[FIC] #002 - Karakuri
Title: Karakuri
Prompt: #18 - For The Night by Musiq Soulchild
Pairing(s): Kris/Tao
Summary: While everyone is falling asleep, Zitao is falling apart.
Rating: NC-17
Warning(s): Mentions of death, drugs, guns, prostitution, fights, bad pasts, lots of bad shit and corpses.
Word Count: 7,800
Seoul is beautiful tonight. Tall buildings and sky scratching towers. Blinding lights and colorful fireworks paint the dark night with delicate brushes of its beauty. It would be a shame if something were to taint this portrait of a dream mixed with bits of sweets dreams and beautiful nightmares with its unglorying sins.
Beauty overshadows and blind imperfections. Therefore, when a rose blooms unyielding beauty and elegance cannot be denied to a blind eye. When it starts to wilt, people view it as a symbol of their own love fading; their passion akin to fire blowing out, petals drooping down with the corners black and dead, people will still see it as beautiful, perfect and flawless.
That is Seoul in the eyes of Huang Zitao. Beautiful yet dangerous as how holding a rose delicately can prick your fingers with its deadly thorns. Again, no one cares because the wounds would heal just like any other cut or bruise. Simple as that. Beautiful yet looks can be deceiving to the untrained human eye.
Beneath all the clamoring lights and pounding bass that resonates in his chest, beauty isn’t in the eye of its beholder. Zitao knows because he was the one being haphazardly shoved into some dirty alley, stumbled on the sidewalk and into a shitty van. He prayed that his demise to come painless and clean.
Turns out, Luhan was the one who already had an eye on him the very first time Zitao roamed on the grey asphalt of filthy rich Seoul and wanted to make good use of the strong lean frame and hard continent of his muscles. He was only 17 back then with a mother who slits her wrists as a hobby and a father who preferred to live inside his air conditioned office filled to the brim with documents. Zitao had no one to go to except the occasional bloody fists he had to clean with the help of an old ahjumma living next to his small now unused apartment.
At first he was afraid that Luhan might have some evil scheme under his sleeves and beneath the cute guy façade with eyes that shine with liquid maniac. But he explained to Zitao that he’ll be living in a condition way better than the one at home with 10 other brothers including him. What more could he want anyway?
The night Zitao agreed was the night the world tilted on the edge of its axis and time stopped. Under the sharp neon lights contrasting with the shining jaundice skin where he was made to kneel down on his knees in front of the tights Luhan wore with a gun pressed up under his chin so his face to look up right into Luhan’s, he mourned for the loss of his freedom as a street fighter and silently cheered for home he now belongs to.
“Welcome to the family then. There’s no escaping once you’ve joined us in eternal hell that feels a lot like heaven more than you’d ever know”
-----
Zitao slams the door and leads the faceless man onto the bed while climbing on top his torso, grinding his glittery pants against the front of the male’s zipper, feeling his bulge come alive under the touch of course fabric and deft hands caressing his cheek. Tonight, a group of politicians practically invaded the club during his performance like how Luhan had told him they would all thanks to the pro behind all the sweetest information, Jongdae.
He places a finger on the man’s lips when he pushes himself up on his elbows in vain to kiss Zitao’s cupid bow lips sparkling with lip glosses under the shine of the moonlight streaming from the big window next to the bed in the room provided specially for Zitao and his ‘guests’.
Zitao leans over the bed and grips his long fingers around the neck of the wine glass conveniently placed on the small bedside desk. He casually twirls the stem of the glass as he leans close enough to whisper breathily into the man’s ear and grinds his hips down hard enough for the man to groan.
Disgusting bastard.
“Drink up. You’ll need a lot of these to keep up with me the whole night” Zitao smirks when the man practically growls at the taunting words spewing out from the most sinful mouth that can scream like a devil into the night. He lets Zitao guide the glass filled to the brim with blood red wine and Zitao forces him to down the whole thing by pouring it into his mouth and down his esophagus nonstop.
Hands grip onto his wrist begging for him to stop, legs thrashing around his thighs for him to let him go and eyes wide open in horror on how such a beautiful thing like him could be such a mad killing doll. The wine spills over the cavern of the man’s mouth when the foam starts bubbling up his throat.
Zitao doesn’t get off the man even when he starts to jerk and react violently to the poison now flowing in his body. The man who was an important pawn in the political world and a serious threat to the underworld where the drug and arm deals were carried out had his own clique with him until as expected he threw in a truckload of cash to buy Zitao for the night. What he didn’t know was by morning his now dead body would be disposed of somewhere far and well, his band of cliques would fortunately be right next to him like the good pets they were.
Zitao tosses the glass aside and hastily shoves the carcass off the bed and down onto the floor. The workers will throw it out later. He pats his body down for any traces of imprints of the disgusting man and wipes his hands on a towel next to the bed while tossing off his sequined pants and putting on a white bath robe.
Walking out of the room calmly, he doesn’t look back.
-----
Jongdae hoots in laughter as Jongin demonstrates how Chanyeol almost punched Baekhyun in the face while trying to negotiate to a client that no, Baekhyun was a bartender not one of the lap dancers nor ‘the apple of his eye’ for that matter and that he wasn’t up for sale as well.
Zitao smiles a little when Chanyeol loudly protests in his booming voice all the way from the kitchen that he was just trying to make Baekhyun’s position as a very important bartender secure and that without him the whole club won’t have any drinks. Baekhyun snorts beside him and Jongin only scoffs.
“You didn’t have to punch that guy. He was from the Gangnam district police joint. What would you do if they came after us?”
Now it was Chanyeol’s turn to scoff loudly while Zitao froze in his seat. “The keyword being ‘was from’ he’s knocked out cold and back at his home now so shut up and help me out in the kitchen if you pigs want dinner tonight.” Baekhyun rolls his eyes and gets up while brushing the back of his pants to help Chanyeol clean up whatever mess he made while it his turn to cook the EXO family dinner tonight.
Jongin takes one look at Zitao and scoots over to pat him on his shoulder. Even Jongdae notices the unusual stiffness in Zitao’s normally playful and laid back demeanor and hugs him from the back of the couch.
“Don’t worry. You’ll do fine on your upcoming mission. The whole family believes in you.”
The thing is Zitao isn’t really the bad guy here. None of them are. They were once a bunch of helpless street rats with killer bodies and million dollar faces. Roses with thorns as Luhan loved to call them. All of them just wanted somewhere to go, to fit in and have it their way. Of course, they weren’t the only ones in the EXO strip club there were others who were willing to offer themselves up on the platter and there were some struggling to pay off their bills and debts. The 10 of them just happened to be handpicked by Luhan.
Zitao smiles sadly when he spots Luhan coming down the stairs with Sehun in tow. He really isn’t that bad.
-----
Zitao looks at himself in the mirror. One swipe of eyeliner on his right lash line and he sees images of another dead body underneath him. One more swipe of eyeliner on his left lash line and he senses the fear coursing through his veins. He opens his eyes and he doesn’t see the Zitao that fights blood and sweat and maybe a little bit of his soul on the streets. This is the Zitao that fights men in their weakest and most vulnerable states. The Zitao that kills men while they’re trapped in a haze of lust by pouring poisoned wine into their lips.
He takes a deep breath while bracing himself on the sink with his biceps and exhales deeply; looking up at his reflection seeing himself all made up like the doll he is with thick eyeliner and glossy lip gloss staining his lips. Beauty was always something that meant a lot to Zitao but without someone to properly worship him, what was he to do with it?
The eyeliner that made him feel like a monster and god had no use to him if he were to be a faceless assassin in the dead midnight always feeding the same things to stupid people who were out to ruin their business. He adjusts his shimmering golden skin tight tank top that shines brightly under the jaundice light and fidgets in his leather pants that Luhan had brought up to him earlier and was now waiting for him outside his bathroom while he changed. His fingers ached to touch his wushu stick for tonight’s special performance and his tendons protested against him from twisting his pants too much.
A series of knocks from the bathroom door echoes through the dimly lit space. The lights flicker for just a moment, harsh lights dancing across Zitao’s defined cheekbones and twirling in the crevices of his eyes with wrinkled eyelids. Bracing his heart that was twisting in anticipating and ignoring the sudden pang of nervousness in his chest, the ‘I can’t do this’ somewhere halfway stuck in his mouth and clogging up like a drain in his brain.
He walks stealthily towards to door and pulls the handle open with renewed confidence. Luhan is waiting for him wearing that small smile of his and that gleam in his eyes is a blunt knife to Zitao’s heart, poking and prodding at him but doesn’t really hurt or scar.
You can do it. You must do it tonight.
Zitao feels himself straightening as Luhan begins to walk around him, adjusting loose knots and ruffling his golden blonde hair sprinkled in more golden shimmers. A red rose is twirled into his hair and curled around strands of glittering hair that glows a strange halo under the rough lights and shine of Luhan’s eyes. He caresses Zitao’s cheek lovingly and looks at him with all the love of a master and a pet.
