Fic: The Pick-Up [TVXQ RPS | AU]
Title: The Pick-Up
Fandom: TVXQ
Pairing: Yunho/Changmin
Rating: NC17
Summary: This morning, supermodel Changmin’s biggest problem was running out of cigarettes. His day is about to get worse as a case of mistaken identity sends him into the line of fire-and into the arms of cop/spy/government agent/he’s-a-bit-vague-about-it-really Yunho, who would rather be saving the world than babysitting Changmin’s ass. Never mind that it’s a really cute ass. It’s not like Yunho has even noticed, right?
Notes: AU. Written for the prompt ‘mistaken identity’ as part of diagon’s Twelve Months of HoMin challenge.
The Pick-Up
He’s out of cigarettes.
In itself this is not a big deal, but Changmin hasn’t eaten since dinner last night, and even then it wasn’t exactly a substantial meal. He can never eat decently for twenty-four hours before a photo shoot, so the cigarettes are a necessity rather than an indulgence, suppressing his appetite and helping him get through the day.
Except now he’s run out. The packet is empty, no matter how hard he stares into it. Changmin lifts his head and looks at his manager. “I need more smokes.”
His manager’s eyes widen and his mouth drops open. He’d look comical were it not for the fact that this reaction clearly indicates a lack of cigarettes in the immediate vicinity.
“Here,” says the photographer’s assistant with a polite smile, offering a battered packet. “Take one of mine.”
Changmin wrinkles his nose and shakes his head. “Not that brand.”
The assistant’s smile freezes and she gives him a look that clearly suggests that he’s a demanding, stuck-up wanker. It’s the kind of look he’s familiar with. Pretty much everyone thinks he’s a demanding, stuck-up wanker, but that’s okay because everyone expects supermodels to be assholes.
The only thing he’s particular about is his cigarettes. That’s not much. It’s not like he demands hand-rolled Bolivian tobacco with French filters or anything similarly exotic. He just prefers one brand to all the rest. He doesn’t need the pricey mineral water or the specially imported cheese or anything else the magazines always lay on for him based on a single incident two years ago when he ate a sliver of brie and three grapes during a shoot. Since he was elevated from clotheshorse to supermodel, every time he goes to work he’s faced with platters of brie and grapes.
He doesn’t even like brie and grapes. He was just hungry that one time. But when he tries to tell staff that he doesn’t want brie and grapes any more, he just gets labelled ‘difficult’, and everyone smiles at him in a way that’s both soothing and nervous.
He’s getting those smiles now as he paces the floor away from the lights and reflectors and the machine-gun click of the camera shutter. The female model is perched on the windowsill, pale limbs and froths of emerald green lace set against bare brick. She’s not gazing into middle distance or looking into the camera. Instead she’s watching him. She manages a rictus of a smile when she sees him looking back at her, and the photographer curses, puts down the camera, and turns around.
Everyone is staring at him. Changmin lifts his chin. “If you don’t need me for the next ten minutes, I’m going to get some cigarettes.”
His manager hurries forward, looking stressed and smiling too widely. “I’ll do it. It’s my fault I forgot to buy extra for today. Please stay here and relax.” He gestures towards a table away from the shooting area. “Look, they’ve laid on your favourite food. Please eat a little.”
Changmin glances at the artfully arranged stack of brie and grapes and resists the urge to upend the table and send everything crashing to the floor. Even if he acted on the impulse, nothing would change. He’d still be given bloody brie and grapes on his next shoot, and people would still smile at him like he was dangerous.
“I’m going out,” he announces, and heads for the door.
His manager scuttles after him. “I’ll come with you.”
Changmin sighs. Turns around. “Stay here.”
His manager blinks and bobs his head. “I’ll stay here.”
A long moment of silence follows him out of the room. He’s halfway down the stairs before he hears everyone relax, the noise and chatter resuming now he’s gone. It makes him feel kind of crappy, but it’s not his fault. He just wants some smokes.
Outside, the sun is high and bright, dazzling him for a moment. Changmin stands still, raises a hand to shield his eyes as he looks up and down the street in search of somewhere, anywhere, that sells cigarettes. Only then does he notice the stares he’s attracting, and belatedly he realises that he’s left the shoot dressed in haute couture-a thigh-length, dark brown leather jacket over an eau de nil loose-knit cardigan over a scoop-necked t-shirt, worn with a long patterned scarf and tight blue jeans and uncomfortable shoes and finished off with one of those watches that can tell the time at the bottom of a Pacific trench.
Of course, leaving the shoot still dressed in haute couture means he has no money and no phone.
“Shit,” Changmin mutters. Cigarettes are out, then. He’ll go for a walk around the block instead. Not far, just enough to fire up a bit of adrenalin. As he starts across the pavement, he notices a couple of girls pointing at him and fumbling with their phones. Great. He’s so not in the mood for this. Turning quickly, he heads in the opposite direction. Judging from the squeals, the girls are trailing after him. Changmin hurries. There’s a junction up ahead, and there’s a taxi idling by the kerb not far away. Maybe he can jump in the taxi, drive around for a bit, and come back here. Maybe-
A man lurches out of a shop and almost knocks into Changmin. They both sidestep in an awkward dance, not quite able to avoid one another. “Sorry,” the man mumbles as he brushes past. Changmin huffs in annoyance but carries on walking, aware of the girls still giggling in his wake.
The taxi is moving now. Just his luck if it’s going out on a call-but no, the light’s still on, it’s still free, and Changmin runs forward, puts his hand up to summon the cab. Behind him the girls squeak after him, get his autograph, quick, and Changmin wrenches open the door before the taxi can come to a complete halt. He bundles into the back seat and keeps his head low.
“Where to?”
Changmin slouches down in the seat. “Just drive.”
The taxi doesn’t move. “Where to?” the driver asks again.
There’s something in his voice, a demand rather than a question. It’s not the usual tone taxi drivers take with customers, and Changmin frowns in irritation. “I don’t know, okay? Drive around and I’ll decide later.”
“No.” The driver turns in his seat and jerks open the glass panel between them. “Where to?”
Changmin stares. Well, hello. He’s going to have to start hailing taxis more often if this is the kind of guy who’ll be giving him a ride. Sexy as hell, with a slash of dark brows and an insistent, soul-stripping gaze, and that full, curving lower lip... Changmin has a brief, filthy mental image of sucking on it. A visceral slam of lust goes through him, jolting him in his seat. Fuck yeah, Mr Sexy Taxi Driver; now his day is looking up.
Then Changmin reminds himself that the last time he’d tangled with rough trade, it hadn’t ended well. Understatement of the year. It had ended with a broken heart and a restraining order. Better not go there again, no matter how hot this guy is. And he is hot. Really, really hot. And angry. Which just makes him look hotter.
“Uh,” Changmin says, more in response to his racing thoughts than anything else.
“What?” the driver snaps, brows drawing even lower. “Just answer the damn question. Where to?”
The driver’s obvious irritation breaks through Changmin’s haze of arousal. He should have stayed at the photo shoot and snacked on brie and grapes. Disappointment swells over him. “Forget it,” he says, reaching for the door handle. “I’d rather walk than put up with your attitude.”
“My attitude?”
The driver looks so surprised that Changmin hesitates. Maybe he can have some fun after all. Sure, winding up a hot taxi driver is no doubt a childish pursuit and he wouldn’t make a habit of it, but there’s something about this guy, something that makes Changmin feel flippant and reckless. He sits back, settles into the squeaky leather of the seat. “I’ve changed my mind. I want you to take me to-”
The sentence remains unfinished. The driver looks past him, eyes widening. “Get down,” he barks.
Changmin starts to turn around to see whatever it was that alarmed the driver.
“Down!” the driver yells again, and this time Changmin ducks, obeying the note of command in the driver’s voice.
The back window explodes inwards.
Changmin yelps, scrunches himself up flat on the seat. His ears ring with the memory of shattering glass. The back of his hands sting. He looks, sees tiny beads of blood here and there, like half a dozen paper-cuts. When he moves, it feels like heavy rain over him, glass fragments shushing and tinkling. “Shit,” he gasps. “Oh shit.” Everything’s happening in slow motion, fractured and jerky, but the rational part of his mind tells him that in reality, things are moving very, very fast. He reaches out, bangs his fist against the driver’s seat. “Are you okay, are you all right?”
“Idiots,” the driver snarls, sounding furious rather than terrified like any normal person. “Fucking idiots.” He slams the car into gear and floors it, the back end stepping out as they accelerate away from the kerb.
A gunshot rings out after them, followed by another and another, and Changmin realises that was what smashed the window. A bullet. An actual bullet.
Someone is shooting at them.
He’s startled and offended and he wants to shout abuse at whoever is firing on them. It’s crazy and irrational, but he’s in such a state of shock that he begins to rise up from his position across the back seat.
“Stay down!” the driver snaps, throwing the car sharp left. The tyres squeal. There’s the blat of horns and a crunching sound. Changmin winces, thinks they’ve crashed, but the taxi doesn’t slow. He peeks over the top of the seat, flinching from the spider-webbed remnants of glass in the back window, and sees utter chaos behind him. A truck is slewed across the road, people are out of their cars shouting and waving, and in the distance there’s the wail of sirens.
“What,” says Changmin, broken glass glittering over his clothes as he moves, trying to catch the driver’s attention in the rear view mirror, “what the fuck is going on?”
*
The taxi parks beneath a bridge near the river somewhere in Mapo district. Changmin gets out, shakes as much glass from his clothes as possible, then stands there feeling bewildered. So bewildered that it seems safest to get back into the car. He sits in the front passenger seat and stares through the dust-smeared, insect-speckled windscreen at the bridge supports bleeding rust into the expanse of concrete. Weeds poke through the thin layer of asphalt on the service road. It’s the most unprepossessing place he’s ever seen. He feels like they’re a million miles from civilisation, which is both a relief-at least no one’s shooting at them here-and also a concern.
Perhaps to alleviate some of that concern, Mr Sexy Taxi Driver digs through his jacket and flips his credentials into Changmin’s lap. “Stay here,” he says, “I’m going to make sure we haven’t been followed,” and then he gets out of the car.
Changmin leans forward to take a good look-no ass on him at all, but really nice thighs-and then he notices the way the driver’s jacket is rucked up at the back, and okay that’s a gun right there shoved into the waistband of his jeans.
The knowledge sends Changmin scrambling for the leather wallet on his lap. He opens it. NDI is written across the top: National Defence Institution. Changmin has never heard of it. He studies the photo of his driver, reads the information beside it. Jung Yunho, it says, followed by some sort of complicated code of letters and numbers and a bunch of other stuff that probably makes sense to someone, but which tells Changmin nothing.
At least he knows Mr Sexy Taxi Driver’s name.
Changmin jumps at the sound of denting metal and breaking glass. He twists in his seat, shrinking lower, and turns in time to see Yunho standing balanced on one leg on the boot of the car kicking in the rest of the shattered rear window. Changmin inches down behind the headrest and sits forward again, blowing out a breath. He’s shaking, more rattled than he’ll ever admit. Struggling for calm, he clutches Yunho’s ID and reminds himself that this is one of the good guys.
Maybe.
Yunho jumps down from the boot and gets back into the driver’s seat.
“Why did you do that?” Changmin asks.
“We might need to drive around some more. People will notice a taxi that has its rear window half smashed.” Yunho wriggles in his seat, then puts a hand behind him and adjusts his gun. That seems to make things more comfortable.
Changmin swallows. “Is that standard operating procedure for all NDI agents?”
“Kicking things? Pretty much.”
The ID is still open across his knee. Changmin looks at it again. The man in the photograph is smiling-who the hell smiles on government-issue ID?-but the man sitting beside him is stony-faced. Quite the dichotomy. Changmin touches a fingertip to the photo. Yunho has a bright, sunny smile; sort of sweet and disarming, too, the kind of smile that rouses an answering smile just to look at it.
Changmin snaps the wallet closed and clears his throat. “What happens now?”
Yunho takes his phone out of his jacket, checks the display, then sets it on the dashboard in front of him. “We get to spend some quality time together.”
“Can’t we do it somewhere more scenic?” Changmin waves a hand at the underside of the bridge in all its ugly concrete glory. “I could really do with a drink. Can’t we do this-whatever this is-in a bar?”
