“Yah, keep off!” Donghae says, and fends Eunhyuk away from his egg with one hand. He’s smiling at Eunhyuk in a relaxed way he hasn’t felt in years, and he likes the way Eunhyuk keeps trying to snatch food off his plate, the easy way he dropped the formal speech fairly early on into their partnership, the way he likes being called hyung. Eunhyuk grins back that silly smile that makes him look no older than fourteen, and Donghae’s about to relent and order him an extra helping when his phone trills its tedious polyphonic ringtone. He makes a sharp threatening motion towards Eunhyuk and flips his mobile open.
“Lee Donghae,” he answers automatically, and snags a piece of beef from Eunhyuk’s bowl, smirking as Eunhyuk gapes at him in comical outrage.
“Detective?” a voice responds, hesitant, “it’s uh, it’s Zhou Mi. You were at my apartment earlier today?” he trails off the end of the question and Donghae is struck with the mental image of something small and fuzzy cringing on the other end of the line. He frowns.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, turning slightly away from the clatter of cheap bamboo chopsticks on earthenware bowls and the low hum of chatter to hear better.
“I think… I think I’m in trouble,” Zhou Mi says, and he does sound scared. “I think there are people coming towards my apartment.”
“Okay,” Donghae says, soothing, as he throws bills on the table, stands, and gestures impatiently at Eunhyuk, who peers quizzically up at him and sputters an incoherent question through a mouthful of egg. “Stay where you are,” he orders, reaching over and yanking Eunhyuk up by the collar, “I’m coming to get you.”
When Donghae jogs up the flight of stairs leading to Zhou Mi’s floor, he’s not really expecting anything other than to reassure a frightened witness, spooked by the traumatic shooting and seeing bogeyman in the shadows. He raps brusquely on the door twice, and it swings open slowly under the force of his knocks, squeaking in a high-pitched whine until he reaches out and stops its movement. Cautiously, he ducks inside.
“Zhou Mi?” he calls into the darkened apartment, “it’s Detective-” The wall four inches to the right of his face explodes, and Donghae reels backwards, throwing himself out of the apartment and kicking the door closed, fumbling for his service weapon. Heart racing, he curses himself for not bringing his radio up with him, and is just climbing to his feet, unsure what to do, when a man kicks the door open and levels a gun at him.
“Oh shit!” Donghae shouts, and raises his gun and fires, blindly, eyes closed, and he hears the man’s surprised grunt, the thud as his body hits the floor and the gurgling sound his lungs make as he spasms for breath. He shoves himself to his feet, panting harshly, and tries not to look at the red mess that is the man’s chest. There’s a ringing in his ears, and it smells like blood and urine and death. He curses himself for not bringing the radio up with him some more, and balks at the threshold, thinking he should go back down, find Eunhyuk, wait for back-up. He remembers promising Zhou Mi he would come get him, and they way Zhou Mi accepted his word as truth.
“Oh fuck me,” he mutters, “fuck me hard,” and he readies his gun just the way they taught him at the Academy shooting range and simulation runs, and nudges the door open, ducks through and presses himself against the nearest wall. He starts to clear the apartment, trying desperately to remember what he’d been taught about one-man sweeping.
“Zhou Mi!,” he calls sharply, “Zhou Mi!” There’s a clatter from the last room and Donghae smacks his funny bone on the cheap hardwood flooring as he scrambles to get low and find cover.
“Here!” a slightly panicked voice answers, and it cracks on the second half of the sentence, “I’m in here.”
“Okay,” Donghae calls back, and he tries to speak calmly and rationally, and without the tinge of hysteria all his conversations seemed to hold lately. “Okay just-” Donghae stops near a table with a long linen tablecloth, the one he’d sat at with Zhou Mi just earlier that day. There’s a sneaker sticking out from under the cloth. Donghae swallows hard, and pulls the cloth up in one smooth motion.
It’s a young boy, in faded jeans with artificially ripped holes in the knees and a lilac sweatervest over a pinstriped button up. His sweater is twisted on his body, and the end of the purple tie hangs over the side of his body onto the floor. Donghae swallows again.
“Okay,” he says to Zhou Mi, “I’m coming,” and he drops the tablecloth and jogs into the bedroom, where he has to pull up hard to avoid tripping over another dead body. “Jesusfuck,” he swears, backpedaling and leaning on the doorframe, breathing heavily. There’s a shiny Glock on the carpet a foot from the body, and it’s a hard looking man, with little white scars on his hands and a nastier, puckered one under his collarbone. He’s also missing about half his skull, features obscured by blood and hair and pieces of bone, all smashed in. Zhou Mi is sitting in the corner, wiping vomit from his mouth. Donghae gapes at him. He’s cradling a fire extinguisher, and the corner is dripping red.
“I hit him,” Zhou Mi says in a small voice, and he sounds bewildered, “I hit him.” Donghae takes a deep breath and steps over the body, shaking off his cheap blazer and dropping it over the dead guy’s face.
“C’mon,” he says, hands shaking, and hauls Zhou Mi to his feet. Zhou Mi resists, still looking almost ccomically shocked.
