[C82] MR. AND MR. KIM (2/2)
Prompt Code: C82
Title: Mr. and Mr. Kim
Jongin has no arsenal standard for ‘terminate-your-husband-who-is-also-a-veteran-hitman’, so he goes for both the matches and the flamethrower. He has ‘Nikita’, his H&K USP loyal favorite, and the VP70Z semi-automatic he hasn’t used since San Francisco. He takes one spare magazine for each and foregoes all the garnish. He contemplates the bulletproof vest only for a second before he decides against it. The vest will not protect against the kinds of wounds this will inflict.
As Jongin drives down into the underground parking of their complex, near the stroke of midnight, he wonders how Kyungsoo will greet him. Will it be a straightforward shot to start the game or perhaps another display of his acting prowess so he can engage in close-range combat of which he is supposedly an expert?
Jongin exits the vehicle, the firepower on his torso weighing down each step as he passes concrete column by concrete column toward their building entrance.
The sound of a shot makes Jongin stop cold in his tracks. Maybe a hundred and fifty meter away. Muffled by a silencer but undeniably a gunshot and it activates Jongin’s instincts immediately. He lowers his body, hands bringing out Nikita and back sliding against a column fast, head inching toward the direction of the shot. Commotion ensues, more gunshots are fired, but landing on metal, the ricochets sounding more panicked and less precise. Jongin steps his way closer to the noise, carefully behind cars and columns. There is a stunned grunt, sounding suspiciously familiar, and the rackets of physical combat follow.
It is when Jongin hears fragments of Kyungsoo’s low angry murmur echo in the chilled, cement underground that he breaks his slow crawl to a sprint toward the origin of sound. He bursts from the side of a red Sedan and instantly spots two blurs in clearing ahead - Kyungsoo, in his grey turtleneck and jeans, and a lean, taller figure, clad in full black from baseball cap to shoes. Professional killer.
If there was any shred of doubt left in Jongin that Kyungsoo could not be an assassin specializing in close range combat, there is none now. Jongin is stunned to the spot momentarily as he watches his husband of six years overpower the taller figure. Kyungsoo is swift, frighteningly so, as every maneuver flows smooth from his lithe form but lands hard on impact. Precise and strategized, each contact brings his opponent lower, even though Kyungsoo must be a head shorter. It takes maybe fifteen seconds for Kyungsoo to pin his adversary on the ground, finish unarming the assailant with his left hand while his right already grips the Beretta 92fs that was shooting at him a minute ago, pointed straight under the flap of the cap.
“Don’t make me ask again.” Kyungsoo uses the barrel to tip the snapback off roughly and presses the muzzle into the now exposed forehead. Jongin sees blond strands ruffling loose from the cap.
“I’m your husband’s intern.” Comes Sehun’s monotone drawl. From a hundred meters away, it sounds like a hazy parody of his bored voice, bouncing off the concrete for a short playback. Jongin freezes in total shock and confusion.
As if on cue, Kyungsoo turns to look dead in Jongin’s direction. Kyungsoo meets his eyes momentarily, and Jongin cannot unfreeze from the end of the parking lot corridor. Then, his husband’s gaze shifts to Nikita, limp in Jongin’s hands. There is no pause as Kyungsoo bounces up from restraining Sehun on the ground with feline dexterity.
In slow motion, Kyungsoo gets up and runs towards the building entrance, a grey blur in his speed, Sehun flips upright from the ground, grabs the pistol from his back that Kyungsoo didn’t manage to uncover, and squares his shoulders while raising it to lock target on Kyungsoo’s head. Jongin acts without needing to think. He crosses the distance in a breath and is on Sehun before he can even slide to load.
Jongin attempts to slap the gun away but it seems like Sehun did manage to learn something from those two weeks of workshops and dodges Jongin to the left. The gun is momentarily lowered however, and Jongin takes the opportunity to wring it from his hands, not caring that he had to drop Nikita in the process. Jongin deftly kicks the two guns away. He turns, in a hurry, to look at the building entrance, but of course, Kyungsoo is gone. He whips back in a rage and Sehun has his arms out, ready for his second round of sparring tonight.
Jongin may not be as skillful as Kyungsoo, but put against The Noodle? Jongin could take him blind. He trained the bastard after all. Jongin runs through all of his vices in his head. Sehun has a weak right side that results in an unbalanced offensive focus on the left. His unstable stance is easy to take advantage of and -
Sehun just hit him with a clean upper and Jongin has to stumble back a little. Jongin snaps his head back in complete astonishment and the way Sehun’s feet shift steadily as he raises both sides perfectly to defense makes Jongin think that either he improved in every aspect in the fucking blink of an eye or that Jongin didn’t really train him. At least, not the first one to.
Jongin’s brain protests from the overload of confusion. From the very moment he stepped out of the car and saw his intern take hits from his husband, he has been thrown into the deep end and this continuing trend of surprises is not helping simplify things whatsoever. Kyungsoo. He still has to go after Kyungsoo.
But Jongin deals with the first order of business, and that is wiping the small smirk off of this kid’s stupid, flat face. Understanding that nothing is to be predicted of Sehun now, Jongin brings it all, and while The Noodle may have been trained previously, he is still undoubtedly a rookie compared to Jongin’s years of experience. But as Sehun strikes and defends, Jongin realizes that in the two weeks of training, he has managed to absorb a lot more than he pretended to, and now has gained some practice on Jongin’s style. Still, Jongin is older, stronger, and angrier.
It takes Jongin a lot longer than Kyungsoo to have Sehun on the ground (again), unarmed (completely this time), with a bloody nose. Jongin grabs him straight by the collar and begins yanking him toward Jongin’s car.
“Ow. Owowowowowowowow, hyung, easy, hyung!” from the whiny son-of-a-bitch as he is unceremoniously dumped onto the back seats where Jongin takes out zip-ties, rope, and three rolls of tape.