Or a hotel room. Changmin clamps down on that thought, but it wriggles free and rolls around gleefully with his libido. God, yeah, that’s what he needs. Not a stiff whisky but a good hard fuck, just to celebrate the fact that he’s alive and in one piece. For preference any kind of sexual congress would involve the stalwart Agent Jung, but right now Changmin thinks anyone would do. He grips Yunho’s ID tight, the edge of the wallet biting into his palm. “Let’s go somewhere else.”
“Not if you want to stay alive.” Yunho sounds bored.
Well, that’s a total passion-killer. Changmin subsides, lets desire go from a fast boil to a quiet simmer. “What the hell happened back there?”
“Either you were in the wrong place at the wrong time or...” Yunho pauses, gives him an assessing look as he retrieves his ID and tucks it away, “you were in the right place at the right time and now you’re playing hard to get.”
Changmin makes a startled sound. “I have never played hard to get!”
Yunho snorts.
Wow, stay classy, Changmin. “I meant-”
“Don’t need to know. Not interested.”
That catches Changmin up short. He’s not big-headed or anything, but he is a supermodel, and, well, people are usually interested in supermodels even if it’s only on a completely base level. Tilting his chin, Changmin flashes Yunho a cool look. “Sure about that?”
Yunho turns his head. His gaze crawls over Changmin, over his thighs, his lap, up over his body, and by the time he looks into Changmin’s eyes, a single, stabbing look that rouses a host of squirmy things, Changmin is blushing. Yunho, though, is expressionless. “I’m sure.”
Shit, could that have been any more embarrassing? Changmin wants to fold up and vanish into the side pocket of the door. He changes the subject. “I don’t suppose you’ve got any cigarettes.”
“I quit in January,” Yunho says.
“New Year’s resolution?”
“One of many.”
Changmin grits his teeth. He never thought it’d be so painful to make conversation, but he keeps on trying. “What were the others?”
“Don’t smile so much. Don’t be so enthusiastic. Talk less to suspects.”
“Suspect?” The word echoes. Changmin blinks, embarrassment replaced by outrage. “I’m a suspect? But I’m an innocent bystander!”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe what? You think I’m some sort of spy?” Changmin flaps his hands. His voice is getting louder, sliding up at the end of his sentences. “I’m not! I’m a model! Shim Changmin, the supermodel. Don’t you recognise me?”
Yunho gives him a frankly disbelieving look. Snorts again.
It’s the snort that does it. “I am,” Changmin snaps. “I am a model. Don’t you read-” Vogue, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, of course not, what is he thinking, “don’t you look at billboards when you walk down the street? I’m in the square at Coex Mall. Thirty feet tall. Advertising Ralph Lauren.”
A shrug, and Yunho says, “I don’t shop in malls.”
Changmin stares. What kind of person doesn’t shop in malls? That’s just bizarre. “But you can check, right?” he insists, jabbing at the phone on the dashboard. “You can call someone in your super-secret headquarters and they can tell you who I am. In fact, shouldn’t you be calling your super-secret headquarters anyway to report on this monumental fuck-up?”
Yunho gives him a mild glance. “Is it a fuck-up?”
“You’ve got the wrong guy, so yes. It’s a fuck-up. A big one.” Changmin describes a circle in the air with his hands just to show how big and fucked-up this is. “Actually, it’s bigger than that. I was in the middle of a shoot. A photo shoot, not something with guns and-and spies and...” The enormity of what’s happened catches up with him. He puts a hand to the back of his head and scruffs up his hair over and over, moans, “Oh shit, shit, you have to let me go, I have to go back there-”
“You really don’t,” Yunho tells him, maddeningly calm.
“You don’t understand!” Changmin hears his voice slide towards a wail of despair. “I’m wearing eighteen thousand dollars worth of clothes and accessories that aren’t mine! My hair’s a mess and I’m covered in broken glass. Glass! Because some crazy bastard shot at the taxi!”
Yunho tilts his head. “Your hair looks good to me.”
Changmin stares again, suspecting mockery. Yunho gazes back at him. The compliment, if that’s what it was, seems genuine.
“And just so we’re clear,” Yunho adds, “the gunman shot at you. Not the taxi.”
“Why?”
“Maybe he didn’t like your scarf.”
Laughter bubbles up. Changmin chokes on it, almost hysterical. He claws his fingernails into his palms and feels the cuts on the back of his hands pull. “Tell me the real reason.”
“The scarf is kind of ugly.” Yunho flicks up one of the trailing ends like a cat playing with a piece of string. “Is this part of the eighteen thousand dollars or is it one of those ‘model’s own’ things?”
“Versace,” Changmin tells him. “Three hundred and sixty dollars. Not mine, but I do have two like it at home.”
Yunho tuts, shakes his head. Looks out of the window. His fingers are still entwined in the end of the scarf.
On some level, Changmin recognises that Yunho is trying to distract him with gibberish to downplay the situation, but now they’re sitting here in dull, boring safety, there’s nothing for him to focus on and there’s nothing to stop the aftershocks of panic. He takes a deep breath and flinches from the mental replay of the gunshot, the glass shattering all over him. The more he tries not to think about it, the more it spools through his mind.
“Look,” he says, “I’ve watched quite a few cop shows and apart from stakeouts, which involve doughnuts, no one sits around for ages doing nothing. It’s a waste of resources or something.”
“I don’t like doughnuts.” Yunho stops fiddling with Changmin’s scarf. “And it’s very kind of you to worry about wasting government resources, but you don’t need to bother. I assure you, your taxes are being put to good use elsewhere.”
Changmin clamps a hand over his forehead and closes his eyes. “Please tell me what the hell is happening here and when you’re going to let me go.”
Yunho taps his fingers on the steering wheel. “We’re waiting,” he says. “Ops will contact me in due course. Until then, we’re waiting for my colleagues to report back and waiting for the scene to be examined.” He darts a look at Changmin. “If you really are an innocent bystander...”
“I am.”
“Well, then, you just blundered into a highly technical criminal investigation.” Yunho sounds cynical. “Most of this stuff is classified. Short version: there’s an organisation trading in some very nasty weapons. A member of that organisation made contact with us, offering information. He refused to identify himself but gave enough details that it was obvious he ranked within the inner circle of the organisation. He promised to deliver further information, along with himself. The pick-up was due for today. It was all supposed to be very casual-the informant goes out shopping, stops at a particular corner at a particular time and hails a particular cab, gives the driver a particular address agreed upon in advance as a signal...”
Changmin thinks about this, considers everything that could go wrong-that has gone wrong-with the plan. “What a stupid idea.”
Yunho tips his head back against the seat. “Tell me about it.”
“Not your idea, then?”
A scowl, and Yunho says, “Some of the best brains in the country came up with that one. Most of them don’t know how to operate the coffee machine.”
Changmin presses his lips together to stop from laughing. “Coffee machines can be tricky.”
“Not this one.” Yunho sits up straight and brightens slightly. “Just give it a good thump halfway towards the back and you get free shit. Only good if you like cappuccino, though.”
“You don’t like cappuccino?”
“If it’s free. Otherwise I wouldn’t touch it.” Yunho’s eyebrows flash up and down. He almost smiles. “Needs must.”
Changmin catches his breath on that almost-smile. “Quite,” he croaks, throat going dry. Fuck, Yunho is hot. He’d be lethal if he smiled. Absolutely and completely lethal. Changmin’s carefully collected control strews itself all over the place again. He makes a small, frustrated noise that’s halfway to a moan of pure need.
Yunho looks at him, curious now. Changmin feels the heat rise to his face, but forces himself to hold Yunho’s gaze. They stare at each other, moments ticking away. It’s like all the air has been sucked out of the taxi. Changmin’s on the verge of doing something very, very stupid-really stupid, like trying to kiss him-when Yunho’s phone starts ringing and the moment is broken.
*
“So this is a safe house.” Changmin stands in the hallway, unsure whether or not to remove his shoes. The floor looks like it could do with a good clean. There’s a musty smell to the whole place, as if it hasn’t been used for a while. Maybe not since 1982, judging by the decor.
“This is a safe house,” Yunho agrees, strolling into the living room. He keeps his shoes on. Probably he couldn’t care less about dirty floors, but inside his shoes there’s C4 explosive and a Swiss Army penknife or something, so he’s not allowed to take them off.
Changmin follows him, looks around the room. Horizontal blinds at the window, angled so the afternoon light drips through. A flurry of dust motes in the air as Yunho walks around. An old TV set in the corner and a collection of VHS tapes. A bookshelf full of paperbacks and jigsaw puzzles. Saggy armchairs and a matching couch marshalled around a cheap formica coffee table holding a pile of magazines. There’s a sadness here, imprinted into the walls. Boredom and hope and sadness.
“Make yourself comfortable,” Yunho says.
That doesn’t seem possible in a place like this, but Changmin sits on the sofa anyway, wincing at the puff of dust that escapes the cushions. Why couldn’t they have gone to a hotel? He’d gladly have put it on account. Even a standard suite would be better than this. But no, Yunho’s orders were to take the package-Changmin isn’t sure he likes being a package-to the safe house and then to report for further instructions.
The stack of magazines on the coffee table attracts his interest. Changmin sifts through them, unable to keep the grimace from his face as more dust and the velvet threads of a spider web drift free. Most of the magazines feature cars and motorbikes, but near the bottom of the pile are a couple of editions of GQ and Vogue. He recognises a cover, makes a pleased sound, and starts turning the pages.
“Here,” he says. “Look here, Agent Jung.” He finds the feature, turns the magazine around and pushes it across the table. “My first photo-spread for Vogue, two years ago.”
Yunho comes over to look. Picks up the magazine, turns the pages. He spends a long time studying the pictures and glancing up at Changmin, comparing them.
Changmin huffs. “I’ve grown into my face since then. Obviously.”
“Obviously.” Yunho returns the magazine to the table, pages still open.
Looking at the magazine, Changmin swallows. He’d kind of forgotten the last image in the spread. The one of him half naked, wearing buff-coloured, skin-tight jodhpurs tucked into high, shiny equestrian boots. The one with the streak of baby oil daubed from his chest to his abs so the light glimmers from his skin and catches the camera’s eye. The one where he’s holding a riding crop behind his back, the tension in his arms exquisite and suggestive. The one of him looking insufferably arrogant and knowing and hungry.
He almost flinches from the picture. He’s done far more revealing photo shoots since then in terms of nudity, but this was the first time an image had been about him rather than the clothes. The catalogues and magazines he’d modelled for previously had held the opinion that he was nothing more than a mannequin to present their fashion to best advantage. There’d been no concepts, no gimmicks; just him and the clothes. With the leap into high fashion, that all changed. They wanted personality and rawness. Sure, they wanted him to wear the clothes; but they wanted him to bleed for them, too.
Changmin stares at his younger self. This is the picture that catapulted him to fame. Every single copy of this edition sold out. He’s seen this photo, just this one page, for sale online for two hundred times the cover price of the magazine.
He can’t look at himself much longer. It’s starting to hurt, and he doesn’t know why. Maybe because he’s not that boy any more, hasn’t been that boy for a long time. Changmin closes the magazine and buries it at the bottom of the pile.
There’s an oddly-charged silence. Yunho puts his hands in his pockets and rocks on his feet. “Now we’re here,” he says, “I’ll get Ops to run a check on you.”
Changmin looks up. “Why? I just showed you my sodding photos in Vogue and that’s not good enough for you?” He scrubs at the back of his head, fingers scrunching his hair. “What the hell, why don’t you Google me? Go on, it’ll be quicker and just as informative.”
“I have to follow procedure.”
“No, you don’t trust me.” Changmin breathes out a frustrated sigh. “Even though it’s patently obvious I have nothing to do with your super-secret, super-fail pick-up, you still don’t believe me. Oh, wait-it’s because you’re a spy, and spies never trust anyone.”
Yunho looks annoyed. “I’m not a spy.”
“Cop, then. Government agent. Officer of the law.”
“My job description inhabits something of a grey area,” Yunho says. It’s the closest he’s come to humour. There’s a flash of amusement in his eyes, the sweet, slight hint of a smile on his lips.
Changmin waits for the smile to blossom. When it doesn’t, he says softly, “You should smile more.”
“What, like you?” Yunho’s expression closes down. “Sorry. That was-”
“Rude,” Changmin supplies. “But yeah. Models aren’t required to smile.”
“Neither am I.” Yunho takes out his phone and retreats to the other side of the room to make his call.