“My beautiful bloody rose, tonight I want you to kill one of the men from the Gangnam District Police Officers that’ll be sitting at the VIP section of the club. Not all, just one of them would be enough.
They’re all going to be knocked out cold by morning and wouldn’t remember a thing from tonight. “Zitao can only nod as Luhan begins to reapply his waterline with golden eye shadow. One stroke at a time he darkens the already thick line of gold into a curve to make it look as if the gold has engulfed Zitao’s eyes in flames.
“The government is making their move and now it’s time for us to make our move on this chest board we’re playing here.” Luhan stops and pats Zitao’s cheek one more time before letting go of his face, walking towards the door. “Come on, go grab your wushu stick and put on a show”
Walking out, Zitao hides the unsheathed madness inside the heart on his sleeve of fear. He can’t control the impulse of wanting to see another dead body underneath him shining beneath the moonlight in the dead of the night.
In the mirror next to his door, he sees a monster staring back at him with lined golden eyes with an oddly familiar maniac gleam.
-----
In the middle of the city that never sleeps, Kris stops walking. The boisterous laughing of his teammates despite the so called seriousness and importance of their mission tonight is annoying him to no end and he feels a mild migraine coming on as they near the famous EXO club. The music is loud and the bass pounds harder than his headache and they were only at the street opposite the club, barely near enough to catch the lingering scent of drugs and alcohol.
It’s dangerous to be out at night in the area of the abandoned streets where nightly arms trading and drug exchanges happen. Guns are whipped out, timeless M1911’s are aimed, ink stained arms tell stories of sorrow and sinning.
But at the end of the street is where EXO sits. Neon lights shining from the interior, bass waver out like tides on the beach, people spilling in and out like ants scattered looking for food, teenagers filing in with their friends in skimpy clothes, higher ups are ushered into the VIP lounge.
The gun is heavy and burning but safely hidden inside the heavy red coat he wore tonight. The piercings in his ears glow eerily in the dark, the sterling silver skulls and hoops making a huge contrast to his current job. He continues to walk calmly towards the club despite all the jokes on him being so gay and to stop hiding his anticipation tossed around in the air carelessly.
“Don’t you dare forget that we’re here on a mission to kill the mastermind of this whole damned cult. We’re going to kill people. So stop with your shit and sober up. We’re here already.” Kris barks out coldly to them, not even addressing them in the slightest bit as his piers or coworkers. No one really knows where Kris is from, his backstory, his tattoos or his deadly piercings. But whatever it must have been, it wouldn’t be a cliché story with happily ever afters in eternity.
“Make sure your guns are still with you by the end of the night. It wouldn’t be surprising if the people inside there manipulate you and use you. Just remember to be careful.” Kris nods at them before entering the front entrance of the club which was covered with bohemian curtains hanging at the sides and neon lights pulsing between them. The music was loud; sweeping the men up into frenzy, the crowd was even louder, hoots and catcalls bouncing around, hands waving in the air with money bunched up between wrinkled knuckles and men and women alike sitting around like they owned the place; perhaps they do with all the money they stash into the workers pockets.
The interior of the club isn’t really different from all the pictures he has seen. Red and purple smoke gravitating around the room creating a mystical atmosphere, dancers littered everywhere around the stage in fish nets and high heels, drinks being served high on trays by the dancers themselves whose pockets were sure to be filled to the brim with cash by the of the night and undoubtly a few scratches of phone numbers on napkins. There were performers on stage, of course but the main attraction of the club wasn’t the strippers or the drinks to be exact. The one performance that’ll every man and woman a run for their money would be the last but not least to be showcased and instead of being chosen by others, he gets to choose who he wants to spend the night with.
Kris smirks when he spots a few ladies already gaping at him, wishing that he were the one on golden platters served up to them on sale for way too much money and way too little to spare.
A dancer waltzes up to them and leads them up to the VIP area in the middle of the large club in net stockings and skin tight leather shorts with high top leather boots, golden skins shining under the blue lights of the VIP area already marred with hickeys undoubtly given by a possessive customer or lover.
He hands them their flutes of champagne and wishes them to have a nice night out and disappears into the smoke with a knowing wink and a smug smirk, out of their line of vision and whispers a soft ‘target seated’ into the small earpiece situated at the underside of his tank strap . Beside Kris, Donghae mutters under his breath, already tinted with a hint of alcohol and expensive cologne from the dancers seated around them.
“It’s not surprising anymore that people are actually willing to pay their own life insurance for this huh?”
Kris grabs his champagne and swirls it around the glass in front of him, observing the clatter of the club from the fat rich men with too much money in their bank accounts, the youngsters hanging about with frosted lime garnished glasses with parents that probably never cared and way too little cash to pay for their drinks. Of course, there are always the higher ups in the political board and underdogs that like to come about to deal with their business here, syndicates with misplaced confidence that bring out their goods in broad daylight and people who become corpses that gets thrown out into the river or burned into nothing but ashes.
He downs the glass and settles it onto a passing tray.
“I’m never surprised.”
-----
Zitao likes watching the crowd evaporate and condense into a mush of sweat, heated lust, lingering fingers on prominent hip bones and the disco ball shining lights down on them. From the outside, EXO looks like any other nightclub you can find in Seoul but on the inside is where the glass is tinted a dark hue of blue surrounding the club, the bar is a circular counter in the middle where shots of apple cider vodkas and gins are served. Up another floor, there is empty circular space in the middle and clear glass with undersides tinted a slight blue built around the corridors. This is where the VIP lounge is at and the higher ups get the privilege to leisure themselves with the relaxing hum of background music from the outside and waiters going around offering champagne glasses.
A large stage is set up right next to the bar, spotlights shine high and bright onto the performers. Tonight, gold streamers and confetti are littered everywhere, air humid under the burning gaze of the spotlight and spectators. Zitao looks over the crowd from his vantage point backstage with his wushu stick gripped tightly between white washed knuckles and knobby tendons from all the years of fighting.
He doesn’t flinch when Kyungsoo walks by with a tray of frozen shots almost knocking onto his wushu stick if it weren’t for the faint whisper of “They’re here. Front of the VIP Lounge. Seated in the middle” Kyungsoo walks off with the same poker face as before but not without a gentle pat on the taller boy’s shoulders. He swallows and looks up to see a few men seated around the lounge with dancers and more customers alike flocking around them already. But that wasn’t what caught Zitao’s eye. It was the blonde haired man that made his shallow breathing stop all at once, fingers almost dropping the wushu stick, lips struggling not to get bitten by his teeth and eyes widening.
“And here we have what you’ve all been waiting for! Presenting to you the Bloody Rose!”
Taking a deep breath as the crowd’s cheer escalate into something akin to a roar of hungry wild boars, Zitao rolls his shoulders back and steps onto the stage, letting the bright lights wash him up into an euphoria of dizzy lights that illuminate what was never there of his heart.
“It’s Showtime, Tao.”
It’s always the same twist and turns, bends and angles, flicks of wrists, bends and cracks of his body when he performs on stage. It’s practically nothing really. When he spins in wushu stick in one hand while maneuvering his body in the other direction, he should be feeling the adrenaline of having to do something he truly enjoys ever since he was younger, feeling the thrill to show off the skills that he picked up himself using bare bloody knuckles on grainy streets, feeling the pounding beat of his heart confined in the crevice of his ribcage. But what he really feels is simple just nothing. No thrill no excitement. Maybe just an ounce of excitement whenever he spots his target and sizes him up but it’s more a predatory instinct of a man and his prey. He only feels the need to perfect what was already deemed perfect to the crowd, to never let his foot slip up or his waist act up, to never let anyone see any flaws in him, to hide his insecurities behind his vanity and to never ever disappoint Luhan.
The bass doesn’t waver a decibel as Tao cuts his body into the air, graceful limbs freely reaching out into thin space, lights hitting planes of defined muscles highlighting them in all the right angles, sweat dripping from the tips of his fringe onto his flushed face and maybe, just maybe, there is a possible hint of freedom in all of the tilts and edges of his heart in doing all dangerous stunts of stage.
From swinging precariously on a pole while twirling his wushu stick around, seducing the disgusting animals that come visit him, flipping off stages ,twists and body rolls, sword wielding and everything else that he’d rather not do if he were a regular teenage boy with awkward limbs and foreign face.
Zitao is actually a rebel in some sort of way. He enjoys the shouts and calls, the whispers of awe towards his performance every night, news of what he could do, can do spreading like wildfire, his name whispered onto silent streets, balancing on tips of tongues, the dangers of doing things that could injure him thrill him more excite him in ways he didn’t know possible. Perhaps he is a masochist.
He liked the thrill of risking everything from his body, to his soul and to his heart.