Jongin is too livid to even dignify him with a ‘Don’t hyung me’ and binds his wrists and ankles tighter as substitute. After Jongin is sure a two hundred ton elephant won’t escape this confinement, let alone a scrawny kid, he tapes up all around the zip-ties, the handles of the cars (for potential escape) and rips a few fat pieces off of the industrial strength roll of duct tape.
“I’m going to come back. And when I do, I will want answers. For your sake you better fucking have them.”
Jongin doesn’t wait for a reply before taping, double taping, and triple taping Sehun’s mouth and slamming the car door shut.
♠
Kyungsoo
Kyungsoo’s hands don’t shake when they extract the throw blades and spare gun from the secret compartment in the countertop beneath the rice cooker, but they do when he punches in the code to open the safe in their bedroom for his favorite Eickhorn. It’s their anniversary. The one they spent together laughing, smelling of marinara and good wine, and passed, curled up to each other in rumpled sheets, smelling of slow loving and bliss. Barely a month since, but today it seems like forever ago.
Kyungsoo brings his fingers up to his lips where the taste of Jongin and vodka linger. He is still confused, like he was behind the bar, like he was when someone started to shoot at him when he got out of the car, but he is no longer confused about the fact that his husband wants to kill him. Jongin had told him that the next time he saw him, he would kill him, and by the looks of the USP in his hands in the parking lot, he meant every word.
Jongin even got his intern to ambush him. Kyungsoo wants to ask for a bit of time, just a little, not much, so he can mourn the five years they had together. So he can stop wanting to beg for an explanation every time he sees Jongin.
But whatever inner turmoil Jongin went through at the bar, he seemed to have cleared when he kissed him goodbye. That was a goodbye kiss, was it not? Jongin tasted angry, wretched, and wounded. Why he was the one who tasted like regret when Kyungsoo was the one with his heart broken was beyond him. Did Jongin grieve for their marriage? If a couple of cups of vodka was able to help him get over it then maybe Kyungsoo should try it too.
The front door buzzes with someone keying in the access code. The practiced way with which the door beeps open signal to Kyungsoo that it could be no one but Jongin. Kyungsoo is waiting, in the living room, a spoof of their usual routine, gun in hand and the other one grazing by the throw blades on his thigh when Jongin swings the door open.
He looks a little out of breath when he closes the door behind him and raises his gun too, to point at Kyungsoo. They stand still, if only for a moment.
Jongin’s pupils are dilated, Kyungsoo notices, the same when he panicked over Kyungsoo’s fever last spring, fussing and refusing to leave his side when the temperature spiked forty. He also had the same look on his face when he took Kyungsoo to the hotel rooftop where they’d met, got down on one knee, and asked him to marry him in a shaky voice. Kyungsoo thought that even fear looked gorgeous in Jongin’s eyes. But maybe he’s wrong, who knows what emotions are running through Jongin’s head. Kyungsoo thought he understood his husband but tonight he was proved wrong. He hadn’t even known his dazzling nerd ‘Head Architect’ husband was actually a mercenary.
Kyungsoo recalls the way he told him, detached, cold, and bitter, and he can’t help but feel furious anguish boil over. Jongin didn’t even have the decency to keep him ignorant. Kyungsoo would rather he strike at him with no warning at all over the half-assed, petulant way with which he broke the news. But Jongin has always been this way, selfish in his emotions, and blind. He thought Kyungsoo hid behind ’appropriate emotional distance’ when Kyungsoo’s love for him is threatening, every second, to crumble his iron stance in the living room, to pry his fingers from the gun, and to loosen the repressive discipline Kyungsoo has over the burn in his eyes.
“Just answer me this, Kyungsoo.” Jongin starts, voice low and dangerously fragile, “Was any of it real? Did you ever love me?”
Kyungsoo doesn’t think when he pulls the throw blade from the sheath and flicks it towards Jongin. It flies towards its target with the clean sound of cutting through air and grazes Jongin’s bangs, slicing a chunk right off the left side of his face, leaving a small red line where blood was filling the paper thin wound. Kyungsoo’s eyes sees full crimson and he’s breathing in deep through his nostrils because how dare he? How dare he ask him that when he’s the one who, at the prompt of an assignment from his agency, was willing to kill him. How dare Jongin tell him that he was the one who always loved him more?
Jongin touches where the blade grazed his forehead with his mouth stunned open. “Well, I guess that answers my question.”
Kyungsoo hears the smooth slide of a gun loading and he ducks just in time for the bullet to land behind him. He turns to see the shattered picture frame fall from the wall. The bullet landed right on Kyungsoo’s forehead, the photo of him smiling, close up, on their honeymoon in Malta. Kyungsoo almost laughs. How ironically appropriate. But it’s started and Kyungsoo doesn’t have time to laugh anymore. He straightens up to fire too but Jongin’s nowhere to be seen.
Kyungsoo frowns but immediately ducks into the kitchen while tucking his gun in and picking two fly blades instead. The apartment is big, with its separators and shelves, but not a place you can run or hide in. He crouches behind and under the counter.
“How much did they offer you?” Kyungsoo hears Jongin’s voice, coming from the living room, probably standing near where Kyungsoo was a moment ago. “For six long years of being a mole?”
“Five!” Kyungsoo yells over the counter, and he flinches when shots are fired into the marble, Jongin trying to approximate his location. “And.” he flings a knife towards the living room blind, “I. Don’t.” another one, “Know. What.” one more, “You’re. Talking.”, swish, “About.” his last throw blade. Kyungsoo tsks and grabs his gun.
More shots land in the marble and after Kyungsoo counts six, he resurfaces from behind the counter to stand, once again, in a standoff with Jongin, guns raised at each other’s heads. Kyungsoo’s eyes flick left and he quickly dodges left, behind the shelving unit while gunfire follows. When Kyungsoo’s behind the shelves, he shoves the spices aside and presses his thumb onto a spot hidden away in the back. The wood panel pops up and Kyungsoo grabs more spare blades from the small slot. He gets on his knees and crawls behind the counter once more to the other side of the kitchen.