Easing back gingerly onto the dusty couch, Changmin watches Yunho speaking a bunch of coded babble into the phone. It’s a shame about the flat ass, but God, the rest of him looks pretty damn amazing, all thighs and shoulders and long, lean body poured into all that black-black jeans, black top, black jacket, black gun. Oh yeah, the gun.
Changmin bites his lip. He wants to know more about this guy, why he stopped smiling. Then Changmin realises he doesn’t really want to know why Yunho stopped smiling. No, he wants to be the one to make him smile again. A real smile, not something polite. And not one of those patronising, nervous smiles everyone always gives him. Get someone to smile at you with genuine amusement and the next step is interest, and after that comes attraction, and after that comes fucking, and...
He throws a roadblock in front of his excitable thoughts. Baby steps. First, make Agent Jung smile. Changmin wonders how best to accomplish his task. He’s not sure he can rely on his charm. It never seems to work on anyone else.
“They’re looking into you,” Yunho tells him as he finishes his call. “Soon enough they’ll know everything about you. Where you grew up, your favourite food-”
Changmin interrupts. “I can tell you all that.”
Yunho ignores him. “-the names of your friends, who you sleep with...”
“I can tell you that, too.” Changmin grasps onto the suggestion, libido stirring again at the thought of talking dirty to Yunho. He gets up from the sofa and catwalks towards him, fixing Yunho with his professional gaze, flirting. “I’d love to tell you, Agent Jung. I’m not ashamed of who I fuck. Let me tell you. It’s not like we have anything else to do. Let me tell you about my lovers. I’m happy to share every sordid little detail.”
There’s a flicker of some emotion in Yunho’s eyes. Interest? Lust? Changmin very much hopes for the latter. It’s gone in a second, but it’s enough for now, enough for him to build upon. Changmin goes closer, fluffs his hair, draws a suggestive hand down the length of his scarf.
Yunho watches him. “That really is an ugly scarf.”
Not the response Changmin was hoping for. He circles around Yunho, reaches out to touch the butt of the pistol tucked into his jeans.
Yunho turns his head. “Don’t go grabbing anything back there.”
Changmin snorts. “There’s nothing to grab except-” He stops. Good job, Shim. Insult the guy, why don’t you. “I wasn’t grabbing anything, okay? I was just... looking.”
“At the gun or at my sad lack of an ass?” Yunho sounds amused.
Changmin takes this as a positive sign. Maybe he’s not so bad at flirting after all. “I was wondering where you keep your handcuffs.”
Silence. Yunho’s shoulders have gone tight, his voice running cold when he says, “I don’t have them with me. Not on this operation.”
It’s such a weird reaction that Changmin pursues it without thought. “Is that what got you into trouble?”
Yunho faces him. “What?”
“Handcuffs.” Changmin twists his hair around a finger and widens his eyes. “You said one of your New Year’s resolutions was to stop being so enthusiastic. Did you get all smiley and talkative with one of your suspects? Did you break out the handcuffs and share your enthusiasm?”
“That’s classified.” Yunho is motionless, so still it’s unnerving, his gaze dark and-and... wounded.
Realisation kicks. Changmin stares, lips parting on an exhalation of surprise. “You did, didn’t you? What happened, did you fall for someone you shouldn’t? Did you-”
“He got hurt because of me,” Yunho says, harsh and clipped. “I was demoted. He went into witness protection. Him and his wife.”
A longer silence. Changmin doesn’t know what to say.
Yunho shoots him a look full of anger and embarrassment. “I have a habit of falling for unattainable guys.”
You could have me. The words curl on the tip of Changmin’s tongue, but he doesn’t let them out. Instead he says, “I’m sorry. That sucks.”
“Yeah.” Yunho turns away from him and goes over to sit on a wooden chair beside the bookshelf. It doesn’t look comfortable, but maybe that’s the point.
Guilt wriggles inside Changmin. He feels bad, like he’d laughed at someone who slipped on a banana skin and then realised they’d broken their arm. He glances about the room, adjusts the scarf around his neck, then says, “Maybe someone left some cigarettes here. I’m going to look.”
It doesn’t take long to explore the rest of the apartment. Two bedrooms, wardrobes and drawers empty, quilts with faded patterns folded on the mattresses, a beat-up teddy bear lying beside the pillow in the smaller room. The kitchen is cold, the surfaces ripe with dust. A wizened orange sits shrunken in a fruit bowl. There’s smears on the glass top of the hob alongside baked-on bits of crap.
Changmin opens the cupboards. In the absence of cigarettes, maybe there’s some food. He finds a ten-pack of ramen, sell-by date November 2009. Does ramen go off? It’s chicken flavoured, if that makes any difference. He wrinkles his nose and closes the cupboard door. Leaning against it, he calls out, “How long are we going to be stuck here?”
“As long as it takes,” comes the enlightening answer.
Restless, Changmin wanders out of the kitchen and goes to the far end of the hall to inspect the bathroom. It’s small and basic but clean, or at least cleaner than the rest of the safe house, and there’s a towel and nice selection of soaps and shampoos and lotions arranged in a basket, all of them looking like they’ve been taken from up-market hotels.
He itches with the desire to be clean, to wash off the panic of the shooting. He’s pretty sure he shook out all the broken glass when he got out of the taxi, but it wouldn’t hurt to bathe and make sure of it. Changmin runs the mixer tap to test the temperature, then goes back into the living room. “I’m going to have a shower.”
Yunho looks up. “Fine. Take your clothes off here.”
Changmin goes cold, then hot. “What did you say?”
The chair creaks as Yunho leans back and folds his arms. “You haven’t been cleared as a suspect yet, so unless you want me to stand in the bathroom and watch you get wet, you have to take your clothes off in front of me. Just in case you are a super-secret spy and you’re hiding something beneath your eighteen-thousand-dollar outfit.”
“I’m not, and I’m not.” To prove it, Changmin pulls at his scarf so fast it burns the side of his neck. He hisses in annoyance, unloops the rest of the scarf slowly and lets it drop to the floor. His leather jacket next. He shrugs out of it, hears it fall. Four thousand five hundred dollars worth of kangaroo leather discarded just like that. Now for the cardigan-jacket. Eau de nil is such a vile colour. Changmin wrestles free of the knitwear with a triumphant sound.
It wasn’t his intention to make a game of this-he really does just want to take a shower-but when he looks up, he realises that Yunho is watching him with a little more than professional interest.
Changmin is accustomed to people staring at him. He’s long since locked away his shyness at being seen naked; his body is just the tool he uses to do his job. He learned long ago how to divide his professional self from his private, intimate self, but right here, right now, those lines are blurring. No matter how much he pretends this is like any other working day, it’s not.
Maybe it’ll be easier if he coaxes some reality into this situation. Or does he mean fantasy? The lines are not just blurring now; they’re running and fading. Changmin draws in a breath, slows down and smiles as he unfastens his wristwatch. “You know, this would be sexier if you made me strip at gunpoint.”
Yunho quirks one eyebrow. “That would be a violation of your rights.”
The watch is tossed on top of the knitwear. Changmin unbuckles his belt. “But aren’t I a suspect?”
“You still have some rights.”
The belt slithers free, lands with a clatter on the floor. “It’ll be hot,” Changmin says, hooking one hand beneath his t-shirt. He arches his back slightly; lifts the t-shirt to reveal glimpses of his abs, strokes his fingers over the faint stripe of hair leading down from his navel. “Go on,” he urges. “Take out your sexy big gun and point it at me. Force me to strip.”
Yunho looks like he’s about to laugh. “Get undressed, or...”
“Or what?” Changmin demands. “You’ll undress me yourself?”
“I’ll put you in the shower fully clothed.”
“Then I’ll have to sit around naked until my clothes dry off.”
The slightest glimmer of a smile teases at Yunho’s mouth. “Not my problem.”
“Oh, so you do want me to be naked?” Changmin says, lifting the t-shirt higher, letting it twist around his torso just below his chest.
In a sudden snap of motion, Yunho rocks forward in the chair, hand going behind him then lifting, the gun held in his grip. “Yes. Now.”
Changmin’s head empties of everything except the slow, heavy pulse of arousal. This should not be sexy. It’s not sexy, no, no, not at all. He has a gun pointed at him for the second time today, nothing sexy about that, and yet he’s so turned on he can barely breathe. It’s fear, that’s what it is. Fear confused as desire, and God, God, he wants it.
“Strip,” Yunho says.
Changmin shivers, the order trickling over him like syrup. He moves with caution, takes off one shoe, then the other. Lifts his t-shirt, pulls it over his head. The motion disorders his hair, makes it fluff out in a messy halo, and he hears Yunho make a sound, just a little noise, a sort of low, growly noise, and Changmin shivers again. Off come his jeans, then his underwear, and then he stands there naked.
Yunho stares at Changmin’s erection. For a long moment he remains expressionless, and then his lips part and his tongue dabs out, just touches the middle of his pouty lower lip, and it’s so sexy Changmin doesn’t know what he wants to do first, kiss him or lick him or beg for a blowjob.
The decision isn’t his to make. Yunho rakes his gaze back up Changmin’s body and makes a gesture of dismissal with the gun. “Take your shower.”
“You could come with me,” Changmin blurts out.
They stare at each other. Yunho looks tempted. Tormented. There’s a click as he thumbs off the safety catch. He points the gun this time, aims it properly. “Go.”
Weak with lust, Changmin flees.
*
He runs the shower as hot as he can bear it and gets himself wet all over. Water streams through his hair, into his eyes, pounds against his back and chest as he turns beneath the spray. His skin pinks up in the heat. Changmin chooses shampoo and conditioner and washes his hair. He does it twice. Only then does he feel calmer. Only then does he uncap the shower gel and slide his hands over his body.
His cock rears up again. God, he’s too easy. Not his fault. It’s because of Agent Jung. Sexy, sexy Agent Jung. Changmin thinks of the gun and Yunho’s mouth and the way he kicked in the rear window of the taxi. Thinks of the photo in his ID and that smile. Changmin groans, the sound bouncing from the wet tiles. If only Yunho would smile at him. Handcuffs and guns would be completely unnecessary. Just one smile. He’d give anything to see it.
Changmin teases a hand down to his cock. Closing his eyes, he faces into the spray, the water masking the heat in his cheeks. If only Yunho had followed him into the bathroom, he wouldn’t have to get himself off. Setting his teeth against the coiling of pleasure, Changmin cups his balls, tugs them down a little, then firms his hand around his dick and starts stroking.
None of his usual fantasies will do. He replays the events of the last few hours, alters them to his preference. Yunho fucking him on the back seat of the taxi, across the bonnet of the car, the engine still warm beneath their hands. Oh, hands-handcuffs, Yunho snapping the steel bracelets around his wrists, rendering Changmin helpless. Yunho going down on his knees on the dusty floor of the safe house and sucking Changmin’s cock.
“Please,” Changmin moans, echoing his imaginary self. “Want you. Yes.”
The door bangs open and hits the wall with a crash.
“Shit!” Yanked from his fantasy, Changmin jolts back from the spray of hot water, his hand still wrapped around his cock. His hair whips into his eyes as he turns. Cold air from the hallway whispers in and raises goosebumps, puckers his nipples tight. He doesn’t think he’s ever felt more exposed.
Yunho stands in the doorway, his anger palpable. He’s holding something tiny and metallic. It looks like a flash drive for a doll’s house computer.
“This,” Yunho grinds out, gaze like a storm front. “Where did you get this?”
Changmin stares. Okay, this is so not the time to be caught with his dick in his hand. His erection is kind of wilting anyway, although some traitorous part of his mind is turning somersaults and informing him that angry Agent Jung is really fucking hot. Although Changmin agrees with that part of his mind, self-preservation makes him answer the question. “I’ve never seen it before.”
“It was in your left jacket pocket.”
The intensity of Yunho’s gaze flash-fries Changmin’s insides. “Then I didn’t put it there. Everything I was wearing was brand new and provided for the photo shoot.”
“It was in the shapeless woollen thing, not the leather jacket.” Yunho tucks the flash drive or microchip or whatever it is into his own pocket and advances into the room. “You were wearing the leather jacket over the top.”
Changmin refuses to be cowed. He lifts his chin. “So?”
“So if someone had slipped the drive into your pocket, they’d have put it in the outside pocket,” Yunho snaps. “Not in a pocket that’s on a second jacket underneath.”
