Five Month Hunt for itachibana13
Title: Five Month Hunt
For: itachibana13
Pairing: Kris-centric; minor Kris/Chanyeol
Rating: PG-13
Length: 7 560
Summary: It's not every Saturday afternoon that a group of hotel owners destroys a tea party to steal an awkward twenty-year-old chaebol with raspberry tea staining his tie. But this isn't just any Saturday afternoon - this is Park Chanyeol's fake birthday, and it seems only fitting that he'll spend it having his soul extracted.[Warnings/Notes]Violence, potentially disturbing concepts and implied character death. Parts of the idea inspired by Man Of Steel.
Kris's idea of a good time isn't having a shoot-out at a fancy garden tea party at 3PM on a Saturday afternoon, but he supposes it's close enough.
The ladies in their shapeless skirts and big fancy hats are shrieking as ivy-decorated lattice fences come crashing down on the terrace around them. The gentlemen in their spotless fitted suits are trying to hurry the screaming women behind the manicured bushes, inside the tablecloths covering the serving carts, under the the last few tables left standing.
Kris wants to tell them not to bother with the tables. They're not very stable. And he would know, because he's standing on one.
It's not an ideal vantage point. The silky white tablecloth is too smooth to give his Italian leather loafers much traction, and he almost slips on it; he barely dives into a kneeling position as another bullet whips by his head and lodges itself in a tasteful flower arrangement on a nearby table. But when he stands back up, the added height advantage lets him put a bullet through the skull of a six-foot bodyguard at just the right angle to have him crumpling where he stands. The man takes an artfully-shaped potted tree down with him.
A fun fact about shootouts is that they're nowhere near as efficient as you see in television programmes. Almost every shot misses.
This works in Kris's favour, he thinks, when he leaps down from the table and begins to sprint through the wreckage of smashed dessert plates and custard-stained napkins. Little gold-rimmed china teacups. Dropped designer handbags with their contents spilling out the side. He almost slips on a tube of aubergine lipstick as he tears through the centre aisle of the terrace, weaving between tables; instead, he trips on the elbow of a half-conscious Estonian diplomat.
Minseok's next to him when he stumbles, a gun in one hand and a knife in the other. He grips the handle of the knife between his teeth, sticking out an arm to grab the back of Kris's rumpled black dress shirt as he falls. It's enough to keep Kris upright, and when he regains his balance, he plucks the knife out of Minseok's mouth and scoffs at it.
"Didn't anyone tell you to never bring a knife to a gunfight?"
"Not that guy," says Minseok, and points to some corrupt second-generation chaebol right next to Kris's foot. His crisp white shirt has been punctured with five different stab wounds, the holes still oozing blood at a leisurely pace. Minseok grins at him, before firing two more shots at another bodyguard trying a suicidal leap over the edge of the garden terrace.
"Fair enough," says Kris, and keeps running.
A fun fact about shootouts is that they're not like they are in action films, where it only takes a minute or two for all the bad guys to end up dead.
Kris knows this because he's one of the bad guys, and he's still standing.
The door back into the hotel's lobby isn't too far away now. It's just through a long latticework tunnel twined with thick green vines, and as he runs through it, he can hear the noise of the slowing gunfight getting further and further away. Luhan and Baekhyun are ahead of him, Baekhyun's hand reaching for the gilded door handle; he can hear Minseok beginning to follow behind him. They dash inside the building, their shoes skidding on the smooth polished floor, and then everything goes silent.
It's another few seconds before Zitao comes into view, sprinting through the door with one of Jongdae's Memory Blurring Devices in hand. He tugs off his Blur-proof protective helmet and tosses it onto the floor next to Luhan's feet, panting slightly as he sets the metallic rod down beside it. "Sorry. Wanted to make sure you were all out of range."
The door slams shut behind him, and Baekhyun turns the lock. There's a black Steinway grand piano against the wall beside them, and they drag it over on its wheels to roll in front of the door as a barricade. They lean against it to catch their breaths, each one harsh in their throats - and then, suddenly, they're laughing. With their crooked suit jackets and loosened ties, their messy hair and blood-splattered trousers, they're laughing. With their guns tucked safely into their pockets, suddenly everything is hysterical. Because it's a curious phenomenon, the rush of giddiness that comes with adrenaline and thrill.
If this were a film, Kris knows, the audience would be raging in their seats. They would hate this. They'd spend the rest of the day mulling over the injustice of it all, cursing the immorality of the screenwriter in their heads. No one wants to watch a film where the bad guys win.
So this scene here would make a terrible film. Because this time, the bad guys are the ones left standing. The bad guys are the ones who stole what they needed to steal, killed who they needed to kill, escaped when they needed to escape. There was no hero to save the day.