When he resurfaces, he has his back against a separator wall, between the kitchen and the hallway. He peeks over and he realizes too late that he chose the wrong location. Because where Jongin’s shots land in the fabric and in the wall, on the other side of where Kyungsoo is hiding, hung all the aprons Jongin’s ever given him. Kyungsoo hears the bullets boom as they rip through the cloth and land in the cement as Jongin fires magazine after magazine into the wall. The gunfire blazes behind him but Kyungsoo feels all the shots in his lower stomach. When what must be the fourth magazine is emptied and it remains silent, Kyungsoo steps out from behind the wall slowly, with his back straight.
Jongin stands there, his empty gun abandoned, and a pool of shells beneath his feet. He chokes out a wavering “Kyungsoo…”, but Kyungsoo ignores him as he turns to see the damage.
Some aprons have been shot to pieces, lying in pink, brown, and other frayed fragments, no semblance of the designs or patterns they had. The surviving aprons on the walls are either hanging precariously by threads or have bullet holes all over, utterly destroyed.
Kyungsoo can’t help it then; he chokes back a sob as the rims of his eyes redden. He turns to look at the complete stranger and launches himself towards Jongin in total and unadulterated rage.
The impact tumbles both of them to the ground and Kyungsoo doesn’t hesitate to pummel Jongin with his fists. He lands two straight on the jaw and Kyungsoo sees a little blood at the edge of Jongin’s mouth before the third one is intercepted by Jongin’s palm and he reaches behind Kyungsoo to grab his shirt at his center of gravity to flip them over.
Kyungsoo thrashes under him, feet kicking to no avail as Jongin locks him in a straddle, and promptly land two punches as well, right to Kyungsoo’s left cheek. But Kyungsoo twists his lower body, and topples Jongin over to escape from his restraint.
The two of them stagger up and before Jongin can wipe the blood from his mouth, Kyungsoo lifts his foot and he leverages his entire body weight into a kick to the stomach. Jongin lands with a loud thud onto the wall where all the aprons hung and Kyungsoo grabs the rolling pin conveniently left out on the counter.
He swings the wooden stick onto Jongin’s forearms, put up for defense. In a flash, Jongin leans in, flips around him, and slams Kyungsoo, face first, into the wall, an arm forcing his cheek to the cold surface while the other struggles to bat the rolling pin away from Kyungsoo’s hand. “Kyungsoo,” Jongin says, “wait, let’s talk.” What is there to talk about?
While Kyungsoo squirms on the wall, he feels Jongin reach into his waistline to extract the gun and hears him fling it onto the floor. In his fury, Kyungsoo had forgotten it was even there. There was also the Eickhorn on his right side, but Jongin doesn’t uncover it. He’s desperately trying to contain the Kyungsoo aggressively fighting from his hold.
Kyungsoo’s eyes land on a piece of blue hanging off the wall right in front of his face. It’s remnants of the Pororo apron from their first anniversary, when they had just moved into this apartment, and instead of unpacking like they should have been, Jongin had stripped the apron off him along with other articles of clothing and they had made love right on the kitchen counter. Kyungsoo had later pretended to be angry that Jongin tainted the sacred image of Pororo as well the shrine that is the kitchen space with his incorrigible animalistic urges, Jongin had pretended to feel guilty.
Remembering brings a flood of warmth and fondness that hurts more than the punches or kicks or the elbow currently painfully holding him in place. Kyungsoo turns the whimper at the back of his throat into a strangled battle cry as he overpowers Jongin behind him and lands his elbow into Jongin’s gut.
Jongin staggers a few steps back and they stand, panting and bruised, facing each other.
There’s silence and Jongin is pleading with his eyes but there’s cold hatred in Kyungsoo’s. His hand is at his right thigh, where the Eickhorn is sheathed, and Kyungsoo’s eyes flick to his gun lying on the ground in the middle of the living room. Jongin seems to have followed his gaze and they simultaneously dive for it.
Jongin lands there first and Kyungsoo scrambles on top of him, Eickhorn at his hand and at Jongin’s neck in a blink. Underneath his taut arms, Jongin is pointing the gun at Kyungsoo’s chest, loaded with a click the moment Kyungsoo had the knife at his throat. It’s finished. This is the way it’ll end, Kyungsoo thinks, with Jongin’s throat slit and a bullet in his heart. The climatic ending to their tragic, pathetic love story.
Kyungsoo presses the knife harder into Jongin’s neck, and he sees red seep out from underneath the blade where it’s making a cut. Kyungsoo doesn’t close his eyes and waits for the shot. He sees himself reflected in Jongin’s irises and he can’t tell whose despair is shown in those mesmerizing browns.
The shot doesn’t come. Instead, he feels Jongin lower the gun onto the ground, and fling it away, the metal landing with a clank at the TV stand.
“Don’t!” He hears himself yell, voice cracked and shaking.
Jongin’s still looking up at him, eyes suddenly softening treacherously and Kyungsoo wants to look away. “Don’t.” He says again, but it comes out weaker this time, almost a beg. The knife he has at Jongin’s throat is still cutting into his skin, and the blood that is gathering at the wound is so vivid, sliding against the dark skin in a molten ruby.
“You want it?” Jongin whispers, craning his neck towards Kyungsoo some more. “You can have it.”
It’s his eyes that break Kyungsoo. Dark and deep, Jongin looks at him the way Jongin wakes him up on Sunday mornings, same as when they’ve pulled apart from kisses, and when he slid the ring on Kyungsoo’s finger on that fine, snowy January day.
A drop of moisture lands on Jongin’s cheeks and Kyungsoo blinks to realize his eyes are overflowing. He tries to blink the tears away but they only fall one by one, endlessly, blurring his vision and melting his resolve. Jongin reaches up with fingers that butterfly over his cheeks, wiping away the wetness, the touch so tender and frail it breaks the last of Kyungsoo’s barricades.
