Fic: Rescue Me (All Over Again) [Poseidon]
Title: Rescue Me (All Over Again)
Fandom: Poseidon
Pairing: Kang Eun Chul/OMC (*cough*Changmin*cough*)
Rating: R
Summary: Eun Chul went to Japan with the intention of bringing down his father’s Triad. Falling in love wasn’t part of his plan.
Notes: For diagon ♥ Inspired by TVXQ’s intro vid for SBS Gayo Daejun, in which Yunho is still clearly channelling Kang Eun Chul. Oh nom nom.
Rescue Me (All Over Again)
23.33
He’s out of bullets. The hammer falls on an empty chamber. Eun Chul stops squeezing the trigger, wonders if he can use the gun to bludgeon the Kudo-kai yakuza into insensibility. Unlikely, given that there’s five of them and they’re all armed, and he has nothing left but his wits and, if they get close enough, his feet and his fists. But they’re not going to get that close, not when he’s eliminated a number of their colleagues already. No, they’ll spread out and surround him and bring him down, and Eun Chul can only hope that someone out there wants him alive.
He holds onto that hope. If they didn’t want him alive, they’d have shot him by now. Unless-unless they have Max.
The thought freezes his blood. He swallows, lowers his gun, and takes a step back. He shouldn’t have got Max involved in this, shouldn’t have brought him here. Fear claws at Eun Chul. He’s stupid and reckless, and now Max is in danger and it’s his fault, all his fault...
“Funny place for a date,” Max had said when they’d pulled up outside the warehouses at the western pier of the dockyard. “Did we come here because you wanted somewhere quiet so we could make out in the back seat?”
“Maybe later.” Eun Chul had managed to smile at him. “There’s something I need to take care of first.”
“Take care of...?” Max echoed, realisation dawning. “Eun Chul, this isn’t related to-”
Eun Chul took out his gun. The sight of the weapon silenced Max for a moment, then he looked up, features set with grim determination. “You’re not going in there on your own.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.” Eun Chul reached into the footwell behind the passenger seat and pulled out a bag, rooted through it and tossed a walkie-talkie into Max’s lap. “Keep me company for a while.”
“Don’t go.” Max looked frantic. “Please don’t go. Let’s call the police. They can handle it.”
“No. This is for me. I have to do it.” Eun Chul got out of the car, tucking the gun into the waistband of his jeans.
Max had followed, holding the walkie-talkie as if it were a grenade. Eun Chul had known he was doing the wrong thing even then. Max is completely innocent in all this. He’s a law student, for fuck’s sake. He doesn’t belong here. He should be tucked up in bed at home with his textbooks and his laptop.
Eun Chul can only hope that Max had got the hell out of there as soon as the walkie-talkie went dead. It’s the only thought in his mind as the gunmen close in on him.
* * *
September 14
“Excuse me.”
Eun Chul finishes his drink before he turns in response. He’s brushed off a couple of unwanted advances tonight already, but this one is different. This guy is gorgeous, for a start, doe-eyed and leggy with a v-necked t-shirt that hints at the hard chest beneath. He has cut-glass cheekbones and a mouth that’s positively sinful. His hair is too long, highlights streaked through it to give the illusion of texture. He looks confident. He knows he’s sexy as hell.
Usually that sort of attitude pisses Eun Chul off, but it doesn’t tonight. Why should it? He’s in a gay club, in possession of the information he came here to collect, and now... Now he can relax the grip on his self-imposed mission and pretend to have some fun in the hope that he can make it feel real.
“All alone, or are you waiting for someone?”
As pick-ups go, it’s not the most subtle, but Eun Chul doesn’t mind. Seduction is different in Japan, less a dance of missteps and caution and more like a shot to the heart, simple and direct. He smiles. “I was alone. Now I’m not.”
“Good.” His sexy stranger preens for a moment, his gaze intense as he looks Eun Chul up and down. “I’m Max.”
“Eun Chul.” No surnames. It’s safer that way, safer for both of them.
Max gives him another speculative look. “Korean?”
Eun Chul nods. “On holiday.”
Now Max raises his eyebrows, amusement quirking his lips. “In Fukuoka?”
“I’m interested in its history. Kublai Khan and the kamikaze.” It’s bullshit and they both know it, but it doesn’t matter. “I like history,” Eun Chul adds.
“Really.” Max moves a little closer. He’s tall and lean, insinuating his body between Eun Chul and the bar, close enough that they’re touching, close enough that Eun Chul can feel the heat of Max’s skin and smell the oddly delicate scent of his cologne beneath a layering of fresh sweat. “What else do you like?”
Eun Chul looks at Max’s mouth. Desire curls through him, rousing from its enforced sleep. He’s out of practice, needs to take this slow; he doesn’t want to do something stupid. “Can I get you a drink?”
Max laughs, tosses his head. His hair flicks out of his eyes then tumbles forward again, slowly. Eun Chul wants to stroke it back into place, but he waits for permission. This is Japan, and things are different.
“Beer will do.” Max’s gaze is brilliant and searching. “I like simple pleasures.”
Eun Chul fumbles for a response. He came here looking for information, not for sex, but he’d be a fool to turn it down. He hasn’t been intimate with anyone for several months now. Before, it was too dangerous. His career in the SSAT was at risk, but worse than that was the threat of what Choi Hui Gon-his father-could do to any lover Eun Chul chose. Especially after the day he’d argued with his father, the day his colleague Park Min Jung had been killed in front of him. That mess he’d blamed publically on Kim Sun Woo, but the guilt was his alone. The guilt, and the knowledge that it was just that easy to destroy a life, that easy to be selfish and turn away from honour.
“Be careful,” he says, shaking off the bleak thoughts and aiming to match Max’s flirtatious tone. “Despite appearances, I’m not that simple.”
Max laughs. “Actually, you look dangerous.” He puts a hand on Eun Chul’s jacket, draws his fingers across until his palm rests on Eun Chul’s chest. “Black leather and studs and zips and those boots... Are you sure this place is interesting enough for you?”
Eun Chul breathes out a laugh.
“Am I too going too fast?” Max curls a finger into the dipped neck of Eun Chul’s t-shirt. “Guys always tell me I go too fast.”
“You do this a lot, then?” Eun Chul tries to keep the censure from his voice.
Max seems to hear it anyway. “What’s wrong with going after what you want?”
“Nothing,” Eun Chul says. “As long as no one gets hurt.”
There’s a moment of stillness between them. Music pounds, a driving rock beat with a bass so thick it shakes the floor. Max twists his hand in Eun Chul’s t-shirt then lets go. His face is flushed. He looks upset, humiliated. “Forget the drink.”
“Wait.” Eun Chul reaches out and catches him by the wrist. “I’m sorry. I’m bad with words. And I don’t usually do this.”
Max looks at him, wide-eyed and sombre. “Then you either have the utmost confidence in yourself, or you’re a complete idiot.”
“Neither,” says Eun Chul, taking a step closer, his lips millimetres away from the curve of Max’s cheek. He breathes him in, prolonging the moment before they touch. He knows he’s going to regret this, but he doesn’t care. “Both.”
Max turns his head. Their lips meet, first contact brief and teasing, Eun Chul certain of what he’s doing even as his heartbeat revs and his senses go into overdrive. Max makes a soft, low sound of compliant satisfaction and opens his mouth to the kiss. Eun Chul slides both hands through Max’s hair, holding him in place so he can take more. Lust beats at him, fierce and furious. He wants to devour Max, wants to taste everything. Max allows him to be the aggressor, then with slow patience turns the tide. Their kisses grow more desperate. Eun Chul gasps-too fast, not enough, give me more-and Max plunders his mouth, the stab and thrust of tongues making Eun Chul ache with longing.
They break apart, stand there staring at each other with hunger thrumming like the beat of the music.
Max smiles, his lips swollen and glistening with the force of their kiss. “Let’s go.”
Eun Chul takes his hand and allows himself to be led out of the club.
It’s different in Japan.
* * *
23.36
They’ve made a mistake, Eun Chul realises. He gives ground, each step cautious and balanced. He forces himself to stay relaxed, waiting for an opening. He flicks his gaze between the five yakuza crowding him. They’re wearing sunglasses, features immobile as if set in concrete. They come closer, guns held out, aim steady. It doesn’t matter. They’ve made a mistake, herding together like sheep. Bunched up like that, they’re weaker, not stronger. They’ll tangle with one another, blunder into each other’s sights. All he has to do is stay calm and wait for his chance.
Eun Chul takes another step backwards. And another. He calculates the distance between himself and the side of the staircase. He draws his right foot out and circles it back, almost like a dancer. He realigns his centre of balance, shifts his weight through his right foot. His shoulders drop; he lets his arms hang loose. He puts his chin down. He’s both matador and bull, waiting for the scarlet cloak to fall.
This fight is not about defeating the yakuza. It’s about him. It’s always been about him. Him and Max.
* * *
September 15
They fuck twice. Once against the wall in the silent hallway outside Max’s apartment, a tangle of limbs and devouring need, images of skin and lust flash-framed with the flicker of the fluorescent light. The second time inside the flat, naked now and on the bed, Max on top riding Eun Chul slow and hard, keeping them both on the edge until their voices run hoarse and their nerves stretch taut, and with orgasm comes oblivion so final and sweet it’s like death.