No one wants to watch a film where the bad guys win. And this scene would make a terrible film, because they won the moment Jongin and Sehun made it up to the fourth floor of the hotel with Park Chanyeol.
Taken out of context, this all seems a bit bizarre. It's not every Saturday afternoon that a group of hotel owners destroys a tea party to steal an awkward twenty-year-old chaebol with raspberry tea staining his tie. But this isn't just any Saturday afternoon - this is Park Chanyeol's fake birthday, and it seems only fitting that he'll spend it having his soul extracted.
The thing is, today isn't the beginning of this sequence of events. They began to unfold last autumn, about five months ago, on Park Chanyeol's real birthday. And put in context, the situation seems less bizarre.
So this is how it all begins:
Five months ago, the five of them are standing in an enormous underground room with an ancient filing clerk, and Kris is thinking it's kind of sad how this old man works alone in the dark all day filing papers.
He's one of the most valuable men on the planet, but he's here in this endlessly long room surrounded by towering stacks of metal filing cabinets that reach all the way up to the ceiling in immovable blocks. There are three sections of them, and with how far back the rows in them go, Kris can't see the end of them down the two small aisles. They only get smaller and smaller until they vanish into pitch-black.
This man knows one of the world's most important secrets, but he's here sorting thick beige folders alphabetically by the names of past business clients who are already dead.
He's got knowledge that could turn the world upside down, but he's here rifling through drawers to arrange the numerical order of expired contract IDs.
He's all alone down here in the dark, and it's all too easy to come up behind him with one of Jongdae's Consciousness Eradicating Devices. He never saw it coming, this poor old man, and Kris and Jongdae drag him between two of the rows of filing cabinets (Section A, Row 25-26) almost silently.
Back here, it's impossible to see anything at all.
"Hold this." Jongdae shoves a flashlight into Kris's hand, and he turns it on. They both wince away from it for a moment; the sudden burst of light sends their unacclimated eyes flashing with splotches of colour, floating clouds of purples and greens and blues that that don't fit in with their dark monochrome backdrop. When the old man's face comes into clear view, Kris isn't the slightest bit surprised at how truly aged he looks.
"It's kind of funny," says Jongdae, as he sets down his combination-locked briefcase and turns the dial to the right sequence of numbers to snap it open. "You think they'd want him where they can keep an eye on him, but instead they keep him where no one can see him."
"And it's kind of funny," says Jongdae, as he pulls out of the briefcase a bundle of wires and a large disc-shaped device. "You think they'd want to keep him safe, but it seems like they just want to keep him out of the way."
Just outside the row of filing cabinets (Aisle 1, between Section A and Section B), Kris can see the shadow-shapes of Minseok and Zitao pacing up and down the five meters surrounding them on either side. Vague smoky outlines drifting past them, keeping watch. Something about the way Zitao's aimlessly spinning his gun makes Kris shiver, and he tells Jongdae, "Get on with it."
"Alright, alright." Jongdae's voice is tinged with irritation, and Kris could swear he mutters, "You couldn't do this yourself in a million years."
Kris doesn't like to watch this part. The little whining noise the device makes when it powers up always makes his teeth grind, and something about the way the wires tangle together reminds him of the little strands that Jongdae's technology can reduce a person's soul to. The core of their being, represented as thin red cords of information clusters.
This is Jongdae's Soul Data Transmission Device, and Kris hates to be around it.
"Shit," curses Jongdae, as the wires he's connected to the old man's head pulse with electricity. There's an audible crackling noise as the old man twitches. He grins up at Kris, something mischievous on his cat-like face. "Sorry in advance if I fry his brain before I can get what I want out of it."
"Don't even joke about that."
Jongdae's barely concentrating as he skims his finger over the SDTD's touchscreen, zooming in on specific soul strands before shaking his head and moving on to the next potential target. Looking. Carelessly rifling through the vast stores of information in this poor old man's soul without any regard for order. Hunting through everything this man holds dear like they're pages in an encyclopaedia. Searching his mind for the answer to the question they spent so long tracking him down for, as if it's an impersonal computer database instead of a human safe-deposit box with secrets, joys, fears and hopes stored there. Really, Kris thinks, the whole process is very inhumane.
But then again, Jongdae's never made his technology through normal human means.
The metallic stone floor is so cold that Kris's knees are going numb as he kneels on it, and he wraps his arms around himself and rubs his biceps for warmth. That's ten times, he counts. Ten times that Zitao and Minseok's paths have intersected in front of the space between Row 25 and 26 as they pace down Aisle 1 in opposite directions. He doesn't like it when they get too far away.