The knife fall away from his limp fingers like dead weight, landing on the ground with an empty clunk. Next thing Kyungsoo knows, Jongin has leaned up, and Kyungsoo grabs handfuls of Jongin’s hair while Jongin locks one hand behind Kyungsoo’s neck to smash their heads together for a kiss.
Less of a kiss, it’s more of a battle, the way Kyungsoo’s teeth tear at Jongin’s lips and mouth. Jongin fights back, pressing into him with bruising force, sucking Kyungsoo’s bottom lip into his mouth so hard it’s sure to be swollen. Kyungsoo’s lungs burn from the lack of oxygen, but every time he gasps, Jongin’s right there, sealing his airways with his tongue, insistently devouring him. It’s rough enough to numb, and Kyungsoo doesn’t even notice when Jongin’s lifted them from the ground with Kyungsoo’s clinging onto him with arms around his neck and legs clamped around his waist.
But he does notice when Jongin slams him into the flat-screen, his complaint muffled in Jongin’s mouth as Jongin’s hands are working to get the damn turtleneck off him. When Kyungsoo tears himself away from his mouth and tries to get Jongin’s shirt off too, Jongin bats him away and shoves him harder into the TV.
“I’m going to fuck you so hard you’ll wish you killed me.” Jongin drawls with half-lidded eyes mad with lust.
Kyungsoo growls in response and kicks Jongin across the room, landing with a crash onto the couch embedded with some of Kyungsoo’s throw blades. He climbs on top of him, pulling the turtleneck off and grabs the front of Jongin’s shirt with his fist and bites the collar in between his teeth to rip it straight off his torso.
Jongin manhandles him up from the couch and sinks teeth into his neck. Kyungsoo lets out a strangled cry while Jongin pulls at his jeans, fingers fumbling messily with his belt and buckle. They shuffle from the living room into the kitchen, shells and broken glass and guns under their feet. Jongin shoves Kyungsoo, pants around his knees, ass-up onto the counter. Jongin all but tears the briefs off.
To Kyungsoo’s left, he sees Jongin grab the bottle of olive oil and whines when he hears Jongin slick his fingers up.
As Jongin works one, two, three fingers into him, his mouth is at Kyungsoo’s neck and back and Kyungsoo shivers from the way Jongin pries him apart with his fingers and puts him together with saccharine kisses. He knows what he’s doing to him, with how Kyungsoo’s hips buck into his hand and gasps falling out breathlessly. Kyungsoo wants to tell him to hurry the fuck up, but Jongin’s other hand grips Kyungsoo’s hips so hard his bones ache, and Kyungsoo knows he’s at his limit too.
Jongin draws his fingers out and Kyungsoo turns his head to watch him with wild eyes. They widen at the sight. Jongin has his messy bangs, uneven on the left side, unruffled above his eyes, and that seems to only enhance the blood-thirst in them. He looks so ruined, lips parted and shallow breaths rising and falling with his bare chest. Kyungsoo swallows as the strain in his cock nears pain.
Jongin places both hands on his hips and without warning, flips him over onto his back.
Kyungsoo hands grip the edge of the counter and he spreads his legs while Jongin unbuckles his pants. When Kyungsoo feels him at his entrance, he shifts down shamelessly to get filled. But Jongin’s hands are iron at his thighs and they hold him in place while Jongin leans for another wrecked kiss.
When Jongin thrusts in and bottoms out, Kyungsoo’s cries are drowned in his mouth and he laps up all of the noises Kyungsoo makes until he has to release him. Kyungsoo gulps for air as he feels Jongin stretch him. His body is burning up and he arches his back up, trembling, from the cold marble surface of the kitchen counter.
Jongin doesn’t wait for him adjust, and Kyungsoo thrashes as he begins with an unbearable speed right from the start. His hands find Jongin’s back for purchase and he’s digging into his skin without mercy, trying to hold on with his body rocked to ruins under his husband.
Jongin drives deeper, harder, and Kyungsoo helplessly hears his own breath hitch up and escape as lustful incoherent syllables. It sounds too dirty, even to his own ears, as his moans blend in with the slap of skin, the thump of his back against the marble, and Jongin’s pants from above him.
He locks his ankles at Jongin’s waist because he’s so, so close but Jongin notices and his hand move up from his thighs to his waist and he’s lifting him up. Kyungsoo shakes his head but his body is already pliant and Jongin carries him, while still buried in him, towards the bedroom.
They don’t make it to the bed as Jongin drops Kyungsoo onto his knees on the carpet of their bedroom and fucks him right there. Kyungsoo’s knees burn and his arms ache with the way Jongin has them pulled at his back. Hands around Kyungsoo’s wrists, Jongin drags him backwards to meet his forward thrusts, hitting Kyungsoo’s spot every time. Kyungsoo feels the heat in his lower stomach rise to a scalding degree and his hips stutter with the effort of keeping up.
He’s clenching around Jongin and his cock is leaking profusely onto the carpet. Kyungsoo is seconds from breaking. But once again, Jongin leaves him, and Kyungsoo wails in anguish as he pulls out. This is precisely the opposite of how they usually make love, where Jongin caters to Kyungsoo’s pleasure first and foremost. It’s as if Jongin’s telling him that this is fucking, that he is fucking him, not making love to him.
Kyungsoo turns, murderous intent glinting in his eyes, and tackles Jongin onto the carpet. He straddles him and begins to ride him. The Jongin beneath him looks like he’s in pain, like he’s denying himself infinitely more than he is denying Kyungsoo of his release. Kyungsoo slaps Jongin’s hands away as they rake up his torso to touch his chest. This is his way of saying ‘I’m fucking you now’.
And he does, bouncing feverishly on Jongin’s lap as his nails drag long line after long line of marks on Jongin’s chest. Kyungsoo chases climax blindly, and when he feels Jongin wrap calloused fingers around his cock, he crumbles to the fire as the flames lick their way up from his groin all the way to his scalp, scorching his body in its wake. He feels nothing but the burn, and its aftershocks of overpowering liberation. He doesn’t feel Jongin release in him, nor when Jongin wraps him in his strong arms and cradles him to his chest.