They wake long before dawn and fuck again, slower this time, all languorous kisses and gentle exploration. With his fingers, with his lips, Max traces the scar of the gunshot wound below Eun Chul’s collarbone. He doesn’t ask questions, and Eun Chul doesn’t know whether to be grateful or anxious. He doesn’t want Max to think badly of him. He only wants to bring pleasure, and it startles him that Max can match him, touch for touch and thrust for thrust, until they turn each other inside out and tumble across the mattress, clinging tight and gasping in the aftermath of something strange and perfect and dangerous.
“Why don’t you usually do this?” Max asks when they can breathe again.
Eun Chul draws his forefinger through the sheen of sweat in the small of Max’s back. “Because I hadn’t met you.”
Max laughs, his hair falling into his eyes. “So corny.”
“It’s the truth. Believe it or not.”
“Oh, I believe it.” Max tosses his head, his fringe swinging. His eyes shine. He looks happy, not just satisfied but relaxed, too. He smiles. “I believe you.”
Reality intrudes, presenting Eun Chul with memories of others who’d believed him, others who’d paid the price for their belief. Remorse stabs at him. “Maybe you shouldn’t,” he says, voice tight. Here’s the regret, bitter and angry, and he tries to push it away, wanting to keep this night with this man perfect. He turns away from Max, rolls onto his side, hand sliding beneath the pillow to check for a weapon that isn’t there. Old habits die hard.
Max says nothing, just tucks in close and spoons him, warm and solid and comforting. He holds him for a long time, until the streetlights flick off and daylight peers grey and dull through the window-blinds. Max kisses the back of Eun Chul’s neck and murmurs, “I’m going to take a shower.”
There seems to be an invitation in the words, but Eun Chul doesn’t want to assume and he thinks he shouldn’t take advantage. All the same, he listens to the sound of running water and hears the note of it change when Max gets into the shower. For a moment Eun Chul indulges himself in the thought of Max naked and wet and slippery, but he quashes the surge of desire with ruthless efficiency. He can’t stay.
He gets out of bed and gathers his clothes, dressing as he finds each discarded garment. He admires the apartment, the understated taste of its occupant for the clean lines of minimalism contrasted with shelves stuffed to bursting with books. Even in Fukuoka, a place this size must be expensive. “The wages of sin,” Max had said with a rueful smile last night. “An absent father with a wandering eye. My mother divorced him, took him for half of everything he had, but he neglected to declare a lot of it. I found out. I’m a law student, I know what could happen if I turned him in. This is his way of bribing me to keep quiet. I guess you could say I inadvertently blackmailed my own father. I wish I could say I cared, but I don’t. He’s a dick.”
Eun Chul smiles at the recollection. That’s something they have in common. Absent fathers careless with their sons.
At the door he pauses to put on his boots. They take a while to lace. As he crouches over them, he listens for the sound of the shower, half afraid that Max will come out. He’s useless at goodbyes, doesn’t ever know what to say, not even to his friends. He can’t imagine saying goodbye to Max and he doesn’t want to try.
He unlocks the front door, steps outside. The window at the end of the corridor is unlatched and opened wide. There’s a shiver in the air, a cold breeze cutting through the premonition of the day’s heat. Eun Chul pauses, then turns, catches the door before it swings shut. He goes back into the apartment, scribbles a note on a scrap of paper, and leaves his phone number on the law textbook open on the kitchen table.
* * *
23.41
The door bursts open, slamming back against the wall with a crash that echoes around the room. One of the yakuza starts, gun lifting to meet this new threat. The motion is instinctive; two others waver in their concentration as Max’s voice, high and panicked, cuts through the echo: “Eun Chul! Eun Chul!”
It’s the perfect distraction. Eun Chul knows he won’t get another chance. He jumps, powering up and kicking out with his right leg as he grabs for the railing above him. He catches one of the yakuza in the chest, flexes his foot and kicks the guy in the throat. The yakuza falls to the ground, choking and retching.
Eun Chul closes his hands around the metal railing. He adjusts for the angle of the staircase, twisting his body and delivering a cross-kick with his left leg at the yakuza to his right. The other three thugs regroup quickly and move to tear him down, aiming vicious body-punches while he’s vulnerable. Eun Chul knows he doesn’t have the strength to pull himself up and over the railing. Instead he lets himself drop, bringing his arms in and down and then out, using the momentum to crack the jaw of the nearest yakuza and breaking the nose of another. He lands awkwardly, but sweeps out with his right leg to send the fifth yakuza rolling to the floor.
Breath gasping, heart pounding as adrenaline screams through him, he goes for the yakuza who’s stopped coughing and is trying to stagger to his feet. Eun Chul slams his elbow hard into the back of the man’s neck and lets him fall. Turning to deal with the others, he sees one of the men raise a gun.
Eun Chul freezes, conscious of the sweat running down his back, conscious of the fire in his blood and the way the world turns and the cautious shuffle of footsteps at the door, and beyond it all, he’s conscious of his lover.
“Eun Chul!” Max sounds breathless.
He can’t look behind him. He won’t. He knows Max is standing there, framed in the doorway, a tempting target for the yakuza. Max is in danger, and he can’t do anything to save him.
The yakuza grins. Shifts his aim. A shot rings out.
* * *
September 28
Eun Chul lies stretched across the front seats of his hire car, rear view mirror angled so he can glance behind him while he watches the comings and goings of the port. His laptop is balanced across his knees, a multitude of windows resized to fit the screen. Over the last few days he’s seen the arrival of ships from Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, and China, and watched the off-loading of shipping containers, studying the drops recorded by the stevedores on the main port computer. Already he’s noted discrepancies, a container recorded then removed from the system. Standard practice at any dockside, he knows. The missing containers could hold anything from firearms or drugs to high-end electronics or human traffic.
He’s making notes when his phone rings. He pulls it from his pocket, stares at the display. He doesn’t recognise the number-the few contacts he has in Japan call him on a rotating series of burn phones-but then he realises who it must be and his heart leaps.
Eun Chul curses himself for a fool and hits the reply button. “Yes.” He keeps his voice dark and brusque.
There’s a pause. “Eun Chul? This is-this is Max.” He sounds very young and very nervous. “We met at-”
“I remember.” That’s an understatement. Eun Chul grips the phone tighter. He’s spent the last two weeks reliving that night-the hard glide of Max’s thighs around his waist, Max’s beautiful mouth and the sound of his laughter, the arch of his spine, the exposed length of his throat as he tipped his head back, the heat of him, the taste of him, innocent and enthusiastic and uncomplicated, just mutual lust and straightforward fucking.
Except there’s no such thing as straightforward fucking; not this time, because Eun Chul had broken his own rules and left his phone number.
“I didn’t call earlier because I didn’t want to hassle you,” Max says in a rush. “It seemed like you were pretty intense about something. I wanted to give you some time. To sort it out, I mean. To decide if-”
“I want to see you again,” Eun Chul interrupts. “Are you free tonight?”
“Yes.” Max gives a startled little laugh. “Do you remember where I live? I can cook for you, if you like.”
Eun Chul remembers, but he has other plans. “I’ll pick you up at eight.” He disconnects the call without giving Max a chance to reply.
Later, when he pulls up outside Max’s apartment, he honestly doesn’t know what to expect. Only on rare occasions has he ever taken the risk of seeing someone again. It’s never worked out well. But maybe this time it’ll be different.
Max strolls out of the apartment block. He’s wearing dark blue jeans that hug his thighs and a blazer with a soft-striped shirt beneath. He looks young and preppy and good enough to eat. He gets into the car, leans across and kisses Eun Chul-“That’s because you’re so fucking hot,” then he bites Eun Chul’s lower lip hard-“and that’s because you were a dick to me on the phone.”
Eun Chul laughs, touches a finger to his sore lip. “I was a dick. I’m sorry.”
Max’s eyes gleam. “Make it up to me. Take me somewhere expensive.”
They go to a teppanyaki restaurant which isn’t expensive but neither is it cheap, but it’s just busy enough that they’re left alone once the food is served. As they eat, Max talks about his studies and Eun Chul listens and realises this is the first comfortable date he’s been on in years. He relaxes, puts from his mind the thought of what he must do later in the evening, and he starts to enjoy both the meal and the company.
“God, I just keep talking,” Max says with a laugh. “You probably don’t want to hear about my supervisor’s idiocy. We should talk about something else. No, I should let you talk.”
Eun Chul takes a sip of beer. “I’m not all that interesting.”
Max grins. “I don’t believe you. Or, wait, would it be easier if we spoke in Korean?” He switches languages seamlessly, his accent perfect and his smile widening at Eun Chul’s surprise. “My mother is Korean,” Max says, “but my father never liked us to use any language other than Japanese at home. Another reason why they divorced.”
Eun Chul laughs, glad of the excuse to speak his native tongue again. “I must sound silly and provincial in Japanese.”
“Not at all.” Max’s hair tumbles into his eyes. He brushes it back. “Did you go to the Genko yet?”
“The what?” Too late Eun Chul remembers it’s the name of a museum dedicated to ancient Mongolian and Japanese artefacts. Anyone truly interested in Kublai Khan’s aborted invasion would visit the Genko collection. He smiles to cover his slip. “Ah, not yet. But I went to the art museum instead.” This at least is the truth. He’d walked through it, gaze flicking over the exhibits, memory-cataloguing them for conversations such as this one. “The Rothko is intriguing.”