-----
From the top, Kris watched Tao with mild interest dancing in the light of his eyes and hands busy twirling another thin flute of champagne. He watches on with concealed astonishment as the younger continues to dance under the shining lights and bask confidently in all the cheers received.
Obviously the lad had never been let down before.
Kris doesn’t think much about the mission he has on his hands currently as much as he should, but what he does know that this Tao or Zitao as his profiles reads was born from the streets where he once inhibited and fought in most of the fights that his mother would tell the young adolescent Kris to stay away from when going down to the streets to buy candy or magazines.
Kris doesn’t think anything else about Zitao except how he looks absolutely beautiful under the jaundice neon lights despite the blank glint in his eyes when he turns to look over at Kris midway performing on stage. Maybe it’s the way how he looked so mysterious when Kris probably knows everything there to know about him from his parents and his childhood to every inch and angle of his body from many midnight oils burning shuffling and memorizing every detail given to him.
Maybe it’s something else.
-----
Zitao squints up at the VIP lounge at the blonde head leaning back with his right leg crossed over the other under the glowing luster.
Why does he look so familiar?
-----
It’s always the same thing. It has always been the same ever since the beginning. Cash is being offered, tucked into tight pants or clammy hands, negotiations being thrown around haphazardly, gruff voices laced with anger and fists clenched in disappointment but in the policy is always the same no matter how many bags of cash are thrown across the stage.
Book a night, pay your cash and get out before dawn.
Or most of the time, no one really gets out.
But tonight it’s different.
-----
Zitao tangles his fingers into Kris’ hair. Bony knuckles with jaundice skin stretched tight over protruding tendons weaving in between sweaty strands of bleached hair and heated scalp, fingers gripping and releasing pressure on sensitive nerve ends and synapses, legs dancing together in a rhythm on the floor and lips finding solace in each other’s warmth.
Kris digs his large hands into the crevice of Zitao’s waist and spins him around to slam him against the door of the room hard, eyes wild with a maniacal glint and lips swooping down on its prey hungrily for its meal. They kiss long, deep and rough, hands everywhere mapping out bodies openly under shirts, running up and down torsos and tweaking over nipples, lips never once leaving each other’s.
Kris kisses Zitao with more passion than he should, both of their lips molding together, the force of the intensity making Zitao grip onto Kris’ face as he pushes their lips together over and over again and his legs almost buckling from the sheer amount of roughness and force. He hooks his legs over onto Kris’ waist and pulls them impossibly nearer together using his ankles, both of their crotches brushing over each other’s.
Zitao deepens the kiss by pushing his warm tongue into Kris’ mouth and lets out a breathy moan when Kris uses his own tongue to swirl around Zitao’s until it becomes an open mouth French kiss, dirty and hot with saliva and sweat, Kris musky scent mingling with Zitao’s cologne.
Zitao’s eyes remain closed as Kris continues to grip at his waist in a bruising grip, lips kissing his like there is no tomorrow and grinding their crotches together in a agitating slow symphony. It probably hurts more than pleasures when Kris drags his teeth down Zitao’s cheek slowly but surely making its way down to his neck, pulse throbbing quickly under sweaty skin and bites down onto it.
He knows he shouldn’t be wasting his time doing this but not doing something useful to something so beautiful and pliant would be a waste, wouldn’t it? He did spend a good amount of money, or his company but either way it would be the same, to kill Zitao. Besides, there was something so achingly familiar about the way Zitao’s fists would clench and unclench on his hair, how every crevice of his fingers feels on his heated cheek and the pain striking in his heart like a rusted knife being plunged thoroughly into it.
Zitao is hard. Painfully hard with Kris’ own erection brushing against his beneath all the cloth but he knows he has a mission to fulfill, a duty to his members and Luhan that he couldn’t abandon for something so silly and simple as lust for a man. In other words, it wasn’t as if he never slept with anyone else before.
A low growl when Zitao grinds his hips harder onto Kris’ crotch is what catches both their attention. Both panting heavily with sweat glossing their skin, eyes hooded and half lidded with a haze of lust between all conflicting emotions, hands still gripping onto each other for support, two complete strangers that aren’t completely strange to one another tangled up into a frenzy of heated limbs and indistinguishable passion melding into the oppressive atmosphere.
Zitao looks into Kris’ eyes filled with apprehension, hesitation, and the unmistakable heated gaze of lust, shock and curiosity, questions dancing in the glow of his bright eyes. Kris’ looks into Zitao’s eyes and sees something akin to wonder, fear, the shine in his eyes gripping into his heart, searching for all the missing answers lost within distance, the way Zitao’s eyes form the shape of a cat’s, the lid curving up and irises clear as day.
They say our eyes are the window to our souls.
-
It’s a sunny day in Gangnam. It’s sweltering hot with the sun rays beating down unmercifully. There are young children with melted ice cream globs smearing their small chubby hands with parents trying to wipe them off using tissue, there are adults briskly walking across streets, over junctions and onto subways delicately dabbing at their foreheads for sweat and nervous sweaty hands running through gelled slicked hair over and over to make sure there aren’t any cowlicks sticking up, there are also lovers, who were destined to meet over spilled coffee and muttered I’m sorrys with blushing cheeks, a promise of a new coffee and a new beginning of a relationship. There are also ones that always cross paths but never destined to meet each other. Always going on parallel lines but never meeting until that one day in the subway where hands linger for a moment too long and eyes touch for a second too close. Some who are fated to meet but never destined to be together.
There is also Kris.
Sure, his family might be living in the Gangnam district but that doesn’t mean he can’t do what normal boys that come from less wealthy areas would do. He can still play in the grass after it rains and get his new Adidas sport shoes dirty with mud; he can still play soccer until the sun sets and all the kids go home, he can still do whatever those boys would do.
Kris is 15 and awkward. Painfully awkward due to his immense growth as a boy going through puberty, long limbs growing out in places and body painfully hyperaware of everything. After begging his parents to let him go out, he quickly grabs his wallet and makes a dash towards the door, sprinting towards the nearest place where there are small stalls and shops surrounding the area. Surveying the area, he pulls out a few coins and shakes them idly in his big palm making them clink and clank against each other noisily.
He walks towards a small stall where an old ahjumma is selling candies and opens one of the jars to grab a handful of sweets wrapped up in colorful plastic, dumps the coins onto the counter and quickly walks away knowing well that he’d paid more than half the price of one handful of treats. It was a small act of kindness, he always tells himself.
He quietly walks along the rows and rows of eerily silent alleyways, counting the sweets he had scooped up with his finger without any intention of going back home where he would be forced to study all day long or if not, play basketball until the end of time.
He doesn’t pay much attention to his surroundings until he hears a faint sound of scuffling from the back of the alley he just passed. He pauses, raising both his eyebrows and backtracks his steps and squints in between the two walls that make up the current back alley.
There is a boy, a fairly young one, Kris notes silently. The boy has jet black hair just like Kris’, eyes casted looking downwards, shirt half torn showing his lean body despite his young face and trousers just as equally torn and tattered. The young boy looks up, sensing a someone watching him and raises his arms in defense without any trace of fear painted on his face.
With a start, Kris realizes there’s a wound on the boy’s bruised hands.
“I mean no harm to you. I just want to help you.”
He raises both his arms out in a peace offering with one fist closed around the bunch of candies and the other open in a handshake gesture, legs slowly making their way towards the boy staring at him pensively, not moving an inch. Kris settles onto the ground in front of the boy but not too close as a token of respect to his personal space.
Up close, the boy had cat-like features, eyes rounded with eye bags and lids curving up on the edges. He looked fierce and intimidating even, but from the way he was eying Kris fearfully his heart softened just an ounce for the poor boy that probably had nothing with him but a bloody wound.
“Let me bandage that for you. If you let it heal openly like that you’ll get infections.”
Without waiting for the boy who possibly knew more ways to kill him than the amount of sweets he had in his palm to answer him, he dumps the sweets into one of the pockets on his trousers and rips a piece of fabric from his shirt. He gently wraps his longer fingers around the boy’s wrist and slowly brings it up to inspect the amount of blood dried out on the surface and the cut that made his hand slightly swollen.
The boy looks at him apprehensively as if waiting for Kris to make a move to call the police for there is a young junkie littering the streets of precious and prestigious Gangnam or worst, whip out a knife and stab him straight into death’s choke hold without letting him a second to spare to blink. It could be better.
Kris just continues to wipe off the blood tainting his hand and he tries to hold back a hiss of pain when Kris presses too hard. After throwing the bloodied cloth to the side, Kris rips another piece of cloth from his shirt yet again and wraps it soundly around the deep cut that revealed itself after layers of blood has peeled off.
Kris doesn’t ask for his name nor does he ask for the kind stranger’s name but they nod at each other when one or the other exchanges eye contact with the opposite. The cat-eyed boy shuffles closer to Kris and he could see Kris’ eyes would shine every time he moves his head to the side, sunlight reflecting and glinting on his brown irises. It was the most beautiful thing he ever saw in his entire life.