“I only hit him once,” he says numbly. “That’s not how it looks in the movies.” Donghae can smell the blood, and it burns his nostrils and makes bile rise in his throat. He pulls at Zhou Mi more harshly.
“C’mon we gotta go, come on.” He drags Zhou Mi through the apartment, and feels him tense as they pass the man Donghae had killed at the door.
“My roommate,” Zhou Mi says suddenly, still very white and shaky. Donghae wonders if he knows that he has blood droplets on the legs of his jeans and the laces of his shoes. “My roommate, he’s in class at the University, someone has to tell him.” Donghae thinks of purple sweater lying under the table with a hole in his forehead and the back of his skull and brain splattered against the floor.
“We’ll send someone to find him,” he says through his teeth, and pulls Zhou Mi towards the stairs.
“Oh my God,” Eunhyuk says as he catches sight of them, and the car radio falls from his fingers. “Oh my fucking God.” Donghae shoves Zhou Mi into the backseat and gestures sharply for Eunhyuk to drive.
“Come on,” he says, holstering his weapon and fumbling with the restraining snap, fingertips slick with sweat, “let’s go, we’re heading to a secure location. No one was even supposed to know we had a witness.”
“I called for back-up,” Eunhyuk says, still staring at him with something akin to horror, “I heard the shots, so I-you’ve got blood all over you.” Donghae blinks and looks down.
“Oh,” he says simply, and feels his stomach flip. His mouth still tastes like gunpowder. “Blowback,” he says shortly, and his right index finger twitches. “We’ll call dispatch as we go, first to the station and then work it out from there. Let’s move.” He slumps into the car and doesn’t bother to buckle his seatbelt, leans his head on the cold glass window. His first Academy instructor is speaking inside his mind.
ninety seven percent of police officers only ever use their weapon on the shooting range
It’s been almost a week, and Kyuhyun’s getting nervous. He doesn’t know how long the room has been paid for, and he’s running low on packages of instant noodles and the number of crime drama marathons he can stand. Heechul hadn’t told him where the supposed safe location is, or even a way of contacting him or Siwon. Finally, he slings the knapsack over his shoulder and visits the ATM in front of the main office, nervously keeping to corners and hugging the edges of the buildings. He pulls all the cash he can off the cards Donghae had given him, tosses them into a nearby dumpster, and feels better for the feel of the bills in his hand.
He’s walking back to his room, thinking about whether he should go to the office and talk about paying for longer, or just discounting everything Heechul said and going to the police, or even just doing what Donghae had said and running, try and get out of the country, when he rounds a corner and walks straight into another person. He doesn’t even manage to get his hands up in time, and he stumbles backwards, grabbing at the strap of his bag to keep it from sliding off his shoulder. The person he’d walked into hadn’t fared as gracefully, and was pushing himself to his feet after sprawling over loose asphalt and dirty pavement.
“Ow,” he says, and Kyuhyun tries to duck around him and keep walking, heart racing. “Hey,” the guy says, and grabs his elbow, “sorry about this, I-” Kyuhyun jerks himself out of the stranger’s grasp and glares at him, looking at him properly for the first time. He’s tall, but very skinny, all sharp angles and awkwardness, and his face is thin and pinched, his hair dyed a deep dark brown. He’s also gaping at Kyuhyun, brow furrowed, like he’s trying to place him. Recognition starts to dawn, and Kyuhyun ducks his head again, pulling his hat lower, but it’s too late.
“Kyuhyun!” the boy says, and he sounds cheerful again, “What are you doing here?” When Kyuhyun looks up again, resigned, the boy is smiling a bright sunny smile that looks too big for his face.
“Oh!” Kyuhyun says, shifting uneasily on his feet and trying desperately to place the boy, “oh, yes, um hello there, uh…” He trails off, and the other boy blinks and then looks soul crushingly sad.
“Zhou Mi,” he mumbles, now also shifting awkwardly. “We were in the same music class last semester.” Kyuhyun nods furiously and takes a small step backwards.
“Oh, yeah, sorry. Fell asleep a lot in that class, you know how it is,” he tries for a laugh and it comes out brittle and forced.
“We were partners on our final project,” Zhou Mi says, and he’s staring at the ground.
“Oh.” Kyuhyun says, and feels a little like an asshole.
“We take the same bus to school every day,” Zhou Mi adds, and Kyuhyun flushes.
“So, uh, what are you doing here?” he adds, trying for small talk, and then a lightbulb goes off, “-Ah! wait! You tried to give me coffee one time.” Zhou Mi beams at him.
“Yeah!” he says, and they smile genuinely at each other for a second before it becomes awkward again. Kyuhyun coughs to break the silence, and Zhou Mi clears his throat quietly.
“Do you want some tea?” Zhou Mi asks suddenly, and Kyuhyun sighs, relieved.
“Please.”
Zhou Mi’s room is pretty much the same layout as Kyuhyun’s, and he putters around in nervously, straightening the bedclothes and putting water on the stove for tea. He smiles nervously at Kyuhyun.