“I admit I’m not a fan of postmodernists.” Max stirs through his dish, picking out slivers of beef.
Eun Chul hopes they won’t have a conversation about art. His adoptive father preferred classic images of ancient Chinese landscapes matched with exquisite calligraphy. Kang Joo Min had said the only true art was to be found in the assembly and mechanisms of a pistol. Eun Chul isn’t sure where his opinion lies, but it’s somewhere between these two extremes.
“Art doesn’t compromise,” he says carefully. “It’s hard to trust.”
Max snorts. “So you take a postmodernist view? You don’t look the type.”
Eun Chul doesn't know how to respond to that. “You think I’m old-fashioned?”
“I think...” Max pauses, lays his chopsticks across the rim of his bowl, and looks at Eun Chul. “I think you’re not a tourist.”
It’s not the reaction he should feel, but Eun Chul is relieved that he doesn’t have to lie any more. “No, I’m not.”
Max exhales. He looks at the other people in the restaurant. “Okay,” he says quietly. “That’s okay.”
When the meal is finished and they’re walking to the car, Eun Chul says, “Can I buy you that drink now?”
Max hesitates, then he nods.
The journey passes in silence. Eun Chul is aware of Max’s uncertainty, and he’s grateful again for the fact that, despite his curiosity, Max hasn’t asked the questions he so obviously wants to ask. It’s a blessing, but also a problem. Eun Chul doesn’t want Max to think he’s a yakuza. The thought amuses him slightly. The yakuza and the law student. It’s like something out of a yaoi manga.
The bar is near the docks and caters to the stevedores and the itinerant crews that come and go through the port. It’s rough and basic, with stains on the floor and holes in the walls. Some of the dents were made by fists. Others were made by bullets. Eun Chul eases through the patrons without drawing attention to himself, but Max is a fish out of water, too tall and clean and virginal. As Eun Chul hoped, the men in the bar stare at Max, stare and mutter to one another and chuckle as they circle him.
Eun Chul perches on a stool and orders two beers, gaze flicking over the crowd until he locates certain people of interest. The Black Snake Triad has planted roots throughout Asia. There’s an undercover agent investigating the Triad’s links to mainland China, but he’s the only one with insider knowledge who can topple his father’s organisation within Japan. He’ll start at the bottom of the food chain, exposing the stevedores who engage in illegal smuggling, and once the supply of drugs and goods and human traffic is cut off, he’ll go after the higher-ups and break apart his father’s work one man at a time.
The three guys he’s interested in pay no heed to Max’s unwitting offer of distraction. Their minds are clearly on other things. Eun Chul marks them, takes mental notes, then turns away as Max joins him at the bar, flustered and uncomfortable but with his head held high and anger burning colour into his cheeks.
He snatches up a beer and leans into Eun Chul, eyes wide in the semi-darkness. “This place is run by yakuza. The Kudo-kai or the Dojin-kai, an organisation like that.”
Eun Chul raises his eyebrows. “Is it?”
Max pulls back, studies him for a long, long moment. “Yes.” He hesitates, takes a swig of his beer, beautiful mouth pouted around the neck of the bottle, and Eun Chul feels everything in him tighten in response.
The bottle bangs down onto the bar. Max gives him a level stare. “Should I be afraid of you?”
“I’d never hurt you,” Eun Chul says, and he means it. He’s always hated collateral damage, always strived to protect innocent bystanders from getting hurt. The fact that he failed once makes him even more determined never to let it happen again.
Max’s smile is tight. “That’s not what I asked.”
Eun Chul holds up his hands. “You don’t need to be afraid of me. I’m a pussy cat.”
“Prove it.” The wariness has gone from Max’s eyes, replaced by challenge, lustful and demanding. “Come home with me and prove it.”
Eun Chul slides from his seat with alacrity. There will be other nights, lonely nights, when he can check out the yakuza frequenting this bar. But for now he won’t be lonely. For now, he has Max.
* * *
23.42
Eun Chul moves forward on instinct, darting towards the gunman. He’s taken a bullet for someone he cared about before. He can do it again for the man he loves.
And then the yakuza in front of him slumps back, the gun clattering to the floor.
Seizing the advantage, Eun Chul scoops up the fallen weapon and drops to a crouch, spinning around with the gun raised. The three remaining yakuza stagger to their feet, their strategy in disarray. One of them shouts something, and they all swing their attention towards Eun Chul.
Another gunshot, and one of them falls.
Eun Chul risks a glance at the door and sees Max, tall and commanding and sexy as hell, a pistol in his hands
* * *
October 19
“Did you ever wish you were someone else?” Eun Chul asks.
The autumn is mild, the day pleasant enough for a picnic. He’s taken a day off from gathering information on the Triad’s connections with the yakuza, and now he’s trying to forget the dossier he’s been compiling so painstakingly, the dossier backed up on three devices, backed up again five times on remote servers, plus the paper copy he’s hidden in the stacks in Kyushyu University library behind a row of law journals from the 1920s. He wants to forget the whole thing just for today; all he wants is to enjoy being with Max.
They’re in the park on Shikanoshima, a blanket spread beneath them and the remains of their lunch sitting in plastic trays and paper bags and cardboard cartons. The bottle of wine is mostly empty, and Eun Chul feels good about himself, about life, about the young man stretched out beside him.
Max is lying on his front, one of his law books open between his elbows. He’s been quiet for most of the day, blaming his uncharacteristic silence on an upcoming exam. Now he looks over, the faint breeze stirring his hair. “Someone else? You mean like a spy?”
“Maybe.” Eun Chul keeps his gaze on the ocean. To the north of here, not that far across the sea, lies Korea. “No. I mean like starting again. Becoming someone different.”
“Why would you want to do that?” Max marks his place in the book with a pencil and turns onto his side to face Eun Chul. “Hypothetically, of course.”
Eun Chul smiles. “Of course.” He pauses, thinking through his answer. “I guess there are many reasons for someone to wish to start again. Hypothetically, a man wants to leave behind a bad situation. Perhaps he’s in trouble with his family. Perhaps he did something wrong in a job where he had a position of responsibility. Maybe he knew things, criminal things, and never reported them to the authorities. And maybe he’s just a coward, running away.”
Max plucks at the grass, scatters the blades across the blanket. “I don’t think you’re a coward. Your hypothetical example, I mean. It sounds like he had no choice in some of those situations. I would run, too, if I could. I would want to get away from that.” His voice is wistful. “It’s not easy, though, being someone else. You still carry your old self with you.”
Eun Chul looks at him.
“You see it all the time with some of the cases involving underworld kingpins who turn in their colleagues, the ones who go into witness protection or who change their names and go overseas.” Max waves a hand at his book as if it’s full of such examples. “They start out with a completely different behavioural set, but it doesn’t take long before they slip back into old habits, and it’s their tastes and attitudes, the things that make them individuals, that end up getting them killed.”
It sounds like a warning. Eun Chul forces a smile. “So you’re saying a man can never truly start again?”
“No.” Max frowns. “I’m saying a man would need to know himself first. Really know himself, inside and out, good and bad. He’d have to be honest with himself, and then maybe he’d have the self-knowledge to start again.”
“Not everyone can be so enlightened.” Eun Chul brings the conversation to a close by collecting together the detritus of their picnic and taking it to a rubbish bin. When he goes back to the blanket, Max has opened his book and is reading, the pencil held between his teeth.
They stay there for a while. Unease simmers at the edge of Eun Chul’s awareness. He knows his strengths and his limitations. He knows the crimes he’s committed and the good that he’s done. He is both villain and hero, and he wants to be neither. He wants to put right the wrongs set into motion by his father, but he knows he can’t do it alone. He wants to apologise to Kim Sun Woo for his betrayal, just as he wants to apologise to his father. His position is untenable and his only choice is to start again, but if Max is right, then his deeds and misdeeds will follow him forever.
Eun Chul looks over at Max and realises that he’s been staring at the same page for the past twenty-three minutes. As if aware of his gaze, Max turns his head. “Who is he?”
“Who?”
“The man you were thinking of. The man you can’t quite forget.” Max smiles; not jealous, just curious. “What’s his name?”
Surprised that he’s so transparent, Eun Chul says, “Sun Woo.”
The smile fades from Max’s expression. “Am I a lot like him?”
“No.” The very thought of it makes Eun Chul laugh. “No, no. Not at all.”
“I won’t be a substitute,” Max says, his eyes darkening with emotion. “I’m not going to be used as a distraction.”
Eun Chul stops laughing. “I’m not-he isn’t... It’s not like that.”
“Good.” Max tosses his book aside and crawls across the blanket to pin Eun Chul down. “Just so you know,” he says, his breath warm and sweet against Eun Chul’s mouth, “I don’t share.”
* * *
23.47
It doesn’t take long for them to incapacitate the other two yakuza. Max comes down the staircase, gun in one hand and his mobile phone held to his ear with the other. “Yes,” he says to whoever’s on the end of the line. “Everything’s taken care of here. Make sure to secure the perimeter, then send in the rest of the team.”
He snaps the phone shut and slips it back into his pocket, returns the gun to its shoulder-holster concealed beneath his coat. He takes a deep breath; exhales. Smiles tremulously. “Eun Chul, I think I love you.”