The boy never says a word but Kris doesn’t need any when he can find every answer to his every question vaulting in his head.
Nodding to himself, Kris brushes his hands on his pants and stands up.
“If fate lets us, we’ll meet again. I’m sure of it but till then, goodbye for now. And next time I’ll get you out of this grimy place and show you the world.”
The boy looks at him, eyes twinkling with hope and a promise of I’ll be waiting.
Kris shuffles around with his hands struggling in his pockets, face slightly blushing and pulls out a few candies albeit melted and gooey by now inside their wrapper and offers them to the boy. Zitao holds out his hand tentatively and he watches with wide eyes when Kris puts his enclosed fist onto Zitao’s outstretched palm and opens it shyly.
“Here. These are my favorite. You should have some too.”
With a smile, Kris backs away from the alley and runs home with his face still beet red, half from the weather and maybe something else, leaving behind his sweets for something in exchange that is far more precious than anything else.
-----
It is with a gasp that Zitao pulls back so fast he hits the back of his head on the door behind him and Kris just looks at him with a mixture of shock and sadness. The only thing separating them now is the thick wall of silence barring between them, the sudden flashback that pulled them away from their tasks and pushed them back into cold harsh reality where two young boys that met in a lone alleyway, hearts intermingled by simple kind gestures that are now long gone perhaps and replaced with undetermined rage to kill each other off.
The barrel of the gun pokes Kris in his thigh painfully and he jerks awake from his stupor. He loved the cat eyed boy, now he remembered; so much that he’d never actually stopped thinking about him until he started training to become a police officer. Now that he’d come a long way to achieve his dream, he remembers how he promised the very same boy in front of him now a fine young man that went through decisions as rough as he did that he would do anything to come back. Except now that he did, it wasn’t to take him to see the world.
It was to shatter the very own promise he made years ago.
Zitao thinks he might combust from all the thoughts running on a rampage in his head. The person that he spent years thinking about, not consciously most of the time, the person that had once helped him, that offered him the solace and hope that he’d always wanted, would be the one he would have to kill off tonight.
Old feelings never really die out. Nor do love at first sight. It could be the last for all anyone would know, could know and should know.
At this moment of weakness where Zitao wasn’t focused, Kris could have slammed him against the door harder until his head bled out, shoved the head of the gun onto the side of Zitao’s temple, pushed the trigger to release the bullet on one side of Zitao’s head and his brain on the other. It would be so easy, so tempting to finish of what he came here for, to bring honor to his workplace and his title. So easy, if it was, to lose his first and possibly last love.
The first rule that Luhan thought Zitao was to never ever fall in love with his targets or potential people to kill. To never create any bonds or emotional ties to the person you were to poison to core in the dark of the night. To never once lose your fighters conscience while you’re at work. But Zitao was always the rule breaker.
But it wasn’t that simple.
They both had a mission to accomplish. A mission to end each other. A mission that not one or the other knew that they were supposed to do. It wasn’t difficult but they would have to pick up their own broken pieces later in the morning but will it be worth it?
Zitao looks at Kris. The way his eyes sparkle under the dim lights, the way his hair shines under the halo of moonlight and the way his fingers burn marks into his skin.
Kris looks at Zitao. The way everything seems to be glow in the dark for him, the way his body was so lean and warm underneath his touch and the way he looked like the most beautiful creature that ever existed even with all the blemishes on his skin. Perfection in imperfections.
Kris hurriedly kisses Zitao with all the passion he could muster and feels the fight go out of Zitao’s body as he pulls the younger impossibly closer towards him and walks them towards the large bed in the middle of the room doused in pure white moonlight.
Zitao twists his body so that Kris would fall first onto the bed before climbing over him and settling himself onto Kris’ hips, letting both their crotches still rubbing against each other’s deliciously with his hands flat on his chest.
Kris reaches up to grip Zitao’s sharp protruding hipbones and forces them to grind harder onto his clothed erection. He growls loudly when the friction isn’t enough to satisfy him and ducks his hands underneath Zitao’s tank top, yanks it off and continues to run his hands up and down the span of his torso.
The glass of poisoned wine is surely there, standing and glinting as they kiss and touch, a symbol of what they were about to commit to. The liquid taunts Zitao of his already heaping amount of mistakes he’s about to make, on the shit he would have to clean up tomorrow morning but that can wait for all he cared.
Zitao leans down to hover his lips over Kris’ and looks deep into his eyes.
“Whatever you do, don’t drink that glass of wine over there. It’ll kill you faster than you’d know.”
And there goes the last piece of what is left of Zitao’s career flying out of the glass window, everything he once had to offer gone because of that one time Zitao decides to offer the very last piece of himself for the very first and last person he’d ever want to give himself away to.
Kris looks up at him, looks at the way Zitao seems to be defeated and cups his cheek in his right hand and using the other to palm his butt cheeks through tight leather. He should feel grateful, happy even, that Zitao trusts him enough to let out his biggest secret in his job and for also helping Kris find out his tactic in all the killings. But does he trust himself enough to let go of his job, get fired or get killed if he gets discovered by his boss?
Quietly, Kris removes his hand from Zitao’s cheek and just as slowly, he removes his jacket and takes out his gun from his pocket. Zitao’s eyes widen as he stares at the weapon in Kris’ hand, heart racing and blood pumping through his veins along with the rush of adrenaline and fear. Hands shaking, he almost makes a dash for the glass in hopes to at least use it to smash his head until Kris’ reassures him with a silent kiss and puts down the gun onto the dresser next to the glass.
When Zitao starts to undress himself, he thinks. Why is he doing this to a complete stranger he saw once and never saw him again until this fateful night. The answer will forever and always be there, dancing in the golden luster of Kris’ eyes, every moan and movement of Zitao body making them flash manically.
Zitao starts to lower himself on to Kris’ ready cock with Kris’ large hand imprinting permanent bruises onto his hips, moans rippling out from his throat and sucked in greedily by Kris’ lips. He starts bouncing up and down using his hands on Kris’s chest as leverage when he feels the curve of Kris’ cock inside of him, every thrust that Kris’ lands him onto making him moan louder and louder into the dark night, the moon still awake and watching their every movement.
Kris just growls and continues to one hand to lift Zitao’s hips up and the other to pump the younger’s already leaking cock to the speed of their messy fucking. It’s all balanced onto one red string of fate, the color slowly fades and so does the strength of the threads holding onto each other and soon, everything just snaps, breaks and falls apart.
Kris sucks on a spot on Zitao’s neck and Zitao arches his back from pleasure. Moans get breathier and breathier until they turn into heavy pants before one last thrust up into Zitao’s tight heat, the blunt head of Kris’ cock hitting Zitao’s prostate full-on, the bundle of nerves going into frenzy, Zitao clenches his muscles around Kris’ cock and comes all over his stomach. Kris follows along with a grunt and pulls Zitao on top of him without bothering to clean them up first.
His breath his hot and husky in Zitao’s ear and he shivers but not from the cold.
“I just want you to know that I love you. I might not be able to say this some other time but I need you to know that I would miss you more than the sun misses the moon every night. You are more beautiful than all the starts in the world combined. Just” the words detach and attach back at the frayed ends. “know that I love you. More than I probably should but I do.” I really do.
They stare into each other’s eyes for an eternity. Zitao wishes he could stop time right now and pause here right in this moment to stare forever into the Kris’ beautiful orbs.
And later, while the moon is falling asleep Zitao falls apart. He gently unwraps Kris’ arm from his waist and reaches across to grab the gun from the nightstand ignoring the glass. He caresses it gently in his hands and cradles it in his arms as he lies back down onto the bed, turning around so that he wouldn’t need to face Kris’ sleeping face, or more like so wouldn’t be so hard to let go in a few hours.
-----
He wakes up to a new beginning and end of a sort with the gun still gripped between his fingers, the ending that didn’t end like the band or slash that almost took him down in the grimy alley of Gangnam, brick red walls covered by evergreen moss and a certain Chinese boy with jet black shoulder length hair carefully wrapping his fingers around Zitao’s think wrist while the other was filled with candies but the ending that ends with a whimper, a sob and tear tracks running down his face alone but not so alone in a king sized bed fit for two.
Next to the bed on the nightstand there is a piece of paper balanced on the mouth of the wine glass still full with poisoned liquid and Zitao knocks it over with his knuckles in his haste when he hastily reaches over to grab it, blanket pooling around his body tattooed with marks of last night’s memories and marred with scars from the past.
Blood red liquid drips onto the floor as if the dread seeping into Zitao’s body. The paper shakes between his bony fingers.
Maybe next time I’ll take you to see the world, remember my meaningless promise? If fate lets us, we’ll meet again and hopefully out of this mess. But for now let me promise that I’ll be back for you. One day.