When he calms in Jongin’s hold, feeling the steady rise and fall of his chest and his heartbeat spread to his own fingertips, he climbs up.
Jongin scrambles to get up as well, voice panicked and hesitant when he calls, “Soo….”
He takes Jongin’s hand and leads him to bed, where he presses him down and trails kisses down his neck over where the Eickhorn made its shallow wound, up to his eyes, and above his left eyebrow, where there was another thin cut.
“It was all real, Jongin. It is real. I’ll prove it to you.”
Jongin
It is after round two, when Jongin lies beside Kyungsoo, sated, worn and about to drift into sleep that he remembers he still has business to deal with in the parking lot. He glances at the watch and it’s already four a.m. He groans and rouses Kyungsoo from his near-sleep state.
“My intern’s still in the parking lot.” He tells him, and Kyungsoo stiffens immediately.
“He’s bound and gagged in the car. Let’s go, I need to ask him a few questions.”
They dress in a hurry, with Kyungsoo taking one of Jongin’s dress shirts from the hamper and Jongin putting on Kyungsoo’s turtleneck off the ground in the living room on his way to reload their weapons.
Once Kyungsoo’s packed with his throw blades and Jongin with the magazines he’s salvaged from all the other hiding spots in the apartment, they head out.
On their way down to the parking lot, the elevator music is some kpop boy group hit with a lot of howling. Jongin would spare it a laugh but the atmosphere in here is cold and sharp enough to sink the Titanic. Jongin knows they desperately need to talk. He isn’t naïve enough to believe that sex will fix this. There are still immeasurable gaps between them, voids from years of omissions, lies, and pretense. It’s startling, Jongin admits, that the infallible relationship they had is now hastily patched up, frayed by this part of themselves that they hid from each other. Jongin sneaks a look at his husband to his right. Just a moment ago, Kyungsoo was so warm and wanton under his touch. Jongin doesn’t want to risk it just yet.
They cross the grey concrete underground silent too, stopping in front of Jongin’s black BMW.
Jongin opens the car door and Sehun is right where Jongin left him, bound, taped, and blood smeared all the way from his nose to the front of his shirt. He flinches at the sudden burst of light from the parking lot, and his eyes widen with alarm when he sees Kyungsoo stepping up behind Jongin.
Jongin rips the thick tape off Sehun’s mouth roughly on purpose, hearing a strangled cry of pain as he shrinks back further into the car. Jongin grabs hold of his arm, tucked tight by the rope on his back, and heaves six feet of brat onto the ground.
“Who trained you?” Jongin towers over the crouched Sehun. “You’re not an intern.” Jongin loads Nikita and points it at Sehun’s head as an incentive to be honest.
“The girls.” Then, “Hyung, can you untie my wrists, my delicate hands have a reaction to rope.”
Jongin ignores his request and tsks. He should have known. That clean upper-cut could be no one else but Amber’s.
“Mission report.” Jongin watches Sehun squirm towards a concrete column to lean his back on it and tilts his head up to look between Kyungsoo and Jongin. Sehun’s piercing scrutiny land on Kyungsoo’s exposed nape, pale skin littered with pink and purple marks and Kyungsoo belatedly puts up the shirt’s collar to shield it from view. When Sehun looks back to Jongin with his eyebrows raised and a fake scandalized expression, Jongin steps forward and points Nikita’s muzzle closer to Sehun’s smug forehead.
”Mission. Report.”
“Observe Kim Jongin, aka Kai, prior and during his assignment. Provide backup if needed, covert support due to discretion of sensitive assignment. Await further or spontaneous instructions from Central.”
A failsafe. Past all the industry jargon, Jongin knows exactly what this means and why Central posed Sehun as an intern for two weeks in order for him to absorb Jongin’s techniques and observe him. Sehun acts as the backup plan. If Jongin fails, Sehun was to terminate Kyungsoo. Then, him. Too bad Central sent a rookie to deal with aces. But that still doesn’t explain why he’s here right now.
“Last I checked, I still have a good 40 hours left to my 48.” Jongin spits. Central activated Sehun prematurely, why?
“You made contact twice.” Sehun’s eyes flick purposely again to Kyungsoo’s neck, and down to see the way the big shirt on him was obviously Jongin’s. “You clearly weren’t going to kill your husband.”
Jongin stills. He thinks back to how hours ago Sehun told Kyungsoo he was ‘his husband’s intern”. How did he miss that glaring detail?
If Sehun knows, then… “Central knew.” Jongin lets out a shocked breath. All that bullshit about not knowing which “staff member that was implicated”. Kris was the good actor all along.
“Of course Central knew. How long did you think you could hide your assassin spouse?”
Jongin wanted to shout that he didn’t know. He only wanted to protect his accountant husband but it looks like Central knew more than he did this whole time.
“So why me?” Why assign my own husband as my mission? “To test my loyalty?”
“Maybe.” Sehun shrugs and Jongin feels the dreadful burn of betrayal for the second time that night. His own agency. What an utterly cruel and inhumane manipulation.
“Also, you and him,” Sehun nudges his chin towards Kyungsoo, “were becoming too much of a liability. Who knew what kind of company secrets you could be leaking to him. Having two agents from competing agencies under a roof is a disaster waiting to happen. Dealing with… this, was inevitable, hyung.”
Jongin guesses that was Sehun’s way of saying ‘don’t take it personally’, but he can’t help but feel enraged at this measured plot conspired against him. Then, Kris, the entire time, from delegating Sehun to him, to giving him the assignment, was spinning a web of deceit for Jongin to play along. Jongin feels a pang of something akin to loss. He had thought Kris a friend.
Jongin was about to consider their next steps when his mind buzzes in alarm. Their conversation is replaying in his head and suddenly Jongin’s eyes snap down to Sehun, still sitting on the ground, and half-whispers, “what did you say before?”
“What? You two being a liability?”