Eun Chul backs away from him, trips over the out-flung arm of one of the dead yakuza. He stumbles against the wall, presses his hand to the crumbling concrete over the brickwork and tries to ground himself. Adrenaline drains away, leaving him shaking. He stares at Max. “Who the hell are you?”
* * *
November 15
The evidence mounts. Eun Chul starts sending his information back to Korea using a combination of the secretive and the brazen, via back-channels through favours called in with friends in low places and through unencrypted emails from dozens of puppet accounts. He sends postcards to Kim Sun Woo written in the silly code they’d invented while they were at cadet school, and he sends more postcards to Kang Joo Min, and when matched together the spurious little missives detail times and places and names.
He’s made good inroads into the task he came here to accomplish, and yet at the same time he knows he’s barely scratched the surface. There’s a rumour that the First President of the Kudo-kai will meet with a representative of the Black Snake Triad sometime soon. Eun Chul will be there, whatever the cost. He’ll be there and he’ll finally have all the evidence he needs to turn this whole mess over to the proper authorities.
Afterwards-afterwards... He doesn’t know what the future holds. At last he knows what he wants, but whether he deserves it is not for him to know.
When he takes Max to bed these days, their lovemaking is edged with something deeper. Tender and desperate, possessive and gentle, Eun Chul tries to imprint every atom of Max’s being upon his own skin. He’s never been free to love before, and if that’s what this is, then he welcomes it and holds it tight inside, afraid of letting go.
The only thing that’s missing is his honesty.
He lies beside Max, their legs tangled together, the quilt shoved half off the bed. Sweat dries on their skin, their bodies cooling, the feral scent of sex around them. Max hums in blissful contentment and strokes a gentle line from Eun Chul’s neck down to the gunshot scar.
“I’m North Korean.” The truth blurts out. Eun Chul doesn’t know why he said it, why this moment seems to be the right time to share the truth, but now it’s out and there’s no turning back. “My uncle and aunt and cousins had already gone. My parents sent me away with a man who was supposed to take me to join them. I was one of dozens of children and a handful of families. They gave us food and blankets and locked us in a shipping container.”
Max lifts his head, props himself up on one elbow, but he says nothing. He puts a hand on Eun Chul’s chest, over his heart. The gesture keeps the memories at bay. Eun Chul hates remembering that time. He can only speak of it by distancing himself from his own experience, talking about it as if it happened to someone else. “We were at sea a long time. A baby died. It was...”
He stops. There’s no point in trying to describe it; it just was. He moves on. “The coastguard stopped the ship. The baby’s mother screamed and screamed and we all battered at the walls of the container until they let us out. The light hurt my eyes. We were like ghosts, but we’d made it to the south. We were... safe.”
Silence, and then Max asks gently, “What happened to your relatives?”
Eun Chul turns his head. His eyes sting, his throat thick with grief for a family he remembers only in nightmares. “I don’t know. It took me years before I found out that their boat had turned back. I don’t know what happened to them.” He hates this wallow of self-pity and struggles to fight his way through it. “I got placed in a facility for North Korean children. Orphans, they called us, and maybe we were. The man who ran the facility adopted me. He gave me a new name, a new past. A future.”
Max exhales. “You became someone else.”
“Someone with secrets.” Eun Chul can’t keep the bitterness from his voice.
Sudden fury lights Max’s features and he pulls away. “You think you’re the only one with secrets? Everyone does. Every single one of us. And I don’t care. I don’t care what you were. What matters is who you are now.”
Eun Chul catches at Max’s hands, holds tight until the anger drains away and Max is quiet again. “I don’t know who I am,” Eun Chul whispers, and the admission hurts so much he wants to weep. “A North Korean raised in the South for the sole purpose of disrupting the balance of power. A political orphan. Maybe a real orphan. A forgotten child that can’t forget. A pawn in my father’s game, a pawn that tried to be a knight-I tried, Max, tried and failed. I failed both sides, and now...”
“And now you’re trying to put it right,” Max says, softly.
“I don’t know.” Eun Chul forces himself to relax, uncurls his hands from clenched fists. “Yes. Maybe. Yes.”
Max sits up. “Why are you telling me this?”
Eun Chul sighs, weary and sad. “Because I can.”
“No,” Max says, very quietly, “it’s because you’re going to leave me.”
His words are like a knife to the heart. Eun Chul shakes his head. “I’m being honest with you. I’ve never been this honest with anyone else in my life.”
Max considers this. “In my experience, a man is honest only when he knows he’s leaving, or-”
“Or?”
Eyes glittering a challenge, Max holds his gaze. “Or if he’s planning to stay.”
Eun Chul looks away. “I don’t have any plans in either direction.”
Silence stretches between them. “It’s been two months,” Max says. “This. Us. Two months. That’s the longest I’ve been with someone since I was in high school, and I didn’t even know what the hell I was doing back then. But this-you...” He stops, takes a breath. Looks at Eun Chul. “What am I to you?”
Eun Chul stares at him. This wasn’t supposed to be serious. No one was meant to get hurt. He should have walked away after that first night, but here they are two months later, and his clothes are here, and his toothbrush, and he’s bought stuff for the kitchen and new sheets for the bedroom and he’s started referring to the place as ‘home’, and now the thought of being without Max fills him with empty, clutching fear and it hurts.
He doesn’t say any of this. Instead he says, “I can’t answer that.”
“Can’t,” Max says, “or won’t?”
“I can’t.” Panic flares up, images of Max lying broken and bleeding on the side of the road with the insignia of the Black Snake Triad inked into his flesh. Eun Chul won’t let that happen. He wants to keep Max safe and content, but first he has to destroy his father’s organisation. “I can’t,” he says again. “Damn it, Max, I can’t give you anything until-”
Max moves over him, desperation in his eyes. “There’s one thing you can give me. I won’t ask questions. I won’t make demands. I can wait. Just... stay with me a little longer.”
Eun Chul brings Max down closer and kisses him. It’s the only thing he can do.
* * *
23.48
Max smiles, sketches a little salute. “Sergeant Shim Chang Min of the Fukuoka Prefectural Police.”
Eun Chul stares. Blinks. Stares again. This can’t be true. It’s impossible. It’s all too possible. He’s been a fool, an even bigger fool than he realised. “You’re a cop?”
“Undercover agent. Yeah.” Max’s smile is a little strained. “I’ve been investigating the illegal importation and distribution of methamphetamines for the past four months.”
“You’re not a law student.” Eun Chul wants to bang his head against the wall. “Of course you aren’t. Shit.”
“Actually, I am.” Max shrugs. “I really am doing my Master’s degree. Part-time, though. And my supervisor really is an idiot. But you know, being a student is good cover. I managed to get close to dealers and started to put things together from there. Until you came along.”
Eun Chul swallows. “You knew who I was.”
“No.” Max holds his gaze. “I didn’t. Not the night we met. That night, I wasn’t a cop. I was off-duty and I wanted you. You were my reward for breaking a drugs ring. It was just a minor drugs ring, small-time, really, but it meant a lot to me.” He pauses, his eyes brilliant with emotion. “I shouldn’t have got involved with you, but I couldn’t stop myself.”
“You thought I was a yakuza,” Eun Chul says, remembering that night and the heat between them.
Max laughs, but the sound is without humour. “Yes. I admit it. I wanted to get fucked by a bad boy. I wanted to enjoy the irony of it all. Then I realised you’re one of the good guys.”
Eun Chul looks at him. It hurts to ask: “Am I?”
Max nods, his gaze clear. “I started doing a bit of digging after you told me about your past. I read your files. I know everything, and it doesn’t change anything. You are still you. Your heart was always honest, even when your mind was torn. And me-I still feel the same.”
It’s almost too much to process. Eun Chul struggles to make sense of it all, knowing he can’t make another mistake, knowing that whatever happens, he can’t bear to lose this man. “You lied to me.”
A smile, gentle and uncomplicated, curves Max’s generous, beautiful mouth. “I was someone else, just as you were.”
Eun Chul closes his eyes and rolls his head back against the wall as another realisation, delayed by his surprise, catches up with him. “The police-you called them.”
“My unit. My back-up. They’re outside. They’ll come in here soon.” Max reaches out. “Eun Chul...”
Eun Chul expels a laugh before it can strangle him. “I suppose you’ll have to arrest me.”
“Technically.” Max comes closer and wraps his fingers around Eun Chul’s wrists. “We take a very dim view of vigilante behaviour against yakuza groups. Particularly when the vigilante is a foreign national in possession of questionable papers, not to mention when he’s a person of interest to the South Korean authorities.”
Eun Chul glances down. Licks his lower lip. “Do you have handcuffs?”
Max’s grip tightens. He pushes against him. “Do I need them?”
“I won’t run.”
“I know you won’t.” They stand together, close enough to kiss, then Max steps back and releases his hold on Eun Chul’s wrists. “You’ll help the police with their enquiries, and then you’ll be free to leave. If that’s what you want.”
“Leave?” Eun Chul repeats.
“You can leave Japan,” Max says, a flicker of uncertainty shadowing his expression. “You can leave me.”
“No,” Eun Chul says, hope and determination inside him. “I don’t want to leave. I want to stay.” He crosses his hands at the wrists and rests them on Max’s chest. “I want to stay with you. I want us to start again. Together.”