Prompt: #18 - For The Night by Musiq Soulchild
Pairing(s): Kris/Tao
Summary: While everyone is falling asleep, Zitao is falling apart.
Rating: NC-17
Warning(s): Mentions of death, drugs, guns, prostitution, fights, bad pasts, lots of bad shit and corpses.
Word Count: 7,800
Seoul is beautiful tonight. Tall buildings and sky scratching towers. Blinding lights and colorful fireworks paint the dark night with delicate brushes of its beauty. It would be a shame if something were to taint this portrait of a dream mixed with bits of sweets dreams and beautiful nightmares with its unglorying sins.
Beauty overshadows and blind imperfections. Therefore, when a rose blooms unyielding beauty and elegance cannot be denied to a blind eye. When it starts to wilt, people view it as a symbol of their own love fading; their passion akin to fire blowing out, petals drooping down with the corners black and dead, people will still see it as beautiful, perfect and flawless.
That is Seoul in the eyes of Huang Zitao. Beautiful yet dangerous as how holding a rose delicately can prick your fingers with its deadly thorns. Again, no one cares because the wounds would heal just like any other cut or bruise. Simple as that. Beautiful yet looks can be deceiving to the untrained human eye.
Beneath all the clamoring lights and pounding bass that resonates in his chest, beauty isn’t in the eye of its beholder. Zitao knows because he was the one being haphazardly shoved into some dirty alley, stumbled on the sidewalk and into a shitty van. He prayed that his demise to come painless and clean.
Turns out, Luhan was the one who already had an eye on him the very first time Zitao roamed on the grey asphalt of filthy rich Seoul and wanted to make good use of the strong lean frame and hard continent of his muscles. He was only 17 back then with a mother who slits her wrists as a hobby and a father who preferred to live inside his air conditioned office filled to the brim with documents. Zitao had no one to go to except the occasional bloody fists he had to clean with the help of an old ahjumma living next to his small now unused apartment.
At first he was afraid that Luhan might have some evil scheme under his sleeves and beneath the cute guy façade with eyes that shine with liquid maniac. But he explained to Zitao that he’ll be living in a condition way better than the one at home with 10 other brothers including him. What more could he want anyway?
The night Zitao agreed was the night the world tilted on the edge of its axis and time stopped. Under the sharp neon lights contrasting with the shining jaundice skin where he was made to kneel down on his knees in front of the tights Luhan wore with a gun pressed up under his chin so his face to look up right into Luhan’s, he mourned for the loss of his freedom as a street fighter and silently cheered for home he now belongs to.
“Welcome to the family then. There’s no escaping once you’ve joined us in eternal hell that feels a lot like heaven more than you’d ever know”
-----
Zitao slams the door and leads the faceless man onto the bed while climbing on top his torso, grinding his glittery pants against the front of the male’s zipper, feeling his bulge come alive under the touch of course fabric and deft hands caressing his cheek. Tonight, a group of politicians practically invaded the club during his performance like how Luhan had told him they would all thanks to the pro behind all the sweetest information, Jongdae.
He places a finger on the man’s lips when he pushes himself up on his elbows in vain to kiss Zitao’s cupid bow lips sparkling with lip glosses under the shine of the moonlight streaming from the big window next to the bed in the room provided specially for Zitao and his ‘guests’.
Zitao leans over the bed and grips his long fingers around the neck of the wine glass conveniently placed on the small bedside desk. He casually twirls the stem of the glass as he leans close enough to whisper breathily into the man’s ear and grinds his hips down hard enough for the man to groan.
Disgusting bastard.
“Drink up. You’ll need a lot of these to keep up with me the whole night” Zitao smirks when the man practically growls at the taunting words spewing out from the most sinful mouth that can scream like a devil into the night. He lets Zitao guide the glass filled to the brim with blood red wine and Zitao forces him to down the whole thing by pouring it into his mouth and down his esophagus nonstop.
Hands grip onto his wrist begging for him to stop, legs thrashing around his thighs for him to let him go and eyes wide open in horror on how such a beautiful thing like him could be such a mad killing doll. The wine spills over the cavern of the man’s mouth when the foam starts bubbling up his throat.
Zitao doesn’t get off the man even when he starts to jerk and react violently to the poison now flowing in his body. The man who was an important pawn in the political world and a serious threat to the underworld where the drug and arm deals were carried out had his own clique with him until as expected he threw in a truckload of cash to buy Zitao for the night. What he didn’t know was by morning his now dead body would be disposed of somewhere far and well, his band of cliques would fortunately be right next to him like the good pets they were.
Zitao tosses the glass aside and hastily shoves the carcass off the bed and down onto the floor. The workers will throw it out later. He pats his body down for any traces of imprints of the disgusting man and wipes his hands on a towel next to the bed while tossing off his sequined pants and putting on a white bath robe.
Walking out of the room calmly, he doesn’t look back.
-----
Jongdae hoots in laughter as Jongin demonstrates how Chanyeol almost punched Baekhyun in the face while trying to negotiate to a client that no, Baekhyun was a bartender not one of the lap dancers nor ‘the apple of his eye’ for that matter and that he wasn’t up for sale as well.
Zitao smiles a little when Chanyeol loudly protests in his booming voice all the way from the kitchen that he was just trying to make Baekhyun’s position as a very important bartender secure and that without him the whole club won’t have any drinks. Baekhyun snorts beside him and Jongin only scoffs.
“You didn’t have to punch that guy. He was from the Gangnam district police joint. What would you do if they came after us?”
Now it was Chanyeol’s turn to scoff loudly while Zitao froze in his seat. “The keyword being ‘was from’ he’s knocked out cold and back at his home now so shut up and help me out in the kitchen if you pigs want dinner tonight.” Baekhyun rolls his eyes and gets up while brushing the back of his pants to help Chanyeol clean up whatever mess he made while it his turn to cook the EXO family dinner tonight.
Jongin takes one look at Zitao and scoots over to pat him on his shoulder. Even Jongdae notices the unusual stiffness in Zitao’s normally playful and laid back demeanor and hugs him from the back of the couch.
“Don’t worry. You’ll do fine on your upcoming mission. The whole family believes in you.”
The thing is Zitao isn’t really the bad guy here. None of them are. They were once a bunch of helpless street rats with killer bodies and million dollar faces. Roses with thorns as Luhan loved to call them. All of them just wanted somewhere to go, to fit in and have it their way. Of course, they weren’t the only ones in the EXO strip club there were others who were willing to offer themselves up on the platter and there were some struggling to pay off their bills and debts. The 10 of them just happened to be handpicked by Luhan.
Zitao smiles sadly when he spots Luhan coming down the stairs with Sehun in tow. He really isn’t that bad.
-----
Zitao looks at himself in the mirror. One swipe of eyeliner on his right lash line and he sees images of another dead body underneath him. One more swipe of eyeliner on his left lash line and he senses the fear coursing through his veins. He opens his eyes and he doesn’t see the Zitao that fights blood and sweat and maybe a little bit of his soul on the streets. This is the Zitao that fights men in their weakest and most vulnerable states. The Zitao that kills men while they’re trapped in a haze of lust by pouring poisoned wine into their lips.
He takes a deep breath while bracing himself on the sink with his biceps and exhales deeply; looking up at his reflection seeing himself all made up like the doll he is with thick eyeliner and glossy lip gloss staining his lips. Beauty was always something that meant a lot to Zitao but without someone to properly worship him, what was he to do with it?
The eyeliner that made him feel like a monster and god had no use to him if he were to be a faceless assassin in the dead midnight always feeding the same things to stupid people who were out to ruin their business. He adjusts his shimmering golden skin tight tank top that shines brightly under the jaundice light and fidgets in his leather pants that Luhan had brought up to him earlier and was now waiting for him outside his bathroom while he changed. His fingers ached to touch his wushu stick for tonight’s special performance and his tendons protested against him from twisting his pants too much.
A series of knocks from the bathroom door echoes through the dimly lit space. The lights flicker for just a moment, harsh lights dancing across Zitao’s defined cheekbones and twirling in the crevices of his eyes with wrinkled eyelids. Bracing his heart that was twisting in anticipating and ignoring the sudden pang of nervousness in his chest, the ‘I can’t do this’ somewhere halfway stuck in his mouth and clogging up like a drain in his brain.
He walks stealthily towards to door and pulls the handle open with renewed confidence. Luhan is waiting for him wearing that small smile of his and that gleam in his eyes is a blunt knife to Zitao’s heart, poking and prodding at him but doesn’t really hurt or scar.
You can do it. You must do it tonight.
Zitao feels himself straightening as Luhan begins to walk around him, adjusting loose knots and ruffling his golden blonde hair sprinkled in more golden shimmers. A red rose is twirled into his hair and curled around strands of glittering hair that glows a strange halo under the rough lights and shine of Luhan’s eyes. He caresses Zitao’s cheek lovingly and looks at him with all the love of a master and a pet.