“No, before that, you said… that I made contact twice…”
“Yeah, hyung, you broke protocol, of course they had to activate-” Hastily, Jongin cuts him off. “How did you know? That I made contact twice?” Sehun freezes.
Jongin wasn’t shadowed. He would have noticed. The first contact had been back at the apartment, and the second, at a bar, both of which nobody knew about, except-. Chanyeol. His heart would have sunk for the loss of yet another friend if he hadn’t noticed the way Sehun’s eyes flicked to Jongin’s right wrist fast. Jongin looks down at his hand.
Of course. He chokes out a humorless laugh as he unhinges the Rolex off of his wrist. Employees benefit my ass, Jongin thinks, as he hurls it straight onto the ground and crushes it to metal pulp with his foot. A bug, how old school.
“It’s too late.” Jongin hears Sehun start, and then lower, in a whisper he says, “Central sent the Chinese.”
Jongin stiffens at that. If Central called the Chinese then they must really want him and Kyungsoo gone. Jongin unconsciously lets out a ‘christ’ under his breath and he feels Kyungsoo shift beside him. Jongin turns to meet Kyungsoo’s confused gaze and he explains.
“New York 2002?” Kyungsoo nods, carefully. “That was them. They were only kids then.” Jongin sees Kyungsoo’s eyes widen with recognition and dread. Then, to Sehun, “which one?” Jongin prays they send Luhan. Not because he’s any less effective, but the kid likes to make an entrance. At least it wouldn’t be a surprise attack.
Sehun pauses, effect dramatic, and stares dead into Jongin’s eyes. “All of them.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.” Jongin turns to Kyungsoo and he cannot shield the horror and panic in his face.
“You called?”
The light, melodic voice rises out of the shadowed corners of the parking lot chillingly hollow. Jongin and Kyungsoo spin one-eighty to see a rather petit male step out from the dimness in the clearing ahead, head tilting to full view with a slanted grin in greeting. He’s clad in black, but none of the standard stuff, with jeans more holes than fabric, jacket that has a dull leather shine and elaborately decorated runners. From his right, another steps into view, taller and looking infinitely more serious. To his left, a third male joins the lineup, his lips lift too and the dimple on his cheek does nothing to shield the pure evil that drips from the smile.
Luhan did always make an entrance.
♠
“Luhan. Tao. Yixing.” Jongin’s already extracted his VP70Z, loading it behind his back and he sees Kyungsoo shift his right hand down to his thigh. “It’s been a long time. Didn’t think we’d have our reunion in a parking lot at 4am.”
“Didn’t think Kris would call all of us back to terminate you, but here we are. Any last words?” Luhan adjusts the strap on his back and swings the Ruger MP9 to the front. Always the one for the overkill. How he’s holding up a machine gun thicker than both of his arms Jongin will never know. Yixing takes out two classic Berettas, ever the pragmatic professional. Tao remains completely immobile, staring at Jongin and Kyungsoo with a cutthroat glare. He’s the scariest motherfucker, in Jongin’s opinion, but nothing tops the three of them together.
Jongin and Kyungsoo’s eyes meet in a moment of complete telepathy and the second they turn on their heels to dodge to the side concrete column to their left the bullets blaze through the parking lot like hellfire.
They lean, breathless, against the cool surface as the rain of machine gun fire die briefly. The three are splitting up now, no doubt decreasing the distance between them strategically, and fuck, Jongin can’t even hear them move. The stealth of the Chinese is on another level. Jongin surveys their surroundings to will his brain into action. There are enough cars and columns to provide a few blind spots. There is no absolutely no question that they are outnumbered and overpowered. By simple gun and ammo ratio, they won’t even last five minutes. But escape is possible. For one of them.
Jongin unstraps the VP70Z and presses it into Kyungsoo’s hands, along with all the spare magazines he has. In a rushed, repressed whisper, Jongin starts.
“Knowing them, there’ll be one at a higher vantage, possibly on top of a car, one on the ground and one to the side on our left. They’ve covered the 360 but there are six blind spots and not a lot of time. On my signal, you move to that Blue Mercedes, then there, follow the columns, and the back exit-”
Kyungsoo’s fingers stop him on his arm, and his eyes ask the obvious question.
“Don’t worry about me,” Jongin manages a cheeky grin that looks ridiculous with his knotted frown, “it’s been a long time with these boys and we have a lot of catching up to do.”
They really have to move now because they’ll be on them any second, but Kyungsoo shows no sign of readiness, his fingers are still on Jongin’s arm and his eyes bear into Jongin’s.
“I’m not leaving without you.” Kyungsoo says, unwaveringly, and Jongin thinks it isn’t the time for rom-com punchlines because Kyungsoo needed to go thirty seconds ago, and Kyungsoo will survive this.
Jongin’s about to physically fling Kyungsoo towards the first blind spot and leap out to distract, but Kyungsoo gets up, and before he knows it, jumps into the line of sight, leaving him with,
“Til death do us apart, right?”
Jongin doesn’t have time to curse the seven hells as he immediately jumps up with him and steps out into the clearing.
Kyungsoo slides onto his knees and the momentum is taking him sideways to the other side of corridor, where cars are lined up. Bullets land with showers of spark all around him as knives fly out of his hand at lightning speed. Jongin runs behind him, guns out, spitting back shots of their own as metal dances in the air.
As the two of them dodge into the other side of the parking lot, the bullets’ impact on car metal a shrill, deathly, melody, Jongin hands one of the guns and a magazine to Kyungsoo wordlessly and they reload in sync, the dual click making them turn to each other.
“The middle ages want their weapons back, Soo. Knives, really?” Jongin says, exasperated.
“Oh sure, coming from someone who fights behind distance and plastic triggers. Coward.” Kyungsoo spits back.
The mischief and fire in their eyes as they smirk at each other has Jongin’s chest beating a riot against his ribcage. This is his husband, now, beside him, about to fight to probably their death. This is undoubtedly the most honest they’ve been with each other, tattered and worn, weapons in their hands and adrenaline in their bloodstreams. Kyungsoo and Jongin at their element.