Fandom: Poseidon
Pairing: Kang Eun Chul/OMC (*cough*Changmin*cough*)
Rating: R
Summary: Eun Chul went to Japan with the intention of bringing down his father’s Triad. Falling in love wasn’t part of his plan.
Notes: For diagon ♥ Inspired by TVXQ’s intro vid for SBS Gayo Daejun, in which Yunho is still clearly channelling Kang Eun Chul. Oh nom nom.
Rescue Me (All Over Again)
23.33
He’s out of bullets. The hammer falls on an empty chamber. Eun Chul stops squeezing the trigger, wonders if he can use the gun to bludgeon the Kudo-kai yakuza into insensibility. Unlikely, given that there’s five of them and they’re all armed, and he has nothing left but his wits and, if they get close enough, his feet and his fists. But they’re not going to get that close, not when he’s eliminated a number of their colleagues already. No, they’ll spread out and surround him and bring him down, and Eun Chul can only hope that someone out there wants him alive.
He holds onto that hope. If they didn’t want him alive, they’d have shot him by now. Unless-unless they have Max.
The thought freezes his blood. He swallows, lowers his gun, and takes a step back. He shouldn’t have got Max involved in this, shouldn’t have brought him here. Fear claws at Eun Chul. He’s stupid and reckless, and now Max is in danger and it’s his fault, all his fault...
“Funny place for a date,” Max had said when they’d pulled up outside the warehouses at the western pier of the dockyard. “Did we come here because you wanted somewhere quiet so we could make out in the back seat?”
“Maybe later.” Eun Chul had managed to smile at him. “There’s something I need to take care of first.”
“Take care of...?” Max echoed, realisation dawning. “Eun Chul, this isn’t related to-”
Eun Chul took out his gun. The sight of the weapon silenced Max for a moment, then he looked up, features set with grim determination. “You’re not going in there on your own.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.” Eun Chul reached into the footwell behind the passenger seat and pulled out a bag, rooted through it and tossed a walkie-talkie into Max’s lap. “Keep me company for a while.”
“Don’t go.” Max looked frantic. “Please don’t go. Let’s call the police. They can handle it.”
“No. This is for me. I have to do it.” Eun Chul got out of the car, tucking the gun into the waistband of his jeans.
Max had followed, holding the walkie-talkie as if it were a grenade. Eun Chul had known he was doing the wrong thing even then. Max is completely innocent in all this. He’s a law student, for fuck’s sake. He doesn’t belong here. He should be tucked up in bed at home with his textbooks and his laptop.
Eun Chul can only hope that Max had got the hell out of there as soon as the walkie-talkie went dead. It’s the only thought in his mind as the gunmen close in on him.
* * *
September 14
“Excuse me.”
Eun Chul finishes his drink before he turns in response. He’s brushed off a couple of unwanted advances tonight already, but this one is different. This guy is gorgeous, for a start, doe-eyed and leggy with a v-necked t-shirt that hints at the hard chest beneath. He has cut-glass cheekbones and a mouth that’s positively sinful. His hair is too long, highlights streaked through it to give the illusion of texture. He looks confident. He knows he’s sexy as hell.
Usually that sort of attitude pisses Eun Chul off, but it doesn’t tonight. Why should it? He’s in a gay club, in possession of the information he came here to collect, and now... Now he can relax the grip on his self-imposed mission and pretend to have some fun in the hope that he can make it feel real.
“All alone, or are you waiting for someone?”
As pick-ups go, it’s not the most subtle, but Eun Chul doesn’t mind. Seduction is different in Japan, less a dance of missteps and caution and more like a shot to the heart, simple and direct. He smiles. “I was alone. Now I’m not.”
“Good.” His sexy stranger preens for a moment, his gaze intense as he looks Eun Chul up and down. “I’m Max.”
“Eun Chul.” No surnames. It’s safer that way, safer for both of them.
Max gives him another speculative look. “Korean?”
Eun Chul nods. “On holiday.”
Now Max raises his eyebrows, amusement quirking his lips. “In Fukuoka?”
“I’m interested in its history. Kublai Khan and the kamikaze.” It’s bullshit and they both know it, but it doesn’t matter. “I like history,” Eun Chul adds.
“Really.” Max moves a little closer. He’s tall and lean, insinuating his body between Eun Chul and the bar, close enough that they’re touching, close enough that Eun Chul can feel the heat of Max’s skin and smell the oddly delicate scent of his cologne beneath a layering of fresh sweat. “What else do you like?”
Eun Chul looks at Max’s mouth. Desire curls through him, rousing from its enforced sleep. He’s out of practice, needs to take this slow; he doesn’t want to do something stupid. “Can I get you a drink?”
Max laughs, tosses his head. His hair flicks out of his eyes then tumbles forward again, slowly. Eun Chul wants to stroke it back into place, but he waits for permission. This is Japan, and things are different.
“Beer will do.” Max’s gaze is brilliant and searching. “I like simple pleasures.”
Eun Chul fumbles for a response. He came here looking for information, not for sex, but he’d be a fool to turn it down. He hasn’t been intimate with anyone for several months now. Before, it was too dangerous. His career in the SSAT was at risk, but worse than that was the threat of what Choi Hui Gon-his father-could do to any lover Eun Chul chose. Especially after the day he’d argued with his father, the day his colleague Park Min Jung had been killed in front of him. That mess he’d blamed publically on Kim Sun Woo, but the guilt was his alone. The guilt, and the knowledge that it was just that easy to destroy a life, that easy to be selfish and turn away from honour.
“Be careful,” he says, shaking off the bleak thoughts and aiming to match Max’s flirtatious tone. “Despite appearances, I’m not that simple.”
Max laughs. “Actually, you look dangerous.” He puts a hand on Eun Chul’s jacket, draws his fingers across until his palm rests on Eun Chul’s chest. “Black leather and studs and zips and those boots... Are you sure this place is interesting enough for you?”
Eun Chul breathes out a laugh.
“Am I too going too fast?” Max curls a finger into the dipped neck of Eun Chul’s t-shirt. “Guys always tell me I go too fast.”
“You do this a lot, then?” Eun Chul tries to keep the censure from his voice.
Max seems to hear it anyway. “What’s wrong with going after what you want?”
“Nothing,” Eun Chul says. “As long as no one gets hurt.”
There’s a moment of stillness between them. Music pounds, a driving rock beat with a bass so thick it shakes the floor. Max twists his hand in Eun Chul’s t-shirt then lets go. His face is flushed. He looks upset, humiliated. “Forget the drink.”
“Wait.” Eun Chul reaches out and catches him by the wrist. “I’m sorry. I’m bad with words. And I don’t usually do this.”
Max looks at him, wide-eyed and sombre. “Then you either have the utmost confidence in yourself, or you’re a complete idiot.”
“Neither,” says Eun Chul, taking a step closer, his lips millimetres away from the curve of Max’s cheek. He breathes him in, prolonging the moment before they touch. He knows he’s going to regret this, but he doesn’t care. “Both.”
Max turns his head. Their lips meet, first contact brief and teasing, Eun Chul certain of what he’s doing even as his heartbeat revs and his senses go into overdrive. Max makes a soft, low sound of compliant satisfaction and opens his mouth to the kiss. Eun Chul slides both hands through Max’s hair, holding him in place so he can take more. Lust beats at him, fierce and furious. He wants to devour Max, wants to taste everything. Max allows him to be the aggressor, then with slow patience turns the tide. Their kisses grow more desperate. Eun Chul gasps-too fast, not enough, give me more-and Max plunders his mouth, the stab and thrust of tongues making Eun Chul ache with longing.
They break apart, stand there staring at each other with hunger thrumming like the beat of the music.
Max smiles, his lips swollen and glistening with the force of their kiss. “Let’s go.”
Eun Chul takes his hand and allows himself to be led out of the club.
It’s different in Japan.
* * *
23.36
They’ve made a mistake, Eun Chul realises. He gives ground, each step cautious and balanced. He forces himself to stay relaxed, waiting for an opening. He flicks his gaze between the five yakuza crowding him. They’re wearing sunglasses, features immobile as if set in concrete. They come closer, guns held out, aim steady. It doesn’t matter. They’ve made a mistake, herding together like sheep. Bunched up like that, they’re weaker, not stronger. They’ll tangle with one another, blunder into each other’s sights. All he has to do is stay calm and wait for his chance.
Eun Chul takes another step backwards. And another. He calculates the distance between himself and the side of the staircase. He draws his right foot out and circles it back, almost like a dancer. He realigns his centre of balance, shifts his weight through his right foot. His shoulders drop; he lets his arms hang loose. He puts his chin down. He’s both matador and bull, waiting for the scarlet cloak to fall.
This fight is not about defeating the yakuza. It’s about him. It’s always been about him. Him and Max.
* * *
September 15
They fuck twice. Once against the wall in the silent hallway outside Max’s apartment, a tangle of limbs and devouring need, images of skin and lust flash-framed with the flicker of the fluorescent light. The second time inside the flat, naked now and on the bed, Max on top riding Eun Chul slow and hard, keeping them both on the edge until their voices run hoarse and their nerves stretch taut, and with orgasm comes oblivion so final and sweet it’s like death.