“My beautiful bloody rose, tonight I want you to kill one of the men from the Gangnam District Police Officers that’ll be sitting at the VIP section of the club. Not all, just one of them would be enough.
They’re all going to be knocked out cold by morning and wouldn’t remember a thing from tonight. “Zitao can only nod as Luhan begins to reapply his waterline with golden eye shadow. One stroke at a time he darkens the already thick line of gold into a curve to make it look as if the gold has engulfed Zitao’s eyes in flames.
“The government is making their move and now it’s time for us to make our move on this chest board we’re playing here.” Luhan stops and pats Zitao’s cheek one more time before letting go of his face, walking towards the door. “Come on, go grab your wushu stick and put on a show”
Walking out, Zitao hides the unsheathed madness inside the heart on his sleeve of fear. He can’t control the impulse of wanting to see another dead body underneath him shining beneath the moonlight in the dead of the night.
In the mirror next to his door, he sees a monster staring back at him with lined golden eyes with an oddly familiar maniac gleam.
-----
In the middle of the city that never sleeps, Kris stops walking. The boisterous laughing of his teammates despite the so called seriousness and importance of their mission tonight is annoying him to no end and he feels a mild migraine coming on as they near the famous EXO club. The music is loud and the bass pounds harder than his headache and they were only at the street opposite the club, barely near enough to catch the lingering scent of drugs and alcohol.
It’s dangerous to be out at night in the area of the abandoned streets where nightly arms trading and drug exchanges happen. Guns are whipped out, timeless M1911’s are aimed, ink stained arms tell stories of sorrow and sinning.
But at the end of the street is where EXO sits. Neon lights shining from the interior, bass waver out like tides on the beach, people spilling in and out like ants scattered looking for food, teenagers filing in with their friends in skimpy clothes, higher ups are ushered into the VIP lounge.
The gun is heavy and burning but safely hidden inside the heavy red coat he wore tonight. The piercings in his ears glow eerily in the dark, the sterling silver skulls and hoops making a huge contrast to his current job. He continues to walk calmly towards the club despite all the jokes on him being so gay and to stop hiding his anticipation tossed around in the air carelessly.
“Don’t you dare forget that we’re here on a mission to kill the mastermind of this whole damned cult. We’re going to kill people. So stop with your shit and sober up. We’re here already.” Kris barks out coldly to them, not even addressing them in the slightest bit as his piers or coworkers. No one really knows where Kris is from, his backstory, his tattoos or his deadly piercings. But whatever it must have been, it wouldn’t be a cliché story with happily ever afters in eternity.
“Make sure your guns are still with you by the end of the night. It wouldn’t be surprising if the people inside there manipulate you and use you. Just remember to be careful.” Kris nods at them before entering the front entrance of the club which was covered with bohemian curtains hanging at the sides and neon lights pulsing between them. The music was loud; sweeping the men up into frenzy, the crowd was even louder, hoots and catcalls bouncing around, hands waving in the air with money bunched up between wrinkled knuckles and men and women alike sitting around like they owned the place; perhaps they do with all the money they stash into the workers pockets.
The interior of the club isn’t really different from all the pictures he has seen. Red and purple smoke gravitating around the room creating a mystical atmosphere, dancers littered everywhere around the stage in fish nets and high heels, drinks being served high on trays by the dancers themselves whose pockets were sure to be filled to the brim with cash by the of the night and undoubtly a few scratches of phone numbers on napkins. There were performers on stage, of course but the main attraction of the club wasn’t the strippers or the drinks to be exact. The one performance that’ll every man and woman a run for their money would be the last but not least to be showcased and instead of being chosen by others, he gets to choose who he wants to spend the night with.
Kris smirks when he spots a few ladies already gaping at him, wishing that he were the one on golden platters served up to them on sale for way too much money and way too little to spare.
A dancer waltzes up to them and leads them up to the VIP area in the middle of the large club in net stockings and skin tight leather shorts with high top leather boots, golden skins shining under the blue lights of the VIP area already marred with hickeys undoubtly given by a possessive customer or lover.
He hands them their flutes of champagne and wishes them to have a nice night out and disappears into the smoke with a knowing wink and a smug smirk, out of their line of vision and whispers a soft ‘target seated’ into the small earpiece situated at the underside of his tank strap . Beside Kris, Donghae mutters under his breath, already tinted with a hint of alcohol and expensive cologne from the dancers seated around them.
“It’s not surprising anymore that people are actually willing to pay their own life insurance for this huh?”
Kris grabs his champagne and swirls it around the glass in front of him, observing the clatter of the club from the fat rich men with too much money in their bank accounts, the youngsters hanging about with frosted lime garnished glasses with parents that probably never cared and way too little cash to pay for their drinks. Of course, there are always the higher ups in the political board and underdogs that like to come about to deal with their business here, syndicates with misplaced confidence that bring out their goods in broad daylight and people who become corpses that gets thrown out into the river or burned into nothing but ashes.
He downs the glass and settles it onto a passing tray.
“I’m never surprised.”
-----
Zitao likes watching the crowd evaporate and condense into a mush of sweat, heated lust, lingering fingers on prominent hip bones and the disco ball shining lights down on them. From the outside, EXO looks like any other nightclub you can find in Seoul but on the inside is where the glass is tinted a dark hue of blue surrounding the club, the bar is a circular counter in the middle where shots of apple cider vodkas and gins are served. Up another floor, there is empty circular space in the middle and clear glass with undersides tinted a slight blue built around the corridors. This is where the VIP lounge is at and the higher ups get the privilege to leisure themselves with the relaxing hum of background music from the outside and waiters going around offering champagne glasses.
A large stage is set up right next to the bar, spotlights shine high and bright onto the performers. Tonight, gold streamers and confetti are littered everywhere, air humid under the burning gaze of the spotlight and spectators. Zitao looks over the crowd from his vantage point backstage with his wushu stick gripped tightly between white washed knuckles and knobby tendons from all the years of fighting.
He doesn’t flinch when Kyungsoo walks by with a tray of frozen shots almost knocking onto his wushu stick if it weren’t for the faint whisper of “They’re here. Front of the VIP Lounge. Seated in the middle” Kyungsoo walks off with the same poker face as before but not without a gentle pat on the taller boy’s shoulders. He swallows and looks up to see a few men seated around the lounge with dancers and more customers alike flocking around them already. But that wasn’t what caught Zitao’s eye. It was the blonde haired man that made his shallow breathing stop all at once, fingers almost dropping the wushu stick, lips struggling not to get bitten by his teeth and eyes widening.
“And here we have what you’ve all been waiting for! Presenting to you the Bloody Rose!”
Taking a deep breath as the crowd’s cheer escalate into something akin to a roar of hungry wild boars, Zitao rolls his shoulders back and steps onto the stage, letting the bright lights wash him up into an euphoria of dizzy lights that illuminate what was never there of his heart.
“It’s Showtime, Tao.”
It’s always the same twist and turns, bends and angles, flicks of wrists, bends and cracks of his body when he performs on stage. It’s practically nothing really. When he spins in wushu stick in one hand while maneuvering his body in the other direction, he should be feeling the adrenaline of having to do something he truly enjoys ever since he was younger, feeling the thrill to show off the skills that he picked up himself using bare bloody knuckles on grainy streets, feeling the pounding beat of his heart confined in the crevice of his ribcage. But what he really feels is simple just nothing. No thrill no excitement. Maybe just an ounce of excitement whenever he spots his target and sizes him up but it’s more a predatory instinct of a man and his prey. He only feels the need to perfect what was already deemed perfect to the crowd, to never let his foot slip up or his waist act up, to never let anyone see any flaws in him, to hide his insecurities behind his vanity and to never ever disappoint Luhan.
The bass doesn’t waver a decibel as Tao cuts his body into the air, graceful limbs freely reaching out into thin space, lights hitting planes of defined muscles highlighting them in all the right angles, sweat dripping from the tips of his fringe onto his flushed face and maybe, just maybe, there is a possible hint of freedom in all of the tilts and edges of his heart in doing all dangerous stunts of stage.
From swinging precariously on a pole while twirling his wushu stick around, seducing the disgusting animals that come visit him, flipping off stages ,twists and body rolls, sword wielding and everything else that he’d rather not do if he were a regular teenage boy with awkward limbs and foreign face.
Zitao is actually a rebel in some sort of way. He enjoys the shouts and calls, the whispers of awe towards his performance every night, news of what he could do, can do spreading like wildfire, his name whispered onto silent streets, balancing on tips of tongues, the dangers of doing things that could injure him thrill him more excite him in ways he didn’t know possible. Perhaps he is a masochist.
He liked the thrill of risking everything from his body, to his soul and to his heart.