Jongdae's hovering his finger over another highlighted strand, standing out red and bright against the pale pink ones surrounding it, and he pauses a moment before tapping on it. He taps again, just twice, and the corner of his mouth stretches up in something that could be a smirk. "Hm. That was easier than I expected. It's not any harder to find all of Park Chanyeol's deepest, darkest secrets than memories of this man's cat."
"That quickly?" Kris raises an eyebrow. "You're lying."
Jongdae's zoomed in so close on the highlighted soul strand that Kris can see the tiny interlocking fibres of memory that make it up. He watches as Jongdae opens the menu on the side of the touchscreen and taps two buttons: copy. save. The SDTD lets out an unearthly whir as it scans the contents of the strand, creates a perfect reproduction of them and stores them for Jongdae to read later. Steadily, the progress bar counts up: 13%, 38%, 44%, 49%, 53%.
"That can't really be the one, can it? Right in the front of his soul?"
Zitao and Minseok, the deadly wraith-shapes, intersect for the eleventh time as the progress bar keeps counting up, faster this time: 83%, 94%.
Jongdae shakes his head, and the harsh glow from the device's screen hits his sharp cheekbones at an eerie angle. When his eyes meet Kris's, they seem almost to be glowing. "After all those years, he still feels the pain enough to keep it fresh. But then again, wouldn't you?"
100%.
A fun fact about buildings in East Asia is that many of them don't have fourth floors. There aren't 4 buttons on the lifts, and no 4th flight on the stairs. This is because they're very unlucky, fourth floors, and people don't appreciate the number of death staring them in the face. They don't want to be treated on the fourth floor of a hospital, where it's inevitable that the treatment will fail. They don't want to work on the fourth floor of an office building, or live on the fourth floor of a residential building. They don't want a fourth floor in their hotels, either; nobody wants to have a business meeting in a room that will make certain they never close their deal. Nobody wants to go on holiday in a place that might kill them.
A fun fact about the Black Pearl Luxury Hotel is that it's got a fourth floor.
A fun fact about the fourth floor is that only eleven people know it's there.
The lifts don't go to the fourth floor. The stairs don't either. The buttons in the lift skip straight from 3 to 5, and so do the numbers on the flights of stairs. And with fourth floors being quite unlucky, this seems completely normal. If the lift trip between the 3rd and 5th floors is a second too long, or the space between the 3rd and 5th flights of stairs seems to take a bit longer to climb, no one pays enough attention to notice.
A fun fact about the fourth floor is that Kris lives on it. And he's never died.
Kris lives in Room 400. It's very comfortable. Very luxurious. It's one of those extensive suites that seems designed for at least ten people, but is only occupied by one. It's got everything you would expect for such lavish accommodations: smooth hardwood floors with intricately patterned rugs on top, a king-sized bed with a feather duvet, a chandelier ceiling lamp. A bathroom with marble countertops and a hot tub. Floor-to-ceiling windows. A balcony. A wonderful view of the sunset. Nothing about it suggests a bad omen.
His ten neighbours are absolutely lovely. The one in Room 413 makes excellent coffee, and is happy to bring it out to the fourth floor's spacious lounge every morning. The one in Room 438 dispenses quite useful health and wellness advice. The one in 453 has a lovely singing voice, and provides harmonic melodies for his neighbours while he's in the shower. The other seven of them are just as agreeable.
Though there are only eleven of them, they're quite happy with their life on the fourth floor. The rooms are well-furnished, the lounge is quite cosy and the company is excellent. Quite frequently, they stop by Room 444 just for a visit; this room by far is the most intriguing one, and numerically speaking, the most unlucky one. Somehow none of them have ever died, and they tempt death more than Kris knows.
A fun fact about the Black Pearl Luxury Hotel is that Kris owns it. So do his ten neighbours.
A fun fact about Kris's neighbours is that the one in Room 413 is named Baekhyun. The one in Room 438 is Joonmyun, and the one in 453 is Jongdae. The other seven are Yixing, Kyungsoo, Sehun, Jongin, Luhan, Minseok and Zitao.
Really, it's a wonder none of them have ever died.
Kris has many talents. For example, he would make an excellent runway model. Or a rapper. Or an abstract artist. But at the moment, he owns a hotel and leads a team of highly specialised criminals in a hunt for a priceless commodity. Entering the property ownership business was simply a matter of convenience; he had an impressive amount of un-invested money, and needed a place to live on his own rather complicated terms. The profit return was also a plus.