They wake long before dawn and fuck again, slower this time, all languorous kisses and gentle exploration. With his fingers, with his lips, Max traces the scar of the gunshot wound below Eun Chul’s collarbone. He doesn’t ask questions, and Eun Chul doesn’t know whether to be grateful or anxious. He doesn’t want Max to think badly of him. He only wants to bring pleasure, and it startles him that Max can match him, touch for touch and thrust for thrust, until they turn each other inside out and tumble across the mattress, clinging tight and gasping in the aftermath of something strange and perfect and dangerous.
“Why don’t you usually do this?” Max asks when they can breathe again.
Eun Chul draws his forefinger through the sheen of sweat in the small of Max’s back. “Because I hadn’t met you.”
Max laughs, his hair falling into his eyes. “So corny.”
“It’s the truth. Believe it or not.”
“Oh, I believe it.” Max tosses his head, his fringe swinging. His eyes shine. He looks happy, not just satisfied but relaxed, too. He smiles. “I believe you.”
Reality intrudes, presenting Eun Chul with memories of others who’d believed him, others who’d paid the price for their belief. Remorse stabs at him. “Maybe you shouldn’t,” he says, voice tight. Here’s the regret, bitter and angry, and he tries to push it away, wanting to keep this night with this man perfect. He turns away from Max, rolls onto his side, hand sliding beneath the pillow to check for a weapon that isn’t there. Old habits die hard.
Max says nothing, just tucks in close and spoons him, warm and solid and comforting. He holds him for a long time, until the streetlights flick off and daylight peers grey and dull through the window-blinds. Max kisses the back of Eun Chul’s neck and murmurs, “I’m going to take a shower.”
There seems to be an invitation in the words, but Eun Chul doesn’t want to assume and he thinks he shouldn’t take advantage. All the same, he listens to the sound of running water and hears the note of it change when Max gets into the shower. For a moment Eun Chul indulges himself in the thought of Max naked and wet and slippery, but he quashes the surge of desire with ruthless efficiency. He can’t stay.
He gets out of bed and gathers his clothes, dressing as he finds each discarded garment. He admires the apartment, the understated taste of its occupant for the clean lines of minimalism contrasted with shelves stuffed to bursting with books. Even in Fukuoka, a place this size must be expensive. “The wages of sin,” Max had said with a rueful smile last night. “An absent father with a wandering eye. My mother divorced him, took him for half of everything he had, but he neglected to declare a lot of it. I found out. I’m a law student, I know what could happen if I turned him in. This is his way of bribing me to keep quiet. I guess you could say I inadvertently blackmailed my own father. I wish I could say I cared, but I don’t. He’s a dick.”
Eun Chul smiles at the recollection. That’s something they have in common. Absent fathers careless with their sons.
At the door he pauses to put on his boots. They take a while to lace. As he crouches over them, he listens for the sound of the shower, half afraid that Max will come out. He’s useless at goodbyes, doesn’t ever know what to say, not even to his friends. He can’t imagine saying goodbye to Max and he doesn’t want to try.
He unlocks the front door, steps outside. The window at the end of the corridor is unlatched and opened wide. There’s a shiver in the air, a cold breeze cutting through the premonition of the day’s heat. Eun Chul pauses, then turns, catches the door before it swings shut. He goes back into the apartment, scribbles a note on a scrap of paper, and leaves his phone number on the law textbook open on the kitchen table.
* * *
23.41
The door bursts open, slamming back against the wall with a crash that echoes around the room. One of the yakuza starts, gun lifting to meet this new threat. The motion is instinctive; two others waver in their concentration as Max’s voice, high and panicked, cuts through the echo: “Eun Chul! Eun Chul!”
It’s the perfect distraction. Eun Chul knows he won’t get another chance. He jumps, powering up and kicking out with his right leg as he grabs for the railing above him. He catches one of the yakuza in the chest, flexes his foot and kicks the guy in the throat. The yakuza falls to the ground, choking and retching.
Eun Chul closes his hands around the metal railing. He adjusts for the angle of the staircase, twisting his body and delivering a cross-kick with his left leg at the yakuza to his right. The other three thugs regroup quickly and move to tear him down, aiming vicious body-punches while he’s vulnerable. Eun Chul knows he doesn’t have the strength to pull himself up and over the railing. Instead he lets himself drop, bringing his arms in and down and then out, using the momentum to crack the jaw of the nearest yakuza and breaking the nose of another. He lands awkwardly, but sweeps out with his right leg to send the fifth yakuza rolling to the floor.
Breath gasping, heart pounding as adrenaline screams through him, he goes for the yakuza who’s stopped coughing and is trying to stagger to his feet. Eun Chul slams his elbow hard into the back of the man’s neck and lets him fall. Turning to deal with the others, he sees one of the men raise a gun.
Eun Chul freezes, conscious of the sweat running down his back, conscious of the fire in his blood and the way the world turns and the cautious shuffle of footsteps at the door, and beyond it all, he’s conscious of his lover.
“Eun Chul!” Max sounds breathless.
He can’t look behind him. He won’t. He knows Max is standing there, framed in the doorway, a tempting target for the yakuza. Max is in danger, and he can’t do anything to save him.
The yakuza grins. Shifts his aim. A shot rings out.
* * *
September 28
Eun Chul lies stretched across the front seats of his hire car, rear view mirror angled so he can glance behind him while he watches the comings and goings of the port. His laptop is balanced across his knees, a multitude of windows resized to fit the screen. Over the last few days he’s seen the arrival of ships from Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, and China, and watched the off-loading of shipping containers, studying the drops recorded by the stevedores on the main port computer. Already he’s noted discrepancies, a container recorded then removed from the system. Standard practice at any dockside, he knows. The missing containers could hold anything from firearms or drugs to high-end electronics or human traffic.
He’s making notes when his phone rings. He pulls it from his pocket, stares at the display. He doesn’t recognise the number-the few contacts he has in Japan call him on a rotating series of burn phones-but then he realises who it must be and his heart leaps.
Eun Chul curses himself for a fool and hits the reply button. “Yes.” He keeps his voice dark and brusque.
There’s a pause. “Eun Chul? This is-this is Max.” He sounds very young and very nervous. “We met at-”
“I remember.” That’s an understatement. Eun Chul grips the phone tighter. He’s spent the last two weeks reliving that night-the hard glide of Max’s thighs around his waist, Max’s beautiful mouth and the sound of his laughter, the arch of his spine, the exposed length of his throat as he tipped his head back, the heat of him, the taste of him, innocent and enthusiastic and uncomplicated, just mutual lust and straightforward fucking.
Except there’s no such thing as straightforward fucking; not this time, because Eun Chul had broken his own rules and left his phone number.
“I didn’t call earlier because I didn’t want to hassle you,” Max says in a rush. “It seemed like you were pretty intense about something. I wanted to give you some time. To sort it out, I mean. To decide if-”
“I want to see you again,” Eun Chul interrupts. “Are you free tonight?”
“Yes.” Max gives a startled little laugh. “Do you remember where I live? I can cook for you, if you like.”
Eun Chul remembers, but he has other plans. “I’ll pick you up at eight.” He disconnects the call without giving Max a chance to reply.
Later, when he pulls up outside Max’s apartment, he honestly doesn’t know what to expect. Only on rare occasions has he ever taken the risk of seeing someone again. It’s never worked out well. But maybe this time it’ll be different.
Max strolls out of the apartment block. He’s wearing dark blue jeans that hug his thighs and a blazer with a soft-striped shirt beneath. He looks young and preppy and good enough to eat. He gets into the car, leans across and kisses Eun Chul-“That’s because you’re so fucking hot,” then he bites Eun Chul’s lower lip hard-“and that’s because you were a dick to me on the phone.”
Eun Chul laughs, touches a finger to his sore lip. “I was a dick. I’m sorry.”
Max’s eyes gleam. “Make it up to me. Take me somewhere expensive.”
They go to a teppanyaki restaurant which isn’t expensive but neither is it cheap, but it’s just busy enough that they’re left alone once the food is served. As they eat, Max talks about his studies and Eun Chul listens and realises this is the first comfortable date he’s been on in years. He relaxes, puts from his mind the thought of what he must do later in the evening, and he starts to enjoy both the meal and the company.
“God, I just keep talking,” Max says with a laugh. “You probably don’t want to hear about my supervisor’s idiocy. We should talk about something else. No, I should let you talk.”
Eun Chul takes a sip of beer. “I’m not all that interesting.”
Max grins. “I don’t believe you. Or, wait, would it be easier if we spoke in Korean?” He switches languages seamlessly, his accent perfect and his smile widening at Eun Chul’s surprise. “My mother is Korean,” Max says, “but my father never liked us to use any language other than Japanese at home. Another reason why they divorced.”
Eun Chul laughs, glad of the excuse to speak his native tongue again. “I must sound silly and provincial in Japanese.”
“Not at all.” Max’s hair tumbles into his eyes. He brushes it back. “Did you go to the Genko yet?”
“The what?” Too late Eun Chul remembers it’s the name of a museum dedicated to ancient Mongolian and Japanese artefacts. Anyone truly interested in Kublai Khan’s aborted invasion would visit the Genko collection. He smiles to cover his slip. “Ah, not yet. But I went to the art museum instead.” This at least is the truth. He’d walked through it, gaze flicking over the exhibits, memory-cataloguing them for conversations such as this one. “The Rothko is intriguing.”