-----
From the top, Kris watched Tao with mild interest dancing in the light of his eyes and hands busy twirling another thin flute of champagne. He watches on with concealed astonishment as the younger continues to dance under the shining lights and bask confidently in all the cheers received.
Obviously the lad had never been let down before.
Kris doesn’t think much about the mission he has on his hands currently as much as he should, but what he does know that this Tao or Zitao as his profiles reads was born from the streets where he once inhibited and fought in most of the fights that his mother would tell the young adolescent Kris to stay away from when going down to the streets to buy candy or magazines.
Kris doesn’t think anything else about Zitao except how he looks absolutely beautiful under the jaundice neon lights despite the blank glint in his eyes when he turns to look over at Kris midway performing on stage. Maybe it’s the way how he looked so mysterious when Kris probably knows everything there to know about him from his parents and his childhood to every inch and angle of his body from many midnight oils burning shuffling and memorizing every detail given to him.
Maybe it’s something else.
-----
Zitao squints up at the VIP lounge at the blonde head leaning back with his right leg crossed over the other under the glowing luster.
Why does he look so familiar?
-----
It’s always the same thing. It has always been the same ever since the beginning. Cash is being offered, tucked into tight pants or clammy hands, negotiations being thrown around haphazardly, gruff voices laced with anger and fists clenched in disappointment but in the policy is always the same no matter how many bags of cash are thrown across the stage.
Book a night, pay your cash and get out before dawn.
Or most of the time, no one really gets out.
But tonight it’s different.
-----
Zitao tangles his fingers into Kris’ hair. Bony knuckles with jaundice skin stretched tight over protruding tendons weaving in between sweaty strands of bleached hair and heated scalp, fingers gripping and releasing pressure on sensitive nerve ends and synapses, legs dancing together in a rhythm on the floor and lips finding solace in each other’s warmth.
Kris digs his large hands into the crevice of Zitao’s waist and spins him around to slam him against the door of the room hard, eyes wild with a maniacal glint and lips swooping down on its prey hungrily for its meal. They kiss long, deep and rough, hands everywhere mapping out bodies openly under shirts, running up and down torsos and tweaking over nipples, lips never once leaving each other’s.
Kris kisses Zitao with more passion than he should, both of their lips molding together, the force of the intensity making Zitao grip onto Kris’ face as he pushes their lips together over and over again and his legs almost buckling from the sheer amount of roughness and force. He hooks his legs over onto Kris’ waist and pulls them impossibly nearer together using his ankles, both of their crotches brushing over each other’s.
Zitao deepens the kiss by pushing his warm tongue into Kris’ mouth and lets out a breathy moan when Kris uses his own tongue to swirl around Zitao’s until it becomes an open mouth French kiss, dirty and hot with saliva and sweat, Kris musky scent mingling with Zitao’s cologne.
Zitao’s eyes remain closed as Kris continues to grip at his waist in a bruising grip, lips kissing his like there is no tomorrow and grinding their crotches together in a agitating slow symphony. It probably hurts more than pleasures when Kris drags his teeth down Zitao’s cheek slowly but surely making its way down to his neck, pulse throbbing quickly under sweaty skin and bites down onto it.
He knows he shouldn’t be wasting his time doing this but not doing something useful to something so beautiful and pliant would be a waste, wouldn’t it? He did spend a good amount of money, or his company but either way it would be the same, to kill Zitao. Besides, there was something so achingly familiar about the way Zitao’s fists would clench and unclench on his hair, how every crevice of his fingers feels on his heated cheek and the pain striking in his heart like a rusted knife being plunged thoroughly into it.
Zitao is hard. Painfully hard with Kris’ own erection brushing against his beneath all the cloth but he knows he has a mission to fulfill, a duty to his members and Luhan that he couldn’t abandon for something so silly and simple as lust for a man. In other words, it wasn’t as if he never slept with anyone else before.
A low growl when Zitao grinds his hips harder onto Kris’ crotch is what catches both their attention. Both panting heavily with sweat glossing their skin, eyes hooded and half lidded with a haze of lust between all conflicting emotions, hands still gripping onto each other for support, two complete strangers that aren’t completely strange to one another tangled up into a frenzy of heated limbs and indistinguishable passion melding into the oppressive atmosphere.
Zitao looks into Kris’ eyes filled with apprehension, hesitation, and the unmistakable heated gaze of lust, shock and curiosity, questions dancing in the glow of his bright eyes. Kris’ looks into Zitao’s eyes and sees something akin to wonder, fear, the shine in his eyes gripping into his heart, searching for all the missing answers lost within distance, the way Zitao’s eyes form the shape of a cat’s, the lid curving up and irises clear as day.
They say our eyes are the window to our souls.
-
It’s a sunny day in Gangnam. It’s sweltering hot with the sun rays beating down unmercifully. There are young children with melted ice cream globs smearing their small chubby hands with parents trying to wipe them off using tissue, there are adults briskly walking across streets, over junctions and onto subways delicately dabbing at their foreheads for sweat and nervous sweaty hands running through gelled slicked hair over and over to make sure there aren’t any cowlicks sticking up, there are also lovers, who were destined to meet over spilled coffee and muttered I’m sorrys with blushing cheeks, a promise of a new coffee and a new beginning of a relationship. There are also ones that always cross paths but never destined to meet each other. Always going on parallel lines but never meeting until that one day in the subway where hands linger for a moment too long and eyes touch for a second too close. Some who are fated to meet but never destined to be together.
There is also Kris.
Sure, his family might be living in the Gangnam district but that doesn’t mean he can’t do what normal boys that come from less wealthy areas would do. He can still play in the grass after it rains and get his new Adidas sport shoes dirty with mud; he can still play soccer until the sun sets and all the kids go home, he can still do whatever those boys would do.
Kris is 15 and awkward. Painfully awkward due to his immense growth as a boy going through puberty, long limbs growing out in places and body painfully hyperaware of everything. After begging his parents to let him go out, he quickly grabs his wallet and makes a dash towards the door, sprinting towards the nearest place where there are small stalls and shops surrounding the area. Surveying the area, he pulls out a few coins and shakes them idly in his big palm making them clink and clank against each other noisily.
He walks towards a small stall where an old ahjumma is selling candies and opens one of the jars to grab a handful of sweets wrapped up in colorful plastic, dumps the coins onto the counter and quickly walks away knowing well that he’d paid more than half the price of one handful of treats. It was a small act of kindness, he always tells himself.
He quietly walks along the rows and rows of eerily silent alleyways, counting the sweets he had scooped up with his finger without any intention of going back home where he would be forced to study all day long or if not, play basketball until the end of time.
He doesn’t pay much attention to his surroundings until he hears a faint sound of scuffling from the back of the alley he just passed. He pauses, raising both his eyebrows and backtracks his steps and squints in between the two walls that make up the current back alley.
There is a boy, a fairly young one, Kris notes silently. The boy has jet black hair just like Kris’, eyes casted looking downwards, shirt half torn showing his lean body despite his young face and trousers just as equally torn and tattered. The young boy looks up, sensing a someone watching him and raises his arms in defense without any trace of fear painted on his face.
With a start, Kris realizes there’s a wound on the boy’s bruised hands.
“I mean no harm to you. I just want to help you.”
He raises both his arms out in a peace offering with one fist closed around the bunch of candies and the other open in a handshake gesture, legs slowly making their way towards the boy staring at him pensively, not moving an inch. Kris settles onto the ground in front of the boy but not too close as a token of respect to his personal space.
Up close, the boy had cat-like features, eyes rounded with eye bags and lids curving up on the edges. He looked fierce and intimidating even, but from the way he was eying Kris fearfully his heart softened just an ounce for the poor boy that probably had nothing with him but a bloody wound.
“Let me bandage that for you. If you let it heal openly like that you’ll get infections.”
Without waiting for the boy who possibly knew more ways to kill him than the amount of sweets he had in his palm to answer him, he dumps the sweets into one of the pockets on his trousers and rips a piece of fabric from his shirt. He gently wraps his longer fingers around the boy’s wrist and slowly brings it up to inspect the amount of blood dried out on the surface and the cut that made his hand slightly swollen.
The boy looks at him apprehensively as if waiting for Kris to make a move to call the police for there is a young junkie littering the streets of precious and prestigious Gangnam or worst, whip out a knife and stab him straight into death’s choke hold without letting him a second to spare to blink. It could be better.
Kris just continues to wipe off the blood tainting his hand and he tries to hold back a hiss of pain when Kris presses too hard. After throwing the bloodied cloth to the side, Kris rips another piece of cloth from his shirt yet again and wraps it soundly around the deep cut that revealed itself after layers of blood has peeled off.
Kris doesn’t ask for his name nor does he ask for the kind stranger’s name but they nod at each other when one or the other exchanges eye contact with the opposite. The cat-eyed boy shuffles closer to Kris and he could see Kris’ eyes would shine every time he moves his head to the side, sunlight reflecting and glinting on his brown irises. It was the most beautiful thing he ever saw in his entire life.