But there’s no time to revel in their newfound reverence of each other as Jongin notices a shadow sliding to Kyungsoo’s back on the far right wall. Shit, when did they get behind them?
“Soo, at your six!” He calls and Kyungsoo immediately flattens himself, pulling Jongin down with him as bullets fly right past their faces. There are multiple sources of shots from behind them and Jongin guesses all three of them are advancing on them from that direction. Kyungsoo and Jongin scramble up to move.
It’s strange, when Kyungsoo and Jongin move towards the clearing back to back, movements syncing so naturally, that Jongin is reminded of the last time they made dinner together. Kyungsoo chops the vegetables while Jongin stirs (and sneaks tastes of) the soup. Then they switch it up and Jongin is washing up the octopus while Kyungsoo is stir-frying the greens. This bizarrely feels the same, Kyungsoo with one hand on his Eickhorn and the other on Jongin’s VP70Z and Jongin with a Beretta and Nikita scanning his 180. Jongin wonders if those six years had been really as different as his mind twisted them to be after all.
The bullets are not holding up from the firepower coming from that direction and Jongin and Kyungsoo are on their last magazines when they step into clearing.
Jongin realizes too late that it’s a trap, because the multiple sources of shots had come from the two with guns, and the moment they step into the empty space, Tao drops down, seemingly from thin air, and crashes them into the ground.
Kyungsoo scrambles up and begins what seems to be an international mixed martial arts championship tournament with Tao right before Jongin’s eyes while he grabs the dropped guns to see Yixing and Luhan step out from behind the vehicles, guns aimed at his head.
It’s over, because Kyungsoo, in an attempt to pull Jongin out from the target lock, falls with a side punch from Tao hard enough to bring him to the ground. Kyungsoo’s hold on Jongin takes him down too, chest to concrete; and before Jongin can even blink, Luhan, Yixing and Tao has them circled and surrounded on the ground.
Kyungsoo is lying face up, groaning at the impact, limbs splayed. His right arm is on Jongin’s side and is only inches from Jongin’s right hand. Kyungsoo turns his head sideways to look at him, and Jongin reaches for his hand.
Luhan stands directly above them, guns aimed directly at their heads, and Jongin strains, with his right hand, for a few more millimeters to meet Kyungsoo’s fingertips. Jongin’s cheek is pressed into the concrete, dirty and bloody, his body spent and battered, but somehow, he thinks this is not a bad way to go. With Kyungsoo’s hopeless yearning burnt into his gaze, like Kyungsoo loathes for them to part, and Jongin thinks that’s enough. Their fingertips finally make contact, and Jongin squints at the way their wedding bands glints in the fluorescent light.
It doesn’t matter if Jongin was an assignment, or if they lied, continuously, for six years. In the end, they chose to die at another’s hand rather than at each other’s, and that’s enough. It’s real enough for Jongin.
He savors the last seconds he gets to spend looking at his husband. Still so beautiful, lying on the ground, with his face turned towards him. Kyungsoo smiles, the one uniquely for him, and-a rude voice breaks him out of his reverie.
“Well, well, what is this?” Luhan is now crouching, gun still aimed and loaded, chin nodding at their touching hands. “Matching bling!” He suddenly stands in a flourish. “You guys are married!...To each other!”
Out of his periphery, Jongin sees Tao morph from an ice sculpture of stoicism to a mere child in seconds. “No way! What, are you guys like the hip, gay version of Mr. and Mrs. Smith?” What? What does that even mean?
Yixing also kneels by Kyungsoo and appraises their wedding rings. “Jongin, when did you get hitched? Why weren’t we invited?” He sounded genuinely hurt. What the fuck is happening?
Luhan swings his head between his two colleagues excitedly and squats down. “Killing them can wait a few, no?” Yixing and Tao all hunch behind Luhan, nodding in agreement. “Alright then! Story time! What did this sweet couple here do to piss Central off enough to send all three of us, then, hmm?”
“Start from the top,” Luhan directs while waving his machine gun between the two of them, “it’s been awhile since the boys and I have had good entertainment.”
30 minutes later
“I can’t get over how,” Yixing sniffles into a piece of tissue, “he shot all of the aprons. Even the Pororo one…” He is almost cradled by Kyungsoo’s left arm, the way he leans into his side and wipes his tears on Kyungsoo’s shirt.
“And, and…” Tao angrily waves his Gucci handkerchief in Jongin’s direction, crouched on Kyungsoo’s right side, eyes red and puffy. “When he asked you ‘if it was real?’, I mean how could he,” he blows his nose loudly into the fabric and Jongin rolls his eyes, “fucking insensitive, heartless bastard.”
Luhan turns to Jongin then, seated in the middle, legs crossed with the MP9 lying casually in his lap. “The make-up sex must have been bomb dude.” He wiggles his brows playfully and Jongin could only nod truthfully. Sehun snickers to the side. (Somewhere along the way, he’s heard the ceasefire and hopped over, still tied up, to join them in time for the juicy parts.)
Jongin turns to look at Kyungsoo, and they share a gaze of wary amusement that has their lips twitching up for a smile. While their recount of what happened has entertained the Chinese, it has also filled in all the gaps, doubts, and misunderstandings they’ve had. Jongin thinks he’s never felt this light. No more secrets.
Kyungsoo seems to share the same thought as laughter bubbles up, irrepressible, from their mouths. They’re still reeling in from the relief when Luhan abruptly stands up, hands once more on the guns and Jongin and Kyungsoo stop in alarm.
“Relax, we’re not going to kill you, have you seen these two?” Luhan points to the two piles of slobbering mess next to Kyungsoo with his muzzle. “But we should get a move on.”
“Where to?” Jongin leads Kyungsoo up from the ground as he helps the sniffling Yixing up and Sehun is chatting animatedly with Tao about flavored milk tea.