“I admit I’m not a fan of postmodernists.” Max stirs through his dish, picking out slivers of beef.
Eun Chul hopes they won’t have a conversation about art. His adoptive father preferred classic images of ancient Chinese landscapes matched with exquisite calligraphy. Kang Joo Min had said the only true art was to be found in the assembly and mechanisms of a pistol. Eun Chul isn’t sure where his opinion lies, but it’s somewhere between these two extremes.
“Art doesn’t compromise,” he says carefully. “It’s hard to trust.”
Max snorts. “So you take a postmodernist view? You don’t look the type.”
Eun Chul doesn't know how to respond to that. “You think I’m old-fashioned?”
“I think...” Max pauses, lays his chopsticks across the rim of his bowl, and looks at Eun Chul. “I think you’re not a tourist.”
It’s not the reaction he should feel, but Eun Chul is relieved that he doesn’t have to lie any more. “No, I’m not.”
Max exhales. He looks at the other people in the restaurant. “Okay,” he says quietly. “That’s okay.”
When the meal is finished and they’re walking to the car, Eun Chul says, “Can I buy you that drink now?”
Max hesitates, then he nods.
The journey passes in silence. Eun Chul is aware of Max’s uncertainty, and he’s grateful again for the fact that, despite his curiosity, Max hasn’t asked the questions he so obviously wants to ask. It’s a blessing, but also a problem. Eun Chul doesn’t want Max to think he’s a yakuza. The thought amuses him slightly. The yakuza and the law student. It’s like something out of a yaoi manga.
The bar is near the docks and caters to the stevedores and the itinerant crews that come and go through the port. It’s rough and basic, with stains on the floor and holes in the walls. Some of the dents were made by fists. Others were made by bullets. Eun Chul eases through the patrons without drawing attention to himself, but Max is a fish out of water, too tall and clean and virginal. As Eun Chul hoped, the men in the bar stare at Max, stare and mutter to one another and chuckle as they circle him.
Eun Chul perches on a stool and orders two beers, gaze flicking over the crowd until he locates certain people of interest. The Black Snake Triad has planted roots throughout Asia. There’s an undercover agent investigating the Triad’s links to mainland China, but he’s the only one with insider knowledge who can topple his father’s organisation within Japan. He’ll start at the bottom of the food chain, exposing the stevedores who engage in illegal smuggling, and once the supply of drugs and goods and human traffic is cut off, he’ll go after the higher-ups and break apart his father’s work one man at a time.
The three guys he’s interested in pay no heed to Max’s unwitting offer of distraction. Their minds are clearly on other things. Eun Chul marks them, takes mental notes, then turns away as Max joins him at the bar, flustered and uncomfortable but with his head held high and anger burning colour into his cheeks.
He snatches up a beer and leans into Eun Chul, eyes wide in the semi-darkness. “This place is run by yakuza. The Kudo-kai or the Dojin-kai, an organisation like that.”
Eun Chul raises his eyebrows. “Is it?”
Max pulls back, studies him for a long, long moment. “Yes.” He hesitates, takes a swig of his beer, beautiful mouth pouted around the neck of the bottle, and Eun Chul feels everything in him tighten in response.
The bottle bangs down onto the bar. Max gives him a level stare. “Should I be afraid of you?”
“I’d never hurt you,” Eun Chul says, and he means it. He’s always hated collateral damage, always strived to protect innocent bystanders from getting hurt. The fact that he failed once makes him even more determined never to let it happen again.
Max’s smile is tight. “That’s not what I asked.”
Eun Chul holds up his hands. “You don’t need to be afraid of me. I’m a pussy cat.”
“Prove it.” The wariness has gone from Max’s eyes, replaced by challenge, lustful and demanding. “Come home with me and prove it.”
Eun Chul slides from his seat with alacrity. There will be other nights, lonely nights, when he can check out the yakuza frequenting this bar. But for now he won’t be lonely. For now, he has Max.
* * *
23.42
Eun Chul moves forward on instinct, darting towards the gunman. He’s taken a bullet for someone he cared about before. He can do it again for the man he loves.
And then the yakuza in front of him slumps back, the gun clattering to the floor.
Seizing the advantage, Eun Chul scoops up the fallen weapon and drops to a crouch, spinning around with the gun raised. The three remaining yakuza stagger to their feet, their strategy in disarray. One of them shouts something, and they all swing their attention towards Eun Chul.
Another gunshot, and one of them falls.
Eun Chul risks a glance at the door and sees Max, tall and commanding and sexy as hell, a pistol in his hands
* * *
October 19
“Did you ever wish you were someone else?” Eun Chul asks.
The autumn is mild, the day pleasant enough for a picnic. He’s taken a day off from gathering information on the Triad’s connections with the yakuza, and now he’s trying to forget the dossier he’s been compiling so painstakingly, the dossier backed up on three devices, backed up again five times on remote servers, plus the paper copy he’s hidden in the stacks in Kyushyu University library behind a row of law journals from the 1920s. He wants to forget the whole thing just for today; all he wants is to enjoy being with Max.
They’re in the park on Shikanoshima, a blanket spread beneath them and the remains of their lunch sitting in plastic trays and paper bags and cardboard cartons. The bottle of wine is mostly empty, and Eun Chul feels good about himself, about life, about the young man stretched out beside him.
Max is lying on his front, one of his law books open between his elbows. He’s been quiet for most of the day, blaming his uncharacteristic silence on an upcoming exam. Now he looks over, the faint breeze stirring his hair. “Someone else? You mean like a spy?”
“Maybe.” Eun Chul keeps his gaze on the ocean. To the north of here, not that far across the sea, lies Korea. “No. I mean like starting again. Becoming someone different.”
“Why would you want to do that?” Max marks his place in the book with a pencil and turns onto his side to face Eun Chul. “Hypothetically, of course.”
Eun Chul smiles. “Of course.” He pauses, thinking through his answer. “I guess there are many reasons for someone to wish to start again. Hypothetically, a man wants to leave behind a bad situation. Perhaps he’s in trouble with his family. Perhaps he did something wrong in a job where he had a position of responsibility. Maybe he knew things, criminal things, and never reported them to the authorities. And maybe he’s just a coward, running away.”
Max plucks at the grass, scatters the blades across the blanket. “I don’t think you’re a coward. Your hypothetical example, I mean. It sounds like he had no choice in some of those situations. I would run, too, if I could. I would want to get away from that.” His voice is wistful. “It’s not easy, though, being someone else. You still carry your old self with you.”
Eun Chul looks at him.
“You see it all the time with some of the cases involving underworld kingpins who turn in their colleagues, the ones who go into witness protection or who change their names and go overseas.” Max waves a hand at his book as if it’s full of such examples. “They start out with a completely different behavioural set, but it doesn’t take long before they slip back into old habits, and it’s their tastes and attitudes, the things that make them individuals, that end up getting them killed.”
It sounds like a warning. Eun Chul forces a smile. “So you’re saying a man can never truly start again?”
“No.” Max frowns. “I’m saying a man would need to know himself first. Really know himself, inside and out, good and bad. He’d have to be honest with himself, and then maybe he’d have the self-knowledge to start again.”
“Not everyone can be so enlightened.” Eun Chul brings the conversation to a close by collecting together the detritus of their picnic and taking it to a rubbish bin. When he goes back to the blanket, Max has opened his book and is reading, the pencil held between his teeth.
They stay there for a while. Unease simmers at the edge of Eun Chul’s awareness. He knows his strengths and his limitations. He knows the crimes he’s committed and the good that he’s done. He is both villain and hero, and he wants to be neither. He wants to put right the wrongs set into motion by his father, but he knows he can’t do it alone. He wants to apologise to Kim Sun Woo for his betrayal, just as he wants to apologise to his father. His position is untenable and his only choice is to start again, but if Max is right, then his deeds and misdeeds will follow him forever.
Eun Chul looks over at Max and realises that he’s been staring at the same page for the past twenty-three minutes. As if aware of his gaze, Max turns his head. “Who is he?”
“Who?”
“The man you were thinking of. The man you can’t quite forget.” Max smiles; not jealous, just curious. “What’s his name?”
Surprised that he’s so transparent, Eun Chul says, “Sun Woo.”
The smile fades from Max’s expression. “Am I a lot like him?”
“No.” The very thought of it makes Eun Chul laugh. “No, no. Not at all.”
“I won’t be a substitute,” Max says, his eyes darkening with emotion. “I’m not going to be used as a distraction.”
Eun Chul stops laughing. “I’m not-he isn’t... It’s not like that.”
“Good.” Max tosses his book aside and crawls across the blanket to pin Eun Chul down. “Just so you know,” he says, his breath warm and sweet against Eun Chul’s mouth, “I don’t share.”
* * *
23.47
It doesn’t take long for them to incapacitate the other two yakuza. Max comes down the staircase, gun in one hand and his mobile phone held to his ear with the other. “Yes,” he says to whoever’s on the end of the line. “Everything’s taken care of here. Make sure to secure the perimeter, then send in the rest of the team.”
He snaps the phone shut and slips it back into his pocket, returns the gun to its shoulder-holster concealed beneath his coat. He takes a deep breath; exhales. Smiles tremulously. “Eun Chul, I think I love you.”