“Wait.” That shakes a memory loose. “Someone did bump against me on the street right before you picked me up.”
“Now you remember. How convenient.” Yunho’s expression is full of disbelief and-is that regret?
The idea that Yunho feels disappointed in him makes Changmin just as angry. He flips his drenched hair, glares at Yunho. “Excuse me for not being a highly trained ninja. Weren’t you the one doing the damn pick-up in the first place? Isn’t it your job to stay alert and look for things like that?”
Fury burns through Yunho’s expression. “My job is to keep this country safe, not to babysit fucking civilians who may or may not know more than they’re telling!”
“I have nothing to hide.” Changmin spreads his arms, presents himself naked and wet, half aroused, half cold, wholly uncertain except for in the knowledge of his innocence. “Nothing at all.”
Yunho stares at him. “Maybe.”
It hurts that Yunho still doesn’t trust him. It really hurts, and the indignation makes Changmin reckless. “What, do you think I keep state secrets hidden in my ass? Maybe you should check, just to make sure.”
Something hot and violent leaps into Yunho’s eyes, and then his features go blank. “Maybe I should.”
Changmin yelps as Yunho barrels across the room and drags him from the shower. The water hammers onto the floor of the cubicle. Helpless and vulnerable and slippery, Changmin wrenches against Yunho and finds himself shoved up against the wall. His palms flatten; he turns his head, cheek pressed over steam-wet tiles. Yunho shoves him again, and Changmin gasps as his chest makes contact with the wall. Fuck, it’s cold. His nipples pinch tighter. His cock pulses with need as he bucks against Yunho’s controlling hands.
“Stay still,” Yunho snaps.
Changmin has no intention of obeying. At least, not yet. He squirms, excitement sharpening, lust grabbing at him, until Yunho forces Changmin’s legs apart and pushes him forward so his ass sticks out.
“God, no,” Changmin says, but he’s hard now, even harder than when he was jerking off under the shower, and he thrusts back some more, wanting Yunho’s hands on him. Shivery with cold and anticipation, he closes his eyes. He hears Yunho scuffle through the bottles of gel and lotion, holds his breath at the sound of a plastic lid snapping open. Then comes the squeezy ooze of liquid and the scent of some intoxicatingly sweet flower.
Dizzy, drowning, Changmin turns his head and presses his lips to the wall. Yunho steps up behind him, fully dressed against Changmin’s nakedness. It feels lewd and filthy and so fucking exciting that Changmin humps the wall. Yunho leans in close, rolls his hips forward so Changmin can feel the hard, heavy shape of Yunho’s cock pressing against his ass. Yunho takes a handful of Changmin’s hair, licks up the back of his neck from shoulder to ear, sucks Changmin’s earlobe between his lips then bites down on it, hard and sharp.
Changmin’s knees buckle. “Unh. Oh fuck.”
“Mm-hmm,” Yunho purrs in Changmin’s ear before he nibbles his way around the helix, flicking his tongue inside.
Changmin’s bones turn to water and slide on out of him. He braces himself, pushes back, feels Yunho’s free hand against his thighs, fingers cool and slippery with lotion.
“Open up for me,” Yunho says.
A sound halfway between a whimper and a moan escapes Changmin’s parted lips. “Please,” he begs, as mindlessly as in his fantasy. “You mustn’t. It’s-it’s a...”
Yunho slicks his wet fingers through Changmin’s crack, slipping and sliding over sensitive flesh. The tip of his forefinger circles Changmin’s hole. “It’s,” he notches his fingertip, pushes deep, “a violation,” pushes all the way in, “of your rights.”
Changmin blanks out with pleasure. “Oh,” he breathes. “Oh. Oh.” There are other letters in the alphabet, but he can’t remember them right now. Oh seems just about perfect for expressing what he’s feeling, so big and round and open and-
Another finger. They arrow straight into him, brush against the bundle of nerves inside him, and Changmin jerks forward so hard he bangs his head on the wall. White flashes sprinkle his vision; pain flares then fades, muted by desire. “God, yes,” Changmin moans, rolling his forehead against the steam-dewed tiles. “Violate my rights some more.”
Yunho chuckles, the sound making Changmin weak. One more finger, stretching and widening, fucking into him, the lotion dribbling and squishing.
“Have you...” Changmin gasps out, “found... what you’re looking for?”
“Maybe,” Yunho says.
The word resonates all the way down Changmin’s spine and wraps around his balls. He screws himself back onto Yunho’s hand, hips doing a slow, instinctive grind. He pants against the wall, misting the tiles. “Want your cock.”
“No.” Yunho changes the angle of his thrusting hand, curls his fingers just so.
Changmin whines. “Fuck. Just-just keep on doing that. Oh yeah. Right there. Right-there.”
He lets go of the wall with one hand and grabs for his cock, works it without any kind of finesse, just desperate, greedy need. Pressure builds, sensation stacking up higher and higher. Changmin opens his mouth, gasps. The room folds in on itself, the patter of water in the shower, the drape of the steam, the chill from the open door brushing up one side of his body. Yunho presses tight and warm against him, fingers fucking him mercilessly as he sucks and bites at the back of Changmin’s neck, grazing his earlobe, raising bruises all the way up.
His heart pounds, faster, faster, a gorgeous, frantic feeling rising against Yunho’s touch. For all that it’s his hand around his cock, Changmin isn’t controlling his orgasm. It’s being coaxed from him, no, forced out of him, and the thought turns him into a hot mess. “Yes,” he chokes, “yes yes yes,” and the last word is tight and explosive, counterpoint to the climax that slams through him and makes him spurt all over the wall.
“Fuck,” Yunho says, and slides his fingers out of Changmin’s ass in a hurry. The rattle of a belt, the purr of a zip, and then Changmin feels the brush of knuckles against his bum and realises that Yunho is jerking off over him. Within moments he feels the hot splash of semen striping his back, his ass, Yunho coming again and again until it feels like he’s covered in thick, dribbly scribbles of warm, wet seed.
Yunho takes a half step back to avoid smearing spunk over his clothes, but one arm still rests heavily against Changmin’s shoulders and his hand is still curled tight in Changmin’s hair, his breath swift and warm on Changmin’s damp skin.
Changmin thinks he’s just been ruined for casual hook-ups in the future.
He wants to say this out loud, wants to see Yunho’s reaction, maybe even see him smile, but he stays where he is, breathing in steam, face pressed to the wall, fingers curled loosely against the tiles, Yunho’s seed slow-sliding down his back and ass and thighs.
The phone rings.
Yunho answers it. He sounds a little shell-shocked, and Changmin is glad he’s not the only one. A pause, and then Yunho goes out of the bathroom, pitching his voice low as he starts talking.
Changmin turns around, leans against the wall for a moment, then forces himself to move. The reminder of pleasure twists through him as he clambers back into the shower and washes himself clean for the second time. When he turns off the water, the silence seems strange. He reaches for the towel, rubs at his hair, then at his body, drying himself with rough strokes.
Yunho comes back. His face is impossible to read. “Ops have the informant safely in custody. Apparently he panicked and changed his mind right before the pick-up. He thought he’d roused suspicion amongst his colleagues, suspected he was being followed, so he ditched the flash drive and ran.”
Changmin wraps the towel around his waist. “So he was the man who bumped into me on the street.”
“Yes.” Embarrassment squirms through Yunho’s expression. “He said he’d slipped the flash drive into the pocket of, and I quote: ‘a tall, lanky guy wearing a horrible scarf’.”
“No one likes Versace. Such a shame.” Changmin tries a smile. “Now what?”
“Now you’re free to go.” Another embarrassed look. Yunho slides his gaze sideways. “Ops said I should thank you for your patience and fortitude. Also they ordered me to offer you all possible assistance.”
Changmin laughs, short and breathless. “Well, you certainly did that.”
Yunho turns his head. He seems conflicted. “Get ready. I’ll take you back.”
“Back?”
“Back to your photo shoot.” Yunho makes a vague gesture. He won’t even look at him. “You were in the middle of something.”
“So were we,” Changmin says, very softly.
Yunho stares at the floor, then gathers himself and glances at Changmin, uncertainty replaced by professional distance. “Get dressed,” he says. “We’re leaving.”
*
Yunho parks the taxi a short distance from the line of police tape that marks off the street corner. “I’ll come up with you,” he says. “I’ll explain to the photographer and magazine representative or whoever that you aren’t to blame for the delay.”
Changmin gives him a startled look. “You don’t need to do that.” He laughs, the sound without humour. “I told them I was going out for cigarettes. They probably didn’t notice the gunfire. They probably thought I’d gone home in a fit of pique.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because I’m a supermodel.” Changmin wrinkles his nose. “I’m supposed to have tantrums when my needs aren’t met.”
Yunho almost smiles. “Really.”
“Really.”
The interior of the car goes still and quiet. Changmin fidgets just to break the tension. He thinks of the day behind him, thinks of Yunho’s fingers inside him, Yunho’s mouth on his skin, and even though it’s madness, stupid, impossible madness, he blurts, “I’m attainable.”
Yunho looks at him. “What?”
“I’m attainable.” Changmin meets his gaze. “If you wanted it. If you wanted me.”
A pause, long and awkward, and then Yunho says, “You’re a supermodel.”
Changmin stares. “Does that make a difference?”
“Maybe.”
The response cuts deep. Changmin draws in a shivery breath. Exhales. Words build, arguments and protests tumbling together, but before he can get them out, Yunho takes the keys from the ignition and opens the door. “Let’s go. They’ll be waiting for you.”
Changmin follows him inside, feeling flat and wrung-out. He manages a smile when his manager races towards him, all flailing arms and exclamations of joy. The photographer, his assistant, the female model, the rest of the staff-they all crowd around talking at once, telling him about the shooting, how they were so worried, how they hadn’t been able to do any work because they were waiting for him and praying that he was safe.
At that point, Yunho takes out his NDI credentials and flashes them around, which only adds to the hubbub. In carefully-chosen words that give nothing away, he praises Changmin for his assistance then shakes his hand. Shakes his fucking hand, as if he really had been of great help to the NDI rather than a liability.
Yunho leaves with a generous portion of the brie and grapes wrapped in a paper towel. Changmin tells himself he didn’t really expect an invitation to dinner or Yunho’s phone number or anything else like that. He doesn’t look outside to watch the taxi with no rear window drive away. No, he allows the make-up artist to sit him down and reminds himself that he’s not just a civilian who blundered into a super-secret government operation by mistake. He’s not just a meaningless shag, either. He’s a supermodel.
He still feels flat. This would be a good time for him to call a halt to the shoot, to say he needed to go home and rest and recover. No one would blame him. They’d all understand. But he doesn’t do that. Instead he sits there and remembers Yunho’s hands on him, and he smiles when the make-up girl moves his scarf and uncovers the love-bites. She stares, and Changmin grins. He keeps on smiling even when she dabs concealer over the bruises. He smiles his way onto the set, and the female model smiles back at him, shy at first, and then when Changmin beams even more, her smile deepens and she laughs.
“That’s it!” the photographer cries, and snaps off picture after picture.
The shoot wraps two and a half hours later. It’s dark now, and Changmin rejects a ride home in his manager’s car in favour of catching a taxi. This time he’s dressed in his usual clothes and he has money and his phone, and this time the first taxi he sees cruises on past him. When he finally manages to flag one down, the driver is fat and balding and smells of onions. Even so, as Changmin slides into the back seat and gives his address, a frisson of lust goes through him. Probably he’ll never be able to get into a taxi again without feeling horny.
He gets home, takes the lift up to the eighteenth floor of the condo. As he unlocks his apartment door, Changmin realises he forgot to buy more cigarettes. Whatever. He can do without for tonight.
The door clicks open. He goes inside, taps in the security code, then bends to take off his shoes. When he straightens, he notices the little flashing light on the control panel. He looks at it. System reset: Zone 3.
Changmin turns, heart leaping, and strides into his bedroom.
Yunho is sprawled on the bed, his shoes and socks and jacket in a heap on the floor. A strip of condoms and a bottle of lube lie on the duvet. A pair of handcuffs dangles from his finger. He smiles. “Hi.”
Oh yes, that's the smile he's been waiting for. Changmin stops in his tracks, mesmerised.
Yunho smiles some more, deep and sweet and utterly disarming. “So,” he says, “shall we try that again?”