The boy never says a word but Kris doesn’t need any when he can find every answer to his every question vaulting in his head.
Nodding to himself, Kris brushes his hands on his pants and stands up.
“If fate lets us, we’ll meet again. I’m sure of it but till then, goodbye for now. And next time I’ll get you out of this grimy place and show you the world.”
The boy looks at him, eyes twinkling with hope and a promise of I’ll be waiting.
Kris shuffles around with his hands struggling in his pockets, face slightly blushing and pulls out a few candies albeit melted and gooey by now inside their wrapper and offers them to the boy. Zitao holds out his hand tentatively and he watches with wide eyes when Kris puts his enclosed fist onto Zitao’s outstretched palm and opens it shyly.
“Here. These are my favorite. You should have some too.”
With a smile, Kris backs away from the alley and runs home with his face still beet red, half from the weather and maybe something else, leaving behind his sweets for something in exchange that is far more precious than anything else.
-----
It is with a gasp that Zitao pulls back so fast he hits the back of his head on the door behind him and Kris just looks at him with a mixture of shock and sadness. The only thing separating them now is the thick wall of silence barring between them, the sudden flashback that pulled them away from their tasks and pushed them back into cold harsh reality where two young boys that met in a lone alleyway, hearts intermingled by simple kind gestures that are now long gone perhaps and replaced with undetermined rage to kill each other off.
The barrel of the gun pokes Kris in his thigh painfully and he jerks awake from his stupor. He loved the cat eyed boy, now he remembered; so much that he’d never actually stopped thinking about him until he started training to become a police officer. Now that he’d come a long way to achieve his dream, he remembers how he promised the very same boy in front of him now a fine young man that went through decisions as rough as he did that he would do anything to come back. Except now that he did, it wasn’t to take him to see the world.
It was to shatter the very own promise he made years ago.
Zitao thinks he might combust from all the thoughts running on a rampage in his head. The person that he spent years thinking about, not consciously most of the time, the person that had once helped him, that offered him the solace and hope that he’d always wanted, would be the one he would have to kill off tonight.
Old feelings never really die out. Nor do love at first sight. It could be the last for all anyone would know, could know and should know.
At this moment of weakness where Zitao wasn’t focused, Kris could have slammed him against the door harder until his head bled out, shoved the head of the gun onto the side of Zitao’s temple, pushed the trigger to release the bullet on one side of Zitao’s head and his brain on the other. It would be so easy, so tempting to finish of what he came here for, to bring honor to his workplace and his title. So easy, if it was, to lose his first and possibly last love.
The first rule that Luhan thought Zitao was to never ever fall in love with his targets or potential people to kill. To never create any bonds or emotional ties to the person you were to poison to core in the dark of the night. To never once lose your fighters conscience while you’re at work. But Zitao was always the rule breaker.
But it wasn’t that simple.
They both had a mission to accomplish. A mission to end each other. A mission that not one or the other knew that they were supposed to do. It wasn’t difficult but they would have to pick up their own broken pieces later in the morning but will it be worth it?
Zitao looks at Kris. The way his eyes sparkle under the dim lights, the way his hair shines under the halo of moonlight and the way his fingers burn marks into his skin.
Kris looks at Zitao. The way everything seems to be glow in the dark for him, the way his body was so lean and warm underneath his touch and the way he looked like the most beautiful creature that ever existed even with all the blemishes on his skin. Perfection in imperfections.
Kris hurriedly kisses Zitao with all the passion he could muster and feels the fight go out of Zitao’s body as he pulls the younger impossibly closer towards him and walks them towards the large bed in the middle of the room doused in pure white moonlight.
Zitao twists his body so that Kris would fall first onto the bed before climbing over him and settling himself onto Kris’ hips, letting both their crotches still rubbing against each other’s deliciously with his hands flat on his chest.
Kris reaches up to grip Zitao’s sharp protruding hipbones and forces them to grind harder onto his clothed erection. He growls loudly when the friction isn’t enough to satisfy him and ducks his hands underneath Zitao’s tank top, yanks it off and continues to run his hands up and down the span of his torso.
The glass of poisoned wine is surely there, standing and glinting as they kiss and touch, a symbol of what they were about to commit to. The liquid taunts Zitao of his already heaping amount of mistakes he’s about to make, on the shit he would have to clean up tomorrow morning but that can wait for all he cared.
Zitao leans down to hover his lips over Kris’ and looks deep into his eyes.
“Whatever you do, don’t drink that glass of wine over there. It’ll kill you faster than you’d know.”
And there goes the last piece of what is left of Zitao’s career flying out of the glass window, everything he once had to offer gone because of that one time Zitao decides to offer the very last piece of himself for the very first and last person he’d ever want to give himself away to.
Kris looks up at him, looks at the way Zitao seems to be defeated and cups his cheek in his right hand and using the other to palm his butt cheeks through tight leather. He should feel grateful, happy even, that Zitao trusts him enough to let out his biggest secret in his job and for also helping Kris find out his tactic in all the killings. But does he trust himself enough to let go of his job, get fired or get killed if he gets discovered by his boss?
Quietly, Kris removes his hand from Zitao’s cheek and just as slowly, he removes his jacket and takes out his gun from his pocket. Zitao’s eyes widen as he stares at the weapon in Kris’ hand, heart racing and blood pumping through his veins along with the rush of adrenaline and fear. Hands shaking, he almost makes a dash for the glass in hopes to at least use it to smash his head until Kris’ reassures him with a silent kiss and puts down the gun onto the dresser next to the glass.
When Zitao starts to undress himself, he thinks. Why is he doing this to a complete stranger he saw once and never saw him again until this fateful night. The answer will forever and always be there, dancing in the golden luster of Kris’ eyes, every moan and movement of Zitao body making them flash manically.
Zitao starts to lower himself on to Kris’ ready cock with Kris’ large hand imprinting permanent bruises onto his hips, moans rippling out from his throat and sucked in greedily by Kris’ lips. He starts bouncing up and down using his hands on Kris’s chest as leverage when he feels the curve of Kris’ cock inside of him, every thrust that Kris’ lands him onto making him moan louder and louder into the dark night, the moon still awake and watching their every movement.
Kris just growls and continues to one hand to lift Zitao’s hips up and the other to pump the younger’s already leaking cock to the speed of their messy fucking. It’s all balanced onto one red string of fate, the color slowly fades and so does the strength of the threads holding onto each other and soon, everything just snaps, breaks and falls apart.
Kris sucks on a spot on Zitao’s neck and Zitao arches his back from pleasure. Moans get breathier and breathier until they turn into heavy pants before one last thrust up into Zitao’s tight heat, the blunt head of Kris’ cock hitting Zitao’s prostate full-on, the bundle of nerves going into frenzy, Zitao clenches his muscles around Kris’ cock and comes all over his stomach. Kris follows along with a grunt and pulls Zitao on top of him without bothering to clean them up first.
His breath his hot and husky in Zitao’s ear and he shivers but not from the cold.
“I just want you to know that I love you. I might not be able to say this some other time but I need you to know that I would miss you more than the sun misses the moon every night. You are more beautiful than all the starts in the world combined. Just” the words detach and attach back at the frayed ends. “know that I love you. More than I probably should but I do.” I really do.
They stare into each other’s eyes for an eternity. Zitao wishes he could stop time right now and pause here right in this moment to stare forever into the Kris’ beautiful orbs.
And later, while the moon is falling asleep Zitao falls apart. He gently unwraps Kris’ arm from his waist and reaches across to grab the gun from the nightstand ignoring the glass. He caresses it gently in his hands and cradles it in his arms as he lies back down onto the bed, turning around so that he wouldn’t need to face Kris’ sleeping face, or more like so wouldn’t be so hard to let go in a few hours.
-----
He wakes up to a new beginning and end of a sort with the gun still gripped between his fingers, the ending that didn’t end like the band or slash that almost took him down in the grimy alley of Gangnam, brick red walls covered by evergreen moss and a certain Chinese boy with jet black shoulder length hair carefully wrapping his fingers around Zitao’s think wrist while the other was filled with candies but the ending that ends with a whimper, a sob and tear tracks running down his face alone but not so alone in a king sized bed fit for two.
Next to the bed on the nightstand there is a piece of paper balanced on the mouth of the wine glass still full with poisoned liquid and Zitao knocks it over with his knuckles in his haste when he hastily reaches over to grab it, blanket pooling around his body tattooed with marks of last night’s memories and marred with scars from the past.
Blood red liquid drips onto the floor as if the dread seeping into Zitao’s body. The paper shakes between his bony fingers.
Maybe next time I’ll take you to see the world, remember my meaningless promise? If fate lets us, we’ll meet again and hopefully out of this mess. But for now let me promise that I’ll be back for you. One day.