“Did you see it too?” he blurts, and Kyuhyun blinks.
“What?” he asks, and Zhou Mi flushes.
“I’m here because I saw the shooting at the library,” he confesses in a rush, “and I see you there all the time, so I, I thought…” he trails off, and stares at the ground.
“You were there?” asks Kyuhyun without thinking, and kicks himself for admitting his own presence. Zhou Mi looks relieved.
“I’m so glad I’m not the only one here,” he says, getting up for teabags and chipped plastic cups, “it’s been a little nervewracking.” Kyuhyun nods, unsure of what to say, and moves to pick up a sheaf of paper on the table to make room for the cups.
“Oh,” he says, “did you write this?” There’s a hand drawn WTF on the paper, with notes and lyrics written in a clean neat cursive underneath. Zhou Mi flushes and reaches for the papers, mumbling, and Kyuhyun pulls them out of his reach, grinning. Then he frowns in concentration and sings the first few lines, stumbling as he works out the right key and timing.
“This part is awkward to sing,” he announces, and Zhou Mi sets down the cups on the stove and leans over his chair.
“What do you think I should change?” he asks, Kyuhyun sings it again under his breath.
“I need a pen.” he announces.
“I’ll walk you to your room,” Zhou Mi says some time later, black frame glasses sliding sideways down his face, “I’ll take some noodles to give to you, Donghae gives me some every few days.” Kyuhyun stops halfway through his smile at Zhou Mi’s hair standing nearly straight up, and drops his pen.
“Donghae? You know Donghae?” Zhou Mi leans over to fuss with a canvas bag on the floor, fishing out a couple cartoons of just-add-hot-water noodles.
“Yeah,” he answers, stacking them to carry in one hand, “Detective Lee is really nice, he’s been great.” He pauses, and looks more somber. “He even came and got me when someone attacked my apartment.”
“Someone attacked Donghae?” Kyuhyun asks sharply, and his fingernails punch through the thin paper covering of the Cup O Noodles. “Is he okay? What happened?” Zhou Mi digs through a pile of paper, coins and a few other odds and ends, looking for his keys.
“Yeah, he was really fantastic. He came and got me in my apartment and took me to the police station, and then arranged for me to get protective custody.”
“He’s my cousin,” Kyuhyun says, and shrugs, uncomfortable. “He took care of me when we were growing up.”
“Oh,” Zhou Mi says, picking up on the sudden tension.
“Let’s go,” Kyuhyun says abruptly, “I have a few more ideas I can tell you about in my room.” Zhou Mi beams, and is careful to lock the door behind them.
“It doesn’t have to rhyme,” Zhou Mi argues, “it’s the thoughts they provoke, the prose, Kui Xian.” Kyuhyun pulls up short from putting his key in the lock.
“Kui Xian?” he questions, and Zhou Mi flushes faintly.
“I like it better,” he says, and raises his chin defiantly. Kyuhyun rolls his eyes and unlocks the door, feeling for the light switch. His shoes crunch over something that feels hard and brittle, and he trips over something on the floor.
“What the fuck,” Kyuhyun mumbles, and slaps at the light switch. Zhou Mi gasps in an exceedingly girly fashion, and squeaks a little for good measure. Kyuhyun swears again, and looks around at the destruction in front of them. All of the cupboards have been ransacked, and cheap cutlery and mis-matched plates are scattered and shattered on the floor, the chair and the desk overturned.
“Oh my god,” Zhou Mi says, “I’ll call Donghae.”
“No!” Kyuhyun says sharply. “No, uh. Because-” Before he can come up with a good excuse, someone comes up from behind both of them and shoves them in the room.
“Eek!” Zhou Mi shrieks again, and flails at their assailant as Kyuhyun stumbles forward and trips over the debris on the floor again, sprawling out on the floor.
“Ow holy shit, stop that,” the man says, and shoves Zhou Mi hard away from him and the door. Kyuhyun curls his fingers around a shard of broken lamp on the floor, and looks up at him. He’s shorter than Zhou Mi, with lean practical looking muscles and medium length brown hair. He’s also got three long thin scratches the length of his cheek, seeping red, and is looking pretty sulky about it.
“What do you want,” Kyuhyun snaps, and stands, holding his tiny weapon behind his leg, and he’s thinking about the surprise in the eyes of the man Heechul had killed at the library, and the single second of surprised shout the driver of the car had managed before his throat was cut and he bled to death on custom black leather upholstery. His fingers clench the jagged glazed porcelain so hard it hurts.
“I am here for you,” the man says, and he has the same soft pronunciation as Zhou Mi, “my name is Hankyung.”
Author Note Alright so I have some major concerns for my writing in this fic. I think it's a little too rushed, and maybe not quite a compelling read. I'm concerned for the pacing, but mostly I think I'm not maybe fleshing it out as much as I should be :/. I'm working on it, and hoping that I just need more practice with this style. I'm not used to writing so much dialogue and action, but I am working hard. Please let me know if you have any feedback or thoughts on my writing because I would really appreciate it and it would help me a lot. Thank you :)