Fandom: TVXQ
Pairing: Yunho/Changmin
Rating: NC17
Summary: This morning, supermodel Changmin’s biggest problem was running out of cigarettes. His day is about to get worse as a case of mistaken identity sends him into the line of fire-and into the arms of cop/spy/government agent/he’s-a-bit-vague-about-it-really Yunho, who would rather be saving the world than babysitting Changmin’s ass. Never mind that it’s a really cute ass. It’s not like Yunho has even noticed, right?
Notes: AU. Written for the prompt ‘mistaken identity’ as part of diagon’s Twelve Months of HoMin challenge.
The Pick-Up
He’s out of cigarettes.
In itself this is not a big deal, but Changmin hasn’t eaten since dinner last night, and even then it wasn’t exactly a substantial meal. He can never eat decently for twenty-four hours before a photo shoot, so the cigarettes are a necessity rather than an indulgence, suppressing his appetite and helping him get through the day.
Except now he’s run out. The packet is empty, no matter how hard he stares into it. Changmin lifts his head and looks at his manager. “I need more smokes.”
His manager’s eyes widen and his mouth drops open. He’d look comical were it not for the fact that this reaction clearly indicates a lack of cigarettes in the immediate vicinity.
“Here,” says the photographer’s assistant with a polite smile, offering a battered packet. “Take one of mine.”
Changmin wrinkles his nose and shakes his head. “Not that brand.”
The assistant’s smile freezes and she gives him a look that clearly suggests that he’s a demanding, stuck-up wanker. It’s the kind of look he’s familiar with. Pretty much everyone thinks he’s a demanding, stuck-up wanker, but that’s okay because everyone expects supermodels to be assholes.
The only thing he’s particular about is his cigarettes. That’s not much. It’s not like he demands hand-rolled Bolivian tobacco with French filters or anything similarly exotic. He just prefers one brand to all the rest. He doesn’t need the pricey mineral water or the specially imported cheese or anything else the magazines always lay on for him based on a single incident two years ago when he ate a sliver of brie and three grapes during a shoot. Since he was elevated from clotheshorse to supermodel, every time he goes to work he’s faced with platters of brie and grapes.
He doesn’t even like brie and grapes. He was just hungry that one time. But when he tries to tell staff that he doesn’t want brie and grapes any more, he just gets labelled ‘difficult’, and everyone smiles at him in a way that’s both soothing and nervous.
He’s getting those smiles now as he paces the floor away from the lights and reflectors and the machine-gun click of the camera shutter. The female model is perched on the windowsill, pale limbs and froths of emerald green lace set against bare brick. She’s not gazing into middle distance or looking into the camera. Instead she’s watching him. She manages a rictus of a smile when she sees him looking back at her, and the photographer curses, puts down the camera, and turns around.
Everyone is staring at him. Changmin lifts his chin. “If you don’t need me for the next ten minutes, I’m going to get some cigarettes.”
His manager hurries forward, looking stressed and smiling too widely. “I’ll do it. It’s my fault I forgot to buy extra for today. Please stay here and relax.” He gestures towards a table away from the shooting area. “Look, they’ve laid on your favourite food. Please eat a little.”
Changmin glances at the artfully arranged stack of brie and grapes and resists the urge to upend the table and send everything crashing to the floor. Even if he acted on the impulse, nothing would change. He’d still be given bloody brie and grapes on his next shoot, and people would still smile at him like he was dangerous.
“I’m going out,” he announces, and heads for the door.
His manager scuttles after him. “I’ll come with you.”
Changmin sighs. Turns around. “Stay here.”
His manager blinks and bobs his head. “I’ll stay here.”
A long moment of silence follows him out of the room. He’s halfway down the stairs before he hears everyone relax, the noise and chatter resuming now he’s gone. It makes him feel kind of crappy, but it’s not his fault. He just wants some smokes.
Outside, the sun is high and bright, dazzling him for a moment. Changmin stands still, raises a hand to shield his eyes as he looks up and down the street in search of somewhere, anywhere, that sells cigarettes. Only then does he notice the stares he’s attracting, and belatedly he realises that he’s left the shoot dressed in haute couture-a thigh-length, dark brown leather jacket over an eau de nil loose-knit cardigan over a scoop-necked t-shirt, worn with a long patterned scarf and tight blue jeans and uncomfortable shoes and finished off with one of those watches that can tell the time at the bottom of a Pacific trench.
Of course, leaving the shoot still dressed in haute couture means he has no money and no phone.
“Shit,” Changmin mutters. Cigarettes are out, then. He’ll go for a walk around the block instead. Not far, just enough to fire up a bit of adrenalin. As he starts across the pavement, he notices a couple of girls pointing at him and fumbling with their phones. Great. He’s so not in the mood for this. Turning quickly, he heads in the opposite direction. Judging from the squeals, the girls are trailing after him. Changmin hurries. There’s a junction up ahead, and there’s a taxi idling by the kerb not far away. Maybe he can jump in the taxi, drive around for a bit, and come back here. Maybe-
A man lurches out of a shop and almost knocks into Changmin. They both sidestep in an awkward dance, not quite able to avoid one another. “Sorry,” the man mumbles as he brushes past. Changmin huffs in annoyance but carries on walking, aware of the girls still giggling in his wake.
The taxi is moving now. Just his luck if it’s going out on a call-but no, the light’s still on, it’s still free, and Changmin runs forward, puts his hand up to summon the cab. Behind him the girls squeak after him, get his autograph, quick, and Changmin wrenches open the door before the taxi can come to a complete halt. He bundles into the back seat and keeps his head low.
“Where to?”
Changmin slouches down in the seat. “Just drive.”
The taxi doesn’t move. “Where to?” the driver asks again.
There’s something in his voice, a demand rather than a question. It’s not the usual tone taxi drivers take with customers, and Changmin frowns in irritation. “I don’t know, okay? Drive around and I’ll decide later.”
“No.” The driver turns in his seat and jerks open the glass panel between them. “Where to?”
Changmin stares. Well, hello. He’s going to have to start hailing taxis more often if this is the kind of guy who’ll be giving him a ride. Sexy as hell, with a slash of dark brows and an insistent, soul-stripping gaze, and that full, curving lower lip... Changmin has a brief, filthy mental image of sucking on it. A visceral slam of lust goes through him, jolting him in his seat. Fuck yeah, Mr Sexy Taxi Driver; now his day is looking up.
Then Changmin reminds himself that the last time he’d tangled with rough trade, it hadn’t ended well. Understatement of the year. It had ended with a broken heart and a restraining order. Better not go there again, no matter how hot this guy is. And he is hot. Really, really hot. And angry. Which just makes him look hotter.
“Uh,” Changmin says, more in response to his racing thoughts than anything else.
“What?” the driver snaps, brows drawing even lower. “Just answer the damn question. Where to?”
The driver’s obvious irritation breaks through Changmin’s haze of arousal. He should have stayed at the photo shoot and snacked on brie and grapes. Disappointment swells over him. “Forget it,” he says, reaching for the door handle. “I’d rather walk than put up with your attitude.”
“My attitude?”
The driver looks so surprised that Changmin hesitates. Maybe he can have some fun after all. Sure, winding up a hot taxi driver is no doubt a childish pursuit and he wouldn’t make a habit of it, but there’s something about this guy, something that makes Changmin feel flippant and reckless. He sits back, settles into the squeaky leather of the seat. “I’ve changed my mind. I want you to take me to-”
The sentence remains unfinished. The driver looks past him, eyes widening. “Get down,” he barks.
Changmin starts to turn around to see whatever it was that alarmed the driver.
“Down!” the driver yells again, and this time Changmin ducks, obeying the note of command in the driver’s voice.
The back window explodes inwards.
Changmin yelps, scrunches himself up flat on the seat. His ears ring with the memory of shattering glass. The back of his hands sting. He looks, sees tiny beads of blood here and there, like half a dozen paper-cuts. When he moves, it feels like heavy rain over him, glass fragments shushing and tinkling. “Shit,” he gasps. “Oh shit.” Everything’s happening in slow motion, fractured and jerky, but the rational part of his mind tells him that in reality, things are moving very, very fast. He reaches out, bangs his fist against the driver’s seat. “Are you okay, are you all right?”
“Idiots,” the driver snarls, sounding furious rather than terrified like any normal person. “Fucking idiots.” He slams the car into gear and floors it, the back end stepping out as they accelerate away from the kerb.
A gunshot rings out after them, followed by another and another, and Changmin realises that was what smashed the window. A bullet. An actual bullet.
Someone is shooting at them.
He’s startled and offended and he wants to shout abuse at whoever is firing on them. It’s crazy and irrational, but he’s in such a state of shock that he begins to rise up from his position across the back seat.
“Stay down!” the driver snaps, throwing the car sharp left. The tyres squeal. There’s the blat of horns and a crunching sound. Changmin winces, thinks they’ve crashed, but the taxi doesn’t slow. He peeks over the top of the seat, flinching from the spider-webbed remnants of glass in the back window, and sees utter chaos behind him. A truck is slewed across the road, people are out of their cars shouting and waving, and in the distance there’s the wail of sirens.
“What,” says Changmin, broken glass glittering over his clothes as he moves, trying to catch the driver’s attention in the rear view mirror, “what the fuck is going on?”
*
The taxi parks beneath a bridge near the river somewhere in Mapo district. Changmin gets out, shakes as much glass from his clothes as possible, then stands there feeling bewildered. So bewildered that it seems safest to get back into the car. He sits in the front passenger seat and stares through the dust-smeared, insect-speckled windscreen at the bridge supports bleeding rust into the expanse of concrete. Weeds poke through the thin layer of asphalt on the service road. It’s the most unprepossessing place he’s ever seen. He feels like they’re a million miles from civilisation, which is both a relief-at least no one’s shooting at them here-and also a concern.
Perhaps to alleviate some of that concern, Mr Sexy Taxi Driver digs through his jacket and flips his credentials into Changmin’s lap. “Stay here,” he says, “I’m going to make sure we haven’t been followed,” and then he gets out of the car.
Changmin leans forward to take a good look-no ass on him at all, but really nice thighs-and then he notices the way the driver’s jacket is rucked up at the back, and okay that’s a gun right there shoved into the waistband of his jeans.
The knowledge sends Changmin scrambling for the leather wallet on his lap. He opens it. NDI is written across the top: National Defence Institution. Changmin has never heard of it. He studies the photo of his driver, reads the information beside it. Jung Yunho, it says, followed by some sort of complicated code of letters and numbers and a bunch of other stuff that probably makes sense to someone, but which tells Changmin nothing.
At least he knows Mr Sexy Taxi Driver’s name.
Changmin jumps at the sound of denting metal and breaking glass. He twists in his seat, shrinking lower, and turns in time to see Yunho standing balanced on one leg on the boot of the car kicking in the rest of the shattered rear window. Changmin inches down behind the headrest and sits forward again, blowing out a breath. He’s shaking, more rattled than he’ll ever admit. Struggling for calm, he clutches Yunho’s ID and reminds himself that this is one of the good guys.
Maybe.
Yunho jumps down from the boot and gets back into the driver’s seat.
“Why did you do that?” Changmin asks.
“We might need to drive around some more. People will notice a taxi that has its rear window half smashed.” Yunho wriggles in his seat, then puts a hand behind him and adjusts his gun. That seems to make things more comfortable.
Changmin swallows. “Is that standard operating procedure for all NDI agents?”
“Kicking things? Pretty much.”
The ID is still open across his knee. Changmin looks at it again. The man in the photograph is smiling-who the hell smiles on government-issue ID?-but the man sitting beside him is stony-faced. Quite the dichotomy. Changmin touches a fingertip to the photo. Yunho has a bright, sunny smile; sort of sweet and disarming, too, the kind of smile that rouses an answering smile just to look at it.
Changmin snaps the wallet closed and clears his throat. “What happens now?”
Yunho takes his phone out of his jacket, checks the display, then sets it on the dashboard in front of him. “We get to spend some quality time together.”
“Can’t we do it somewhere more scenic?” Changmin waves a hand at the underside of the bridge in all its ugly concrete glory. “I could really do with a drink. Can’t we do this-whatever this is-in a bar?”