“To Central, of course. We should talk this out. Kyungsoo is HQ, no? Those two old rival agencies should really just stick their pride up their asses and merge. We’re friends with some of the guys over there and I’m sure they’d be behind it. Kyungsoo, you’ve got solid backup there too, right?” Kyungsoo nods numbly while Jongin frowns. Luhan continues, “It’s a win-win, they should have done it ages ago.”
“This will never work.” Jongin shakes his head. “They won’t listen to us.”
Luhan scoffs and already starts walking away towards the exit. He turns only when he’s directly under a bright white wash of the parking lot overhead light and slides to load his gun with a smooth, cool click.
“We’ll just have to be very convincing, won’t we?”
♠
Starbucks, Downtown Gangnam
“What the fuck are we doing here again?” Baekhyun is drumming his fingers impatiently on the small table, shifting uncomfortably from having to squish into a corner space with seven other people at morning rush hour in a coffee shop. He glares at the tall elf sitting across from him, whose foot under the table is currently tapping against his, unsolicited.
“Moral support,” Luhan yawns, having gotten no rest from their four am parking lot rumble, “Kyungsoo and Jongin are up there with boss-man Kris and Suho from both agencies and we’re here as a show of support for the merger of Central and HQ, of the volition of their employees.”
“Which means, if things don’t work out, we’re all dead meat. Leverage turned collateral.” Jongdae chirps cheerfully from the side, earning seven grim looks in his direction.
Minseok sighs and speaks up for the first time this morning, “It’ll work out. We’re the agencies’ best. They can’t afford to lose us. The merger is in their best interest too, they would have market monopoly.”
Baekhyun knocks on the wood for attention. “I mean what are we doing here, in goddamn Starbucks?” It’s a sardine can bustling with civilians, the worst place for potential combat. If it wasn’t for Kyungsoo, Baekhyun thinks venomously, he could be at his BBQ restaurant downtown, having breakfast.
Luhan shrugs. It was right across the street from Central’s building. They have heating. It took a lot of energy to gather all of them here, Kyungsoo’s best friend Baekhyun, and other close colleagues, Minseok and Jongdae, from HQ; then Luhan, Tao, Yixing, Sehun and Jongin’s bestie, Chanyeol, from Central. Luhan just wanted a place to finally sit down.
“Well where would you like to go, princess? I’ll take you.” Chanyeol’s mouth split open to reveal way too many teeth, and the exaggerated smile makes him look like an eager dog.
Baekhyun scans his stupid face and chokes on a scathing laugh, “In your dreams, dickwad.”
“Feisty and gorgeous. Won’t you marry me?” Chanyeol leans forward, shaking his hair out in a way that he seems to think is cute, and sends a twitchy wink across the table.
“What part of fuck off do you not-”
There is a shadow that approaches their table and all at once the eight of them shoot upright, hands at their Silverballers, MP5s, Berettas, ACKs, GK17s, tucked into their waists, coats, pockets, jeans, holsters. They all turn to the incoming target, ready to decimate, annihilate, terminate.
“S-sorry, I-, I- was just wondering if I could get you guys anything.” The poor Starbucks employee seems completely startled by the sudden and collective tension and is taking timid steps back with her hands held up.
The eight of them lets out hisses of relief as they relax back into their seats, faces apologetic as the employee is turning to leave.
Before the girl could successfully get away from this shady bunch of men all dressed in black, however, Sehun calls out from between Tao and Minseok.
“Mocha, decaf, soy milk, shot of hazelnut, half-shot of caramel, extra whip, extra syrup.”
♠ ♠ ♠
June 14th, Three Years Later
The card left face open on the table reads ‘We cordially invite you to the wedding of Byun Baekhyun and Park Chanyeol’ and is addressed to both Kyungsoo and Jongin, but the two of them are nowhere to be seen at the reception.
The place is filled, an enormous venue by the river, classy but adorable with the decorations of cartoon Chan and Baek, bacon and eggs themed tableware, and lighthearted music. People are mingling, Byuns and Parks, along with friends, colleagues, old classmates, and the couple of the evening themselves. Even the bosses, co-CEOs Kris and Suho are here, despite their abhorrence for each other. But, the Best Men are missing from the festivities.
“Jongin, mmh, stop,” Kyungsoo’s hushed gasps sound even more provocative in the enclosed space of the supply closet, and Jongin thinks Kyungsoo needs to put a little less whine in it to make it remotely convincing. Meanwhile, his lips continue their work at Kyungsoo’s nape and his hands sneak naughtily under his husband’s suit jacket.
“We… should,” Kyungsoo has one hand batting Jongin away and the other curled into his tie to draw him in closer. “… go back. They’ll be looking for us.”
“Hmm. It’ll take them hours to get started, they never stop talking.”
Kyungsoo chuckles at that because it’s true. Looking back, he never would have thought a couple as… volatile and competitively extroverted as Baekhyun and Chanyeol would have worked out, but here they are. Kyungsoo guesses he shouldn’t comment on unlikely marriages, not when the two of them have made it against some herculean odds to end up here, past their eighth/ninth (still in dispute) anniversary, getting handsy in a dark supply closet…
“Jongin, Jongin,” Kyungsoo pats his back a little more firmly this time, now that Jongin’s fingers have roamed under his shirt and approaches dangerous territory around his belt buckle.
Jongin, the child he is, groans, and leans up to muffle Kyungsoo with his lips, whispering his sweet objection into the kiss.
“You’re going to have to kill me to drag me away.”
Kyungsoo can’t help but smile at that and tells him, “Oh I think Baekhyun will. I happen to know he has a Glock hidden in that suit somewhere.” They really should get going. They are the Best Men, and at this rate, Kyungsoo will not even remember where he put the ring, let along the toast they’re supposed to make.
“Let him come. You taste so good, Soo…” Kyungsoo tastes like jasmine tea and champagne, and it’s too addictive to pull away, even after eight/nine years.
“Well, when an angry Byun Baekhyun shows up at that door, you better take the bullet for me.” Kyungsoo says, and with that he has given in, to his persistent, tenacious, ravenous husband.
“For you, always.”
End