Eun Chul backs away from him, trips over the out-flung arm of one of the dead yakuza. He stumbles against the wall, presses his hand to the crumbling concrete over the brickwork and tries to ground himself. Adrenaline drains away, leaving him shaking. He stares at Max. “Who the hell are you?”
* * *
November 15
The evidence mounts. Eun Chul starts sending his information back to Korea using a combination of the secretive and the brazen, via back-channels through favours called in with friends in low places and through unencrypted emails from dozens of puppet accounts. He sends postcards to Kim Sun Woo written in the silly code they’d invented while they were at cadet school, and he sends more postcards to Kang Joo Min, and when matched together the spurious little missives detail times and places and names.
He’s made good inroads into the task he came here to accomplish, and yet at the same time he knows he’s barely scratched the surface. There’s a rumour that the First President of the Kudo-kai will meet with a representative of the Black Snake Triad sometime soon. Eun Chul will be there, whatever the cost. He’ll be there and he’ll finally have all the evidence he needs to turn this whole mess over to the proper authorities.
Afterwards-afterwards... He doesn’t know what the future holds. At last he knows what he wants, but whether he deserves it is not for him to know.
When he takes Max to bed these days, their lovemaking is edged with something deeper. Tender and desperate, possessive and gentle, Eun Chul tries to imprint every atom of Max’s being upon his own skin. He’s never been free to love before, and if that’s what this is, then he welcomes it and holds it tight inside, afraid of letting go.
The only thing that’s missing is his honesty.
He lies beside Max, their legs tangled together, the quilt shoved half off the bed. Sweat dries on their skin, their bodies cooling, the feral scent of sex around them. Max hums in blissful contentment and strokes a gentle line from Eun Chul’s neck down to the gunshot scar.
“I’m North Korean.” The truth blurts out. Eun Chul doesn’t know why he said it, why this moment seems to be the right time to share the truth, but now it’s out and there’s no turning back. “My uncle and aunt and cousins had already gone. My parents sent me away with a man who was supposed to take me to join them. I was one of dozens of children and a handful of families. They gave us food and blankets and locked us in a shipping container.”
Max lifts his head, props himself up on one elbow, but he says nothing. He puts a hand on Eun Chul’s chest, over his heart. The gesture keeps the memories at bay. Eun Chul hates remembering that time. He can only speak of it by distancing himself from his own experience, talking about it as if it happened to someone else. “We were at sea a long time. A baby died. It was...”
He stops. There’s no point in trying to describe it; it just was. He moves on. “The coastguard stopped the ship. The baby’s mother screamed and screamed and we all battered at the walls of the container until they let us out. The light hurt my eyes. We were like ghosts, but we’d made it to the south. We were... safe.”
Silence, and then Max asks gently, “What happened to your relatives?”
Eun Chul turns his head. His eyes sting, his throat thick with grief for a family he remembers only in nightmares. “I don’t know. It took me years before I found out that their boat had turned back. I don’t know what happened to them.” He hates this wallow of self-pity and struggles to fight his way through it. “I got placed in a facility for North Korean children. Orphans, they called us, and maybe we were. The man who ran the facility adopted me. He gave me a new name, a new past. A future.”
Max exhales. “You became someone else.”
“Someone with secrets.” Eun Chul can’t keep the bitterness from his voice.
Sudden fury lights Max’s features and he pulls away. “You think you’re the only one with secrets? Everyone does. Every single one of us. And I don’t care. I don’t care what you were. What matters is who you are now.”
Eun Chul catches at Max’s hands, holds tight until the anger drains away and Max is quiet again. “I don’t know who I am,” Eun Chul whispers, and the admission hurts so much he wants to weep. “A North Korean raised in the South for the sole purpose of disrupting the balance of power. A political orphan. Maybe a real orphan. A forgotten child that can’t forget. A pawn in my father’s game, a pawn that tried to be a knight-I tried, Max, tried and failed. I failed both sides, and now...”
“And now you’re trying to put it right,” Max says, softly.
“I don’t know.” Eun Chul forces himself to relax, uncurls his hands from clenched fists. “Yes. Maybe. Yes.”
Max sits up. “Why are you telling me this?”
Eun Chul sighs, weary and sad. “Because I can.”
“No,” Max says, very quietly, “it’s because you’re going to leave me.”
His words are like a knife to the heart. Eun Chul shakes his head. “I’m being honest with you. I’ve never been this honest with anyone else in my life.”
Max considers this. “In my experience, a man is honest only when he knows he’s leaving, or-”
“Or?”
Eyes glittering a challenge, Max holds his gaze. “Or if he’s planning to stay.”
Eun Chul looks away. “I don’t have any plans in either direction.”
Silence stretches between them. “It’s been two months,” Max says. “This. Us. Two months. That’s the longest I’ve been with someone since I was in high school, and I didn’t even know what the hell I was doing back then. But this-you...” He stops, takes a breath. Looks at Eun Chul. “What am I to you?”
Eun Chul stares at him. This wasn’t supposed to be serious. No one was meant to get hurt. He should have walked away after that first night, but here they are two months later, and his clothes are here, and his toothbrush, and he’s bought stuff for the kitchen and new sheets for the bedroom and he’s started referring to the place as ‘home’, and now the thought of being without Max fills him with empty, clutching fear and it hurts.
He doesn’t say any of this. Instead he says, “I can’t answer that.”
“Can’t,” Max says, “or won’t?”
“I can’t.” Panic flares up, images of Max lying broken and bleeding on the side of the road with the insignia of the Black Snake Triad inked into his flesh. Eun Chul won’t let that happen. He wants to keep Max safe and content, but first he has to destroy his father’s organisation. “I can’t,” he says again. “Damn it, Max, I can’t give you anything until-”
Max moves over him, desperation in his eyes. “There’s one thing you can give me. I won’t ask questions. I won’t make demands. I can wait. Just... stay with me a little longer.”
Eun Chul brings Max down closer and kisses him. It’s the only thing he can do.
* * *
23.48
Max smiles, sketches a little salute. “Sergeant Shim Chang Min of the Fukuoka Prefectural Police.”
Eun Chul stares. Blinks. Stares again. This can’t be true. It’s impossible. It’s all too possible. He’s been a fool, an even bigger fool than he realised. “You’re a cop?”
“Undercover agent. Yeah.” Max’s smile is a little strained. “I’ve been investigating the illegal importation and distribution of methamphetamines for the past four months.”
“You’re not a law student.” Eun Chul wants to bang his head against the wall. “Of course you aren’t. Shit.”
“Actually, I am.” Max shrugs. “I really am doing my Master’s degree. Part-time, though. And my supervisor really is an idiot. But you know, being a student is good cover. I managed to get close to dealers and started to put things together from there. Until you came along.”
Eun Chul swallows. “You knew who I was.”
“No.” Max holds his gaze. “I didn’t. Not the night we met. That night, I wasn’t a cop. I was off-duty and I wanted you. You were my reward for breaking a drugs ring. It was just a minor drugs ring, small-time, really, but it meant a lot to me.” He pauses, his eyes brilliant with emotion. “I shouldn’t have got involved with you, but I couldn’t stop myself.”
“You thought I was a yakuza,” Eun Chul says, remembering that night and the heat between them.
Max laughs, but the sound is without humour. “Yes. I admit it. I wanted to get fucked by a bad boy. I wanted to enjoy the irony of it all. Then I realised you’re one of the good guys.”
Eun Chul looks at him. It hurts to ask: “Am I?”
Max nods, his gaze clear. “I started doing a bit of digging after you told me about your past. I read your files. I know everything, and it doesn’t change anything. You are still you. Your heart was always honest, even when your mind was torn. And me-I still feel the same.”
It’s almost too much to process. Eun Chul struggles to make sense of it all, knowing he can’t make another mistake, knowing that whatever happens, he can’t bear to lose this man. “You lied to me.”
A smile, gentle and uncomplicated, curves Max’s generous, beautiful mouth. “I was someone else, just as you were.”
Eun Chul closes his eyes and rolls his head back against the wall as another realisation, delayed by his surprise, catches up with him. “The police-you called them.”
“My unit. My back-up. They’re outside. They’ll come in here soon.” Max reaches out. “Eun Chul...”
Eun Chul expels a laugh before it can strangle him. “I suppose you’ll have to arrest me.”
“Technically.” Max comes closer and wraps his fingers around Eun Chul’s wrists. “We take a very dim view of vigilante behaviour against yakuza groups. Particularly when the vigilante is a foreign national in possession of questionable papers, not to mention when he’s a person of interest to the South Korean authorities.”
Eun Chul glances down. Licks his lower lip. “Do you have handcuffs?”
Max’s grip tightens. He pushes against him. “Do I need them?”
“I won’t run.”
“I know you won’t.” They stand together, close enough to kiss, then Max steps back and releases his hold on Eun Chul’s wrists. “You’ll help the police with their enquiries, and then you’ll be free to leave. If that’s what you want.”
“Leave?” Eun Chul repeats.
“You can leave Japan,” Max says, a flicker of uncertainty shadowing his expression. “You can leave me.”
“No,” Eun Chul says, hope and determination inside him. “I don’t want to leave. I want to stay.” He crosses his hands at the wrists and rests them on Max’s chest. “I want to stay with you. I want us to start again. Together.”