Or a hotel room. Changmin clamps down on that thought, but it wriggles free and rolls around gleefully with his libido. God, yeah, that’s what he needs. Not a stiff whisky but a good hard fuck, just to celebrate the fact that he’s alive and in one piece. For preference any kind of sexual congress would involve the stalwart Agent Jung, but right now Changmin thinks anyone would do. He grips Yunho’s ID tight, the edge of the wallet biting into his palm. “Let’s go somewhere else.”
“Not if you want to stay alive.” Yunho sounds bored.
Well, that’s a total passion-killer. Changmin subsides, lets desire go from a fast boil to a quiet simmer. “What the hell happened back there?”
“Either you were in the wrong place at the wrong time or...” Yunho pauses, gives him an assessing look as he retrieves his ID and tucks it away, “you were in the right place at the right time and now you’re playing hard to get.”
Changmin makes a startled sound. “I have never played hard to get!”
Yunho snorts.
Wow, stay classy, Changmin. “I meant-”
“Don’t need to know. Not interested.”
That catches Changmin up short. He’s not big-headed or anything, but he is a supermodel, and, well, people are usually interested in supermodels even if it’s only on a completely base level. Tilting his chin, Changmin flashes Yunho a cool look. “Sure about that?”
Yunho turns his head. His gaze crawls over Changmin, over his thighs, his lap, up over his body, and by the time he looks into Changmin’s eyes, a single, stabbing look that rouses a host of squirmy things, Changmin is blushing. Yunho, though, is expressionless. “I’m sure.”
Shit, could that have been any more embarrassing? Changmin wants to fold up and vanish into the side pocket of the door. He changes the subject. “I don’t suppose you’ve got any cigarettes.”
“I quit in January,” Yunho says.
“New Year’s resolution?”
“One of many.”
Changmin grits his teeth. He never thought it’d be so painful to make conversation, but he keeps on trying. “What were the others?”
“Don’t smile so much. Don’t be so enthusiastic. Talk less to suspects.”
“Suspect?” The word echoes. Changmin blinks, embarrassment replaced by outrage. “I’m a suspect? But I’m an innocent bystander!”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe what? You think I’m some sort of spy?” Changmin flaps his hands. His voice is getting louder, sliding up at the end of his sentences. “I’m not! I’m a model! Shim Changmin, the supermodel. Don’t you recognise me?”
Yunho gives him a frankly disbelieving look. Snorts again.
It’s the snort that does it. “I am,” Changmin snaps. “I am a model. Don’t you read-” Vogue, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, of course not, what is he thinking, “don’t you look at billboards when you walk down the street? I’m in the square at Coex Mall. Thirty feet tall. Advertising Ralph Lauren.”
A shrug, and Yunho says, “I don’t shop in malls.”
Changmin stares. What kind of person doesn’t shop in malls? That’s just bizarre. “But you can check, right?” he insists, jabbing at the phone on the dashboard. “You can call someone in your super-secret headquarters and they can tell you who I am. In fact, shouldn’t you be calling your super-secret headquarters anyway to report on this monumental fuck-up?”
Yunho gives him a mild glance. “Is it a fuck-up?”
“You’ve got the wrong guy, so yes. It’s a fuck-up. A big one.” Changmin describes a circle in the air with his hands just to show how big and fucked-up this is. “Actually, it’s bigger than that. I was in the middle of a shoot. A photo shoot, not something with guns and-and spies and...” The enormity of what’s happened catches up with him. He puts a hand to the back of his head and scruffs up his hair over and over, moans, “Oh shit, shit, you have to let me go, I have to go back there-”
“You really don’t,” Yunho tells him, maddeningly calm.
“You don’t understand!” Changmin hears his voice slide towards a wail of despair. “I’m wearing eighteen thousand dollars worth of clothes and accessories that aren’t mine! My hair’s a mess and I’m covered in broken glass. Glass! Because some crazy bastard shot at the taxi!”
Yunho tilts his head. “Your hair looks good to me.”
Changmin stares again, suspecting mockery. Yunho gazes back at him. The compliment, if that’s what it was, seems genuine.
“And just so we’re clear,” Yunho adds, “the gunman shot at you. Not the taxi.”
“Why?”
“Maybe he didn’t like your scarf.”
Laughter bubbles up. Changmin chokes on it, almost hysterical. He claws his fingernails into his palms and feels the cuts on the back of his hands pull. “Tell me the real reason.”
“The scarf is kind of ugly.” Yunho flicks up one of the trailing ends like a cat playing with a piece of string. “Is this part of the eighteen thousand dollars or is it one of those ‘model’s own’ things?”
“Versace,” Changmin tells him. “Three hundred and sixty dollars. Not mine, but I do have two like it at home.”
Yunho tuts, shakes his head. Looks out of the window. His fingers are still entwined in the end of the scarf.
On some level, Changmin recognises that Yunho is trying to distract him with gibberish to downplay the situation, but now they’re sitting here in dull, boring safety, there’s nothing for him to focus on and there’s nothing to stop the aftershocks of panic. He takes a deep breath and flinches from the mental replay of the gunshot, the glass shattering all over him. The more he tries not to think about it, the more it spools through his mind.
“Look,” he says, “I’ve watched quite a few cop shows and apart from stakeouts, which involve doughnuts, no one sits around for ages doing nothing. It’s a waste of resources or something.”
“I don’t like doughnuts.” Yunho stops fiddling with Changmin’s scarf. “And it’s very kind of you to worry about wasting government resources, but you don’t need to bother. I assure you, your taxes are being put to good use elsewhere.”
Changmin clamps a hand over his forehead and closes his eyes. “Please tell me what the hell is happening here and when you’re going to let me go.”
Yunho taps his fingers on the steering wheel. “We’re waiting,” he says. “Ops will contact me in due course. Until then, we’re waiting for my colleagues to report back and waiting for the scene to be examined.” He darts a look at Changmin. “If you really are an innocent bystander...”
“I am.”
“Well, then, you just blundered into a highly technical criminal investigation.” Yunho sounds cynical. “Most of this stuff is classified. Short version: there’s an organisation trading in some very nasty weapons. A member of that organisation made contact with us, offering information. He refused to identify himself but gave enough details that it was obvious he ranked within the inner circle of the organisation. He promised to deliver further information, along with himself. The pick-up was due for today. It was all supposed to be very casual-the informant goes out shopping, stops at a particular corner at a particular time and hails a particular cab, gives the driver a particular address agreed upon in advance as a signal...”
Changmin thinks about this, considers everything that could go wrong-that has gone wrong-with the plan. “What a stupid idea.”
Yunho tips his head back against the seat. “Tell me about it.”
“Not your idea, then?”
A scowl, and Yunho says, “Some of the best brains in the country came up with that one. Most of them don’t know how to operate the coffee machine.”
Changmin presses his lips together to stop from laughing. “Coffee machines can be tricky.”
“Not this one.” Yunho sits up straight and brightens slightly. “Just give it a good thump halfway towards the back and you get free shit. Only good if you like cappuccino, though.”
“You don’t like cappuccino?”
“If it’s free. Otherwise I wouldn’t touch it.” Yunho’s eyebrows flash up and down. He almost smiles. “Needs must.”
Changmin catches his breath on that almost-smile. “Quite,” he croaks, throat going dry. Fuck, Yunho is hot. He’d be lethal if he smiled. Absolutely and completely lethal. Changmin’s carefully collected control strews itself all over the place again. He makes a small, frustrated noise that’s halfway to a moan of pure need.
Yunho looks at him, curious now. Changmin feels the heat rise to his face, but forces himself to hold Yunho’s gaze. They stare at each other, moments ticking away. It’s like all the air has been sucked out of the taxi. Changmin’s on the verge of doing something very, very stupid-really stupid, like trying to kiss him-when Yunho’s phone starts ringing and the moment is broken.
*
“So this is a safe house.” Changmin stands in the hallway, unsure whether or not to remove his shoes. The floor looks like it could do with a good clean. There’s a musty smell to the whole place, as if it hasn’t been used for a while. Maybe not since 1982, judging by the decor.
“This is a safe house,” Yunho agrees, strolling into the living room. He keeps his shoes on. Probably he couldn’t care less about dirty floors, but inside his shoes there’s C4 explosive and a Swiss Army penknife or something, so he’s not allowed to take them off.
Changmin follows him, looks around the room. Horizontal blinds at the window, angled so the afternoon light drips through. A flurry of dust motes in the air as Yunho walks around. An old TV set in the corner and a collection of VHS tapes. A bookshelf full of paperbacks and jigsaw puzzles. Saggy armchairs and a matching couch marshalled around a cheap formica coffee table holding a pile of magazines. There’s a sadness here, imprinted into the walls. Boredom and hope and sadness.
“Make yourself comfortable,” Yunho says.
That doesn’t seem possible in a place like this, but Changmin sits on the sofa anyway, wincing at the puff of dust that escapes the cushions. Why couldn’t they have gone to a hotel? He’d gladly have put it on account. Even a standard suite would be better than this. But no, Yunho’s orders were to take the package-Changmin isn’t sure he likes being a package-to the safe house and then to report for further instructions.
The stack of magazines on the coffee table attracts his interest. Changmin sifts through them, unable to keep the grimace from his face as more dust and the velvet threads of a spider web drift free. Most of the magazines feature cars and motorbikes, but near the bottom of the pile are a couple of editions of GQ and Vogue. He recognises a cover, makes a pleased sound, and starts turning the pages.
“Here,” he says. “Look here, Agent Jung.” He finds the feature, turns the magazine around and pushes it across the table. “My first photo-spread for Vogue, two years ago.”
Yunho comes over to look. Picks up the magazine, turns the pages. He spends a long time studying the pictures and glancing up at Changmin, comparing them.
Changmin huffs. “I’ve grown into my face since then. Obviously.”
“Obviously.” Yunho returns the magazine to the table, pages still open.
Looking at the magazine, Changmin swallows. He’d kind of forgotten the last image in the spread. The one of him half naked, wearing buff-coloured, skin-tight jodhpurs tucked into high, shiny equestrian boots. The one with the streak of baby oil daubed from his chest to his abs so the light glimmers from his skin and catches the camera’s eye. The one where he’s holding a riding crop behind his back, the tension in his arms exquisite and suggestive. The one of him looking insufferably arrogant and knowing and hungry.
He almost flinches from the picture. He’s done far more revealing photo shoots since then in terms of nudity, but this was the first time an image had been about him rather than the clothes. The catalogues and magazines he’d modelled for previously had held the opinion that he was nothing more than a mannequin to present their fashion to best advantage. There’d been no concepts, no gimmicks; just him and the clothes. With the leap into high fashion, that all changed. They wanted personality and rawness. Sure, they wanted him to wear the clothes; but they wanted him to bleed for them, too.
Changmin stares at his younger self. This is the picture that catapulted him to fame. Every single copy of this edition sold out. He’s seen this photo, just this one page, for sale online for two hundred times the cover price of the magazine.
He can’t look at himself much longer. It’s starting to hurt, and he doesn’t know why. Maybe because he’s not that boy any more, hasn’t been that boy for a long time. Changmin closes the magazine and buries it at the bottom of the pile.
There’s an oddly-charged silence. Yunho puts his hands in his pockets and rocks on his feet. “Now we’re here,” he says, “I’ll get Ops to run a check on you.”
Changmin looks up. “Why? I just showed you my sodding photos in Vogue and that’s not good enough for you?” He scrubs at the back of his head, fingers scrunching his hair. “What the hell, why don’t you Google me? Go on, it’ll be quicker and just as informative.”
“I have to follow procedure.”
“No, you don’t trust me.” Changmin breathes out a frustrated sigh. “Even though it’s patently obvious I have nothing to do with your super-secret, super-fail pick-up, you still don’t believe me. Oh, wait-it’s because you’re a spy, and spies never trust anyone.”
Yunho looks annoyed. “I’m not a spy.”
“Cop, then. Government agent. Officer of the law.”
“My job description inhabits something of a grey area,” Yunho says. It’s the closest he’s come to humour. There’s a flash of amusement in his eyes, the sweet, slight hint of a smile on his lips.
Changmin waits for the smile to blossom. When it doesn’t, he says softly, “You should smile more.”
“What, like you?” Yunho’s expression closes down. “Sorry. That was-”
“Rude,” Changmin supplies. “But yeah. Models aren’t required to smile.”
“Neither am I.” Yunho takes out his phone and retreats to the other side of the room to make his call.
Easing back gingerly onto the dusty couch, Changmin watches Yunho speaking a bunch of coded babble into the phone. It’s a shame about the flat ass, but God, the rest of him looks pretty damn amazing, all thighs and shoulders and long, lean body poured into all that black-black jeans, black top, black jacket, black gun. Oh yeah, the gun.
Changmin bites his lip. He wants to know more about this guy, why he stopped smiling. Then Changmin realises he doesn’t really want to know why Yunho stopped smiling. No, he wants to be the one to make him smile again. A real smile, not something polite. And not one of those patronising, nervous smiles everyone always gives him. Get someone to smile at you with genuine amusement and the next step is interest, and after that comes attraction, and after that comes fucking, and...
He throws a roadblock in front of his excitable thoughts. Baby steps. First, make Agent Jung smile. Changmin wonders how best to accomplish his task. He’s not sure he can rely on his charm. It never seems to work on anyone else.
“They’re looking into you,” Yunho tells him as he finishes his call. “Soon enough they’ll know everything about you. Where you grew up, your favourite food-”
Changmin interrupts. “I can tell you all that.”
Yunho ignores him. “-the names of your friends, who you sleep with...”
“I can tell you that, too.” Changmin grasps onto the suggestion, libido stirring again at the thought of talking dirty to Yunho. He gets up from the sofa and catwalks towards him, fixing Yunho with his professional gaze, flirting. “I’d love to tell you, Agent Jung. I’m not ashamed of who I fuck. Let me tell you. It’s not like we have anything else to do. Let me tell you about my lovers. I’m happy to share every sordid little detail.”
There’s a flicker of some emotion in Yunho’s eyes. Interest? Lust? Changmin very much hopes for the latter. It’s gone in a second, but it’s enough for now, enough for him to build upon. Changmin goes closer, fluffs his hair, draws a suggestive hand down the length of his scarf.
Yunho watches him. “That really is an ugly scarf.”
Not the response Changmin was hoping for. He circles around Yunho, reaches out to touch the butt of the pistol tucked into his jeans.
Yunho turns his head. “Don’t go grabbing anything back there.”
Changmin snorts. “There’s nothing to grab except-” He stops. Good job, Shim. Insult the guy, why don’t you. “I wasn’t grabbing anything, okay? I was just... looking.”
“At the gun or at my sad lack of an ass?” Yunho sounds amused.
Changmin takes this as a positive sign. Maybe he’s not so bad at flirting after all. “I was wondering where you keep your handcuffs.”
Silence. Yunho’s shoulders have gone tight, his voice running cold when he says, “I don’t have them with me. Not on this operation.”
It’s such a weird reaction that Changmin pursues it without thought. “Is that what got you into trouble?”
Yunho faces him. “What?”
“Handcuffs.” Changmin twists his hair around a finger and widens his eyes. “You said one of your New Year’s resolutions was to stop being so enthusiastic. Did you get all smiley and talkative with one of your suspects? Did you break out the handcuffs and share your enthusiasm?”
“That’s classified.” Yunho is motionless, so still it’s unnerving, his gaze dark and-and... wounded.
Realisation kicks. Changmin stares, lips parting on an exhalation of surprise. “You did, didn’t you? What happened, did you fall for someone you shouldn’t? Did you-”
“He got hurt because of me,” Yunho says, harsh and clipped. “I was demoted. He went into witness protection. Him and his wife.”
A longer silence. Changmin doesn’t know what to say.
Yunho shoots him a look full of anger and embarrassment. “I have a habit of falling for unattainable guys.”
You could have me. The words curl on the tip of Changmin’s tongue, but he doesn’t let them out. Instead he says, “I’m sorry. That sucks.”
“Yeah.” Yunho turns away from him and goes over to sit on a wooden chair beside the bookshelf. It doesn’t look comfortable, but maybe that’s the point.
Guilt wriggles inside Changmin. He feels bad, like he’d laughed at someone who slipped on a banana skin and then realised they’d broken their arm. He glances about the room, adjusts the scarf around his neck, then says, “Maybe someone left some cigarettes here. I’m going to look.”
It doesn’t take long to explore the rest of the apartment. Two bedrooms, wardrobes and drawers empty, quilts with faded patterns folded on the mattresses, a beat-up teddy bear lying beside the pillow in the smaller room. The kitchen is cold, the surfaces ripe with dust. A wizened orange sits shrunken in a fruit bowl. There’s smears on the glass top of the hob alongside baked-on bits of crap.
Changmin opens the cupboards. In the absence of cigarettes, maybe there’s some food. He finds a ten-pack of ramen, sell-by date November 2009. Does ramen go off? It’s chicken flavoured, if that makes any difference. He wrinkles his nose and closes the cupboard door. Leaning against it, he calls out, “How long are we going to be stuck here?”
“As long as it takes,” comes the enlightening answer.
Restless, Changmin wanders out of the kitchen and goes to the far end of the hall to inspect the bathroom. It’s small and basic but clean, or at least cleaner than the rest of the safe house, and there’s a towel and nice selection of soaps and shampoos and lotions arranged in a basket, all of them looking like they’ve been taken from up-market hotels.
He itches with the desire to be clean, to wash off the panic of the shooting. He’s pretty sure he shook out all the broken glass when he got out of the taxi, but it wouldn’t hurt to bathe and make sure of it. Changmin runs the mixer tap to test the temperature, then goes back into the living room. “I’m going to have a shower.”
Yunho looks up. “Fine. Take your clothes off here.”
Changmin goes cold, then hot. “What did you say?”
The chair creaks as Yunho leans back and folds his arms. “You haven’t been cleared as a suspect yet, so unless you want me to stand in the bathroom and watch you get wet, you have to take your clothes off in front of me. Just in case you are a super-secret spy and you’re hiding something beneath your eighteen-thousand-dollar outfit.”
“I’m not, and I’m not.” To prove it, Changmin pulls at his scarf so fast it burns the side of his neck. He hisses in annoyance, unloops the rest of the scarf slowly and lets it drop to the floor. His leather jacket next. He shrugs out of it, hears it fall. Four thousand five hundred dollars worth of kangaroo leather discarded just like that. Now for the cardigan-jacket. Eau de nil is such a vile colour. Changmin wrestles free of the knitwear with a triumphant sound.
It wasn’t his intention to make a game of this-he really does just want to take a shower-but when he looks up, he realises that Yunho is watching him with a little more than professional interest.
Changmin is accustomed to people staring at him. He’s long since locked away his shyness at being seen naked; his body is just the tool he uses to do his job. He learned long ago how to divide his professional self from his private, intimate self, but right here, right now, those lines are blurring. No matter how much he pretends this is like any other working day, it’s not.
Maybe it’ll be easier if he coaxes some reality into this situation. Or does he mean fantasy? The lines are not just blurring now; they’re running and fading. Changmin draws in a breath, slows down and smiles as he unfastens his wristwatch. “You know, this would be sexier if you made me strip at gunpoint.”
Yunho quirks one eyebrow. “That would be a violation of your rights.”
The watch is tossed on top of the knitwear. Changmin unbuckles his belt. “But aren’t I a suspect?”
“You still have some rights.”
The belt slithers free, lands with a clatter on the floor. “It’ll be hot,” Changmin says, hooking one hand beneath his t-shirt. He arches his back slightly; lifts the t-shirt to reveal glimpses of his abs, strokes his fingers over the faint stripe of hair leading down from his navel. “Go on,” he urges. “Take out your sexy big gun and point it at me. Force me to strip.”
Yunho looks like he’s about to laugh. “Get undressed, or...”
“Or what?” Changmin demands. “You’ll undress me yourself?”
“I’ll put you in the shower fully clothed.”
“Then I’ll have to sit around naked until my clothes dry off.”
The slightest glimmer of a smile teases at Yunho’s mouth. “Not my problem.”
“Oh, so you do want me to be naked?” Changmin says, lifting the t-shirt higher, letting it twist around his torso just below his chest.
In a sudden snap of motion, Yunho rocks forward in the chair, hand going behind him then lifting, the gun held in his grip. “Yes. Now.”
Changmin’s head empties of everything except the slow, heavy pulse of arousal. This should not be sexy. It’s not sexy, no, no, not at all. He has a gun pointed at him for the second time today, nothing sexy about that, and yet he’s so turned on he can barely breathe. It’s fear, that’s what it is. Fear confused as desire, and God, God, he wants it.
“Strip,” Yunho says.
Changmin shivers, the order trickling over him like syrup. He moves with caution, takes off one shoe, then the other. Lifts his t-shirt, pulls it over his head. The motion disorders his hair, makes it fluff out in a messy halo, and he hears Yunho make a sound, just a little noise, a sort of low, growly noise, and Changmin shivers again. Off come his jeans, then his underwear, and then he stands there naked.
Yunho stares at Changmin’s erection. For a long moment he remains expressionless, and then his lips part and his tongue dabs out, just touches the middle of his pouty lower lip, and it’s so sexy Changmin doesn’t know what he wants to do first, kiss him or lick him or beg for a blowjob.
The decision isn’t his to make. Yunho rakes his gaze back up Changmin’s body and makes a gesture of dismissal with the gun. “Take your shower.”
“You could come with me,” Changmin blurts out.
They stare at each other. Yunho looks tempted. Tormented. There’s a click as he thumbs off the safety catch. He points the gun this time, aims it properly. “Go.”
Weak with lust, Changmin flees.
*
He runs the shower as hot as he can bear it and gets himself wet all over. Water streams through his hair, into his eyes, pounds against his back and chest as he turns beneath the spray. His skin pinks up in the heat. Changmin chooses shampoo and conditioner and washes his hair. He does it twice. Only then does he feel calmer. Only then does he uncap the shower gel and slide his hands over his body.
His cock rears up again. God, he’s too easy. Not his fault. It’s because of Agent Jung. Sexy, sexy Agent Jung. Changmin thinks of the gun and Yunho’s mouth and the way he kicked in the rear window of the taxi. Thinks of the photo in his ID and that smile. Changmin groans, the sound bouncing from the wet tiles. If only Yunho would smile at him. Handcuffs and guns would be completely unnecessary. Just one smile. He’d give anything to see it.
Changmin teases a hand down to his cock. Closing his eyes, he faces into the spray, the water masking the heat in his cheeks. If only Yunho had followed him into the bathroom, he wouldn’t have to get himself off. Setting his teeth against the coiling of pleasure, Changmin cups his balls, tugs them down a little, then firms his hand around his dick and starts stroking.
None of his usual fantasies will do. He replays the events of the last few hours, alters them to his preference. Yunho fucking him on the back seat of the taxi, across the bonnet of the car, the engine still warm beneath their hands. Oh, hands-handcuffs, Yunho snapping the steel bracelets around his wrists, rendering Changmin helpless. Yunho going down on his knees on the dusty floor of the safe house and sucking Changmin’s cock.
“Please,” Changmin moans, echoing his imaginary self. “Want you. Yes.”
The door bangs open and hits the wall with a crash.
“Shit!” Yanked from his fantasy, Changmin jolts back from the spray of hot water, his hand still wrapped around his cock. His hair whips into his eyes as he turns. Cold air from the hallway whispers in and raises goosebumps, puckers his nipples tight. He doesn’t think he’s ever felt more exposed.
Yunho stands in the doorway, his anger palpable. He’s holding something tiny and metallic. It looks like a flash drive for a doll’s house computer.
“This,” Yunho grinds out, gaze like a storm front. “Where did you get this?”
Changmin stares. Okay, this is so not the time to be caught with his dick in his hand. His erection is kind of wilting anyway, although some traitorous part of his mind is turning somersaults and informing him that angry Agent Jung is really fucking hot. Although Changmin agrees with that part of his mind, self-preservation makes him answer the question. “I’ve never seen it before.”
“It was in your left jacket pocket.”
The intensity of Yunho’s gaze flash-fries Changmin’s insides. “Then I didn’t put it there. Everything I was wearing was brand new and provided for the photo shoot.”
“It was in the shapeless woollen thing, not the leather jacket.” Yunho tucks the flash drive or microchip or whatever it is into his own pocket and advances into the room. “You were wearing the leather jacket over the top.”
Changmin refuses to be cowed. He lifts his chin. “So?”
“So if someone had slipped the drive into your pocket, they’d have put it in the outside pocket,” Yunho snaps. “Not in a pocket that’s on a second jacket underneath.”
“Wait.” That shakes a memory loose. “Someone did bump against me on the street right before you picked me up.”
“Now you remember. How convenient.” Yunho’s expression is full of disbelief and-is that regret?
The idea that Yunho feels disappointed in him makes Changmin just as angry. He flips his drenched hair, glares at Yunho. “Excuse me for not being a highly trained ninja. Weren’t you the one doing the damn pick-up in the first place? Isn’t it your job to stay alert and look for things like that?”
Fury burns through Yunho’s expression. “My job is to keep this country safe, not to babysit fucking civilians who may or may not know more than they’re telling!”
“I have nothing to hide.” Changmin spreads his arms, presents himself naked and wet, half aroused, half cold, wholly uncertain except for in the knowledge of his innocence. “Nothing at all.”
Yunho stares at him. “Maybe.”
It hurts that Yunho still doesn’t trust him. It really hurts, and the indignation makes Changmin reckless. “What, do you think I keep state secrets hidden in my ass? Maybe you should check, just to make sure.”
Something hot and violent leaps into Yunho’s eyes, and then his features go blank. “Maybe I should.”
Changmin yelps as Yunho barrels across the room and drags him from the shower. The water hammers onto the floor of the cubicle. Helpless and vulnerable and slippery, Changmin wrenches against Yunho and finds himself shoved up against the wall. His palms flatten; he turns his head, cheek pressed over steam-wet tiles. Yunho shoves him again, and Changmin gasps as his chest makes contact with the wall. Fuck, it’s cold. His nipples pinch tighter. His cock pulses with need as he bucks against Yunho’s controlling hands.
“Stay still,” Yunho snaps.
Changmin has no intention of obeying. At least, not yet. He squirms, excitement sharpening, lust grabbing at him, until Yunho forces Changmin’s legs apart and pushes him forward so his ass sticks out.
“God, no,” Changmin says, but he’s hard now, even harder than when he was jerking off under the shower, and he thrusts back some more, wanting Yunho’s hands on him. Shivery with cold and anticipation, he closes his eyes. He hears Yunho scuffle through the bottles of gel and lotion, holds his breath at the sound of a plastic lid snapping open. Then comes the squeezy ooze of liquid and the scent of some intoxicatingly sweet flower.
Dizzy, drowning, Changmin turns his head and presses his lips to the wall. Yunho steps up behind him, fully dressed against Changmin’s nakedness. It feels lewd and filthy and so fucking exciting that Changmin humps the wall. Yunho leans in close, rolls his hips forward so Changmin can feel the hard, heavy shape of Yunho’s cock pressing against his ass. Yunho takes a handful of Changmin’s hair, licks up the back of his neck from shoulder to ear, sucks Changmin’s earlobe between his lips then bites down on it, hard and sharp.
Changmin’s knees buckle. “Unh. Oh fuck.”
“Mm-hmm,” Yunho purrs in Changmin’s ear before he nibbles his way around the helix, flicking his tongue inside.
Changmin’s bones turn to water and slide on out of him. He braces himself, pushes back, feels Yunho’s free hand against his thighs, fingers cool and slippery with lotion.
“Open up for me,” Yunho says.
A sound halfway between a whimper and a moan escapes Changmin’s parted lips. “Please,” he begs, as mindlessly as in his fantasy. “You mustn’t. It’s-it’s a...”
Yunho slicks his wet fingers through Changmin’s crack, slipping and sliding over sensitive flesh. The tip of his forefinger circles Changmin’s hole. “It’s,” he notches his fingertip, pushes deep, “a violation,” pushes all the way in, “of your rights.”
Changmin blanks out with pleasure. “Oh,” he breathes. “Oh. Oh.” There are other letters in the alphabet, but he can’t remember them right now. Oh seems just about perfect for expressing what he’s feeling, so big and round and open and-
Another finger. They arrow straight into him, brush against the bundle of nerves inside him, and Changmin jerks forward so hard he bangs his head on the wall. White flashes sprinkle his vision; pain flares then fades, muted by desire. “God, yes,” Changmin moans, rolling his forehead against the steam-dewed tiles. “Violate my rights some more.”
Yunho chuckles, the sound making Changmin weak. One more finger, stretching and widening, fucking into him, the lotion dribbling and squishing.
“Have you...” Changmin gasps out, “found... what you’re looking for?”
“Maybe,” Yunho says.
The word resonates all the way down Changmin’s spine and wraps around his balls. He screws himself back onto Yunho’s hand, hips doing a slow, instinctive grind. He pants against the wall, misting the tiles. “Want your cock.”
“No.” Yunho changes the angle of his thrusting hand, curls his fingers just so.
Changmin whines. “Fuck. Just-just keep on doing that. Oh yeah. Right there. Right-there.”
He lets go of the wall with one hand and grabs for his cock, works it without any kind of finesse, just desperate, greedy need. Pressure builds, sensation stacking up higher and higher. Changmin opens his mouth, gasps. The room folds in on itself, the patter of water in the shower, the drape of the steam, the chill from the open door brushing up one side of his body. Yunho presses tight and warm against him, fingers fucking him mercilessly as he sucks and bites at the back of Changmin’s neck, grazing his earlobe, raising bruises all the way up.
His heart pounds, faster, faster, a gorgeous, frantic feeling rising against Yunho’s touch. For all that it’s his hand around his cock, Changmin isn’t controlling his orgasm. It’s being coaxed from him, no, forced out of him, and the thought turns him into a hot mess. “Yes,” he chokes, “yes yes yes,” and the last word is tight and explosive, counterpoint to the climax that slams through him and makes him spurt all over the wall.
“Fuck,” Yunho says, and slides his fingers out of Changmin’s ass in a hurry. The rattle of a belt, the purr of a zip, and then Changmin feels the brush of knuckles against his bum and realises that Yunho is jerking off over him. Within moments he feels the hot splash of semen striping his back, his ass, Yunho coming again and again until it feels like he’s covered in thick, dribbly scribbles of warm, wet seed.
Yunho takes a half step back to avoid smearing spunk over his clothes, but one arm still rests heavily against Changmin’s shoulders and his hand is still curled tight in Changmin’s hair, his breath swift and warm on Changmin’s damp skin.
Changmin thinks he’s just been ruined for casual hook-ups in the future.
He wants to say this out loud, wants to see Yunho’s reaction, maybe even see him smile, but he stays where he is, breathing in steam, face pressed to the wall, fingers curled loosely against the tiles, Yunho’s seed slow-sliding down his back and ass and thighs.
The phone rings.
Yunho answers it. He sounds a little shell-shocked, and Changmin is glad he’s not the only one. A pause, and then Yunho goes out of the bathroom, pitching his voice low as he starts talking.
Changmin turns around, leans against the wall for a moment, then forces himself to move. The reminder of pleasure twists through him as he clambers back into the shower and washes himself clean for the second time. When he turns off the water, the silence seems strange. He reaches for the towel, rubs at his hair, then at his body, drying himself with rough strokes.
Yunho comes back. His face is impossible to read. “Ops have the informant safely in custody. Apparently he panicked and changed his mind right before the pick-up. He thought he’d roused suspicion amongst his colleagues, suspected he was being followed, so he ditched the flash drive and ran.”
Changmin wraps the towel around his waist. “So he was the man who bumped into me on the street.”
“Yes.” Embarrassment squirms through Yunho’s expression. “He said he’d slipped the flash drive into the pocket of, and I quote: ‘a tall, lanky guy wearing a horrible scarf’.”
“No one likes Versace. Such a shame.” Changmin tries a smile. “Now what?”
“Now you’re free to go.” Another embarrassed look. Yunho slides his gaze sideways. “Ops said I should thank you for your patience and fortitude. Also they ordered me to offer you all possible assistance.”
Changmin laughs, short and breathless. “Well, you certainly did that.”
Yunho turns his head. He seems conflicted. “Get ready. I’ll take you back.”
“Back?”
“Back to your photo shoot.” Yunho makes a vague gesture. He won’t even look at him. “You were in the middle of something.”
“So were we,” Changmin says, very softly.
Yunho stares at the floor, then gathers himself and glances at Changmin, uncertainty replaced by professional distance. “Get dressed,” he says. “We’re leaving.”
*
Yunho parks the taxi a short distance from the line of police tape that marks off the street corner. “I’ll come up with you,” he says. “I’ll explain to the photographer and magazine representative or whoever that you aren’t to blame for the delay.”
Changmin gives him a startled look. “You don’t need to do that.” He laughs, the sound without humour. “I told them I was going out for cigarettes. They probably didn’t notice the gunfire. They probably thought I’d gone home in a fit of pique.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because I’m a supermodel.” Changmin wrinkles his nose. “I’m supposed to have tantrums when my needs aren’t met.”
Yunho almost smiles. “Really.”
“Really.”
The interior of the car goes still and quiet. Changmin fidgets just to break the tension. He thinks of the day behind him, thinks of Yunho’s fingers inside him, Yunho’s mouth on his skin, and even though it’s madness, stupid, impossible madness, he blurts, “I’m attainable.”
Yunho looks at him. “What?”
“I’m attainable.” Changmin meets his gaze. “If you wanted it. If you wanted me.”
A pause, long and awkward, and then Yunho says, “You’re a supermodel.”
Changmin stares. “Does that make a difference?”
“Maybe.”
The response cuts deep. Changmin draws in a shivery breath. Exhales. Words build, arguments and protests tumbling together, but before he can get them out, Yunho takes the keys from the ignition and opens the door. “Let’s go. They’ll be waiting for you.”
Changmin follows him inside, feeling flat and wrung-out. He manages a smile when his manager races towards him, all flailing arms and exclamations of joy. The photographer, his assistant, the female model, the rest of the staff-they all crowd around talking at once, telling him about the shooting, how they were so worried, how they hadn’t been able to do any work because they were waiting for him and praying that he was safe.
At that point, Yunho takes out his NDI credentials and flashes them around, which only adds to the hubbub. In carefully-chosen words that give nothing away, he praises Changmin for his assistance then shakes his hand. Shakes his fucking hand, as if he really had been of great help to the NDI rather than a liability.
Yunho leaves with a generous portion of the brie and grapes wrapped in a paper towel. Changmin tells himself he didn’t really expect an invitation to dinner or Yunho’s phone number or anything else like that. He doesn’t look outside to watch the taxi with no rear window drive away. No, he allows the make-up artist to sit him down and reminds himself that he’s not just a civilian who blundered into a super-secret government operation by mistake. He’s not just a meaningless shag, either. He’s a supermodel.
He still feels flat. This would be a good time for him to call a halt to the shoot, to say he needed to go home and rest and recover. No one would blame him. They’d all understand. But he doesn’t do that. Instead he sits there and remembers Yunho’s hands on him, and he smiles when the make-up girl moves his scarf and uncovers the love-bites. She stares, and Changmin grins. He keeps on smiling even when she dabs concealer over the bruises. He smiles his way onto the set, and the female model smiles back at him, shy at first, and then when Changmin beams even more, her smile deepens and she laughs.
“That’s it!” the photographer cries, and snaps off picture after picture.
The shoot wraps two and a half hours later. It’s dark now, and Changmin rejects a ride home in his manager’s car in favour of catching a taxi. This time he’s dressed in his usual clothes and he has money and his phone, and this time the first taxi he sees cruises on past him. When he finally manages to flag one down, the driver is fat and balding and smells of onions. Even so, as Changmin slides into the back seat and gives his address, a frisson of lust goes through him. Probably he’ll never be able to get into a taxi again without feeling horny.
He gets home, takes the lift up to the eighteenth floor of the condo. As he unlocks his apartment door, Changmin realises he forgot to buy more cigarettes. Whatever. He can do without for tonight.
The door clicks open. He goes inside, taps in the security code, then bends to take off his shoes. When he straightens, he notices the little flashing light on the control panel. He looks at it. System reset: Zone 3.
Changmin turns, heart leaping, and strides into his bedroom.
Yunho is sprawled on the bed, his shoes and socks and jacket in a heap on the floor. A strip of condoms and a bottle of lube lie on the duvet. A pair of handcuffs dangles from his finger. He smiles. “Hi.”
Oh yes, that's the smile he's been waiting for. Changmin stops in his tracks, mesmerised.
Yunho smiles some more, deep and sweet and utterly disarming. “So,” he says, “shall we try that again?”