Entering the criminal enterprise business, however, was simply a matter of applying his moral bankruptcy to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Their roles are rather clearly defined: Kris masterminds the schemes and gives orders. Jongdae creates the necessary technology to carry them out. Zitao, Minseok, Baekhyun and Luhan accompany him into potential combat situations. Jongin and Sehun handle the closure of missions; transporting stolen goods, disposing of evidence, covering tracks. Yixing conducts surveillance and reconnaissance. Joonmyun and Kyungsoo specialise in deciphering the complicated coded information from Jongdae's many devices, and put them into usable form.
Unfortunately, Joonmyun and Kyungsoo don't specialise in punctuality.
This is why Kris has spent the last three hours waiting for them to present their report on the decrypted information from the copied strand on the Soul Data Transmission Device. At the moment, he's reading a three-day-old newspaper and listening to Jongin and Sehun take turns counting the lights on the chandelier.
He's not sure either of them are really keeping track.
"13," says Sehun.
"38," says Jongin.
2C with 30% chance of freezing rain, says the newspaper's weather forecast. Picture of illustrated cloud with four small raindrops.
"44," says Sehun.
"49," says Jongin.
English Premier League Upcoming Fixtures. Tomorrow: Manchester United FC vs Reading FC, says the newspaper's sport section. Picture of illustrated football.
"53," says Sehun.
"83," says Jongin.
Yet another Chaebol heir opens luxury import store, says the newspaper's front page. Photograph of wild-haired young man holding expensive French designer shoe upside down.
"94," says Sehun.
"100," says Jongin.
And this is when a frighteningly thick stapled stack of paper printouts comes falling from the sky and nearly breaks Kris's nose.
"Hiding in plain sight."
The stack of papers is so thick that the edge of it bends over the side of Kris's hand as he flips through them. They're marked up with neon highlighter, the words framed with blue and pink and green and orange in some code that only the person who created it understands. That person is Joonmyun, and he's saying, "The whole time, Chanyeol was hiding in plain sight."
27th November 1992: Birthday. Highlighted blue.
"After all that time we spent tracking him down, he was right in front of our eyes."
27th January 1993: Discovered unnatural powers. Highlighted pink.
"We probably saw his face a million times while we were looking for him, and we never knew."
27th April 1993: Adopted. Name and birthday changed. Highlighted blue.
"Where would you expect someone to be," says Joonmyun, "If they're trying to hide a huge secret? You'd think they'd keep to themselves, right? Live a normal life, somewhere quiet. Try to stay out of the public eye. Lay low. Avoid attention. That would make sense, right?"
27th November 1993: Power suppression training begun. Highlighted pink.
"The last thing you'd expect that person to do," says Joonmyun, "Is to be famous. Someone important. It wouldn't make sense to invite all that scrutiny. They wouldn't want their every move watched. It would be better to disappear and act like they don't exist, right?"
Note: biological father is second cousin of adoption father. Highlighted green.
"But then again," says Joonmyun, "That's the brilliance of it. It's perfectly normal for prominent figures to desire some type of secrecy in their private life. It makes complete sense for them to have security protection. And everyone thinks, if they had a secret that big to hide, wouldn't you expect them to be hiding as well?"
27th December 1992: adopted mother has miscarriage of biological child. Miscarriage is never publicly reported. Highlighted blue and green.
27th April 1993: Birth of adopted mother's biological child is announced according to procedure. Adoption process of Park Chanyeol completed. Highlighted blue and green.
"Nobody would think," says Joonmyun, "That a third-generation chaebol of one of the country's biggest conglomerates might be a mutant."
[END OF REPORT: Data retrieved from the mind of Park Chanyeol's biological father.] Highlighted orange.
Most public figures have a private life. One that's kept secret, away from the cameras and reporters and news headlines. These big and famous people are all about image, appearance, saving face. Their dirty secrets might be packaged away, but they've still got them.
For example, a virtuous media-darling actor could have a nasty drug habit.
For example, a boyband member marketed as a pure, innocent little angel could be into erotic asphyxiation and sadomasochism.
For example, the grandson of a chaebol founder could have a superpower.
Some of these secrets emerge, plastered on internet news sites and shouted as questions during press conferences and reflected in rapidly dropping stock prices. Some of these secrets are hidden away under piles of money. Some of these secrets are never discovered. And some of them are known by so few people, so well covered up, that they might as well not exist.
For example, that virtuous actor could be spending his nights in the thick, numbing haze of a few too many pills he swears are only for his headache.
For example, that angelic boyband member could be touching himself to the thought of being choked and slapped across the face.
For instance, that chaebol grandson could be able to light things on fire just by willing energy through his fingertips as he visualises them bursting into flames.
Sometimes you know what secrets are behind those famous people's masks. Sometimes you don't. Kris doesn't know about that actor, and he doesn't know about that boyband member, but he does know about the chaebol grandson. He knows that the Park Chanyeol they've been looking for has been right under their noses the whole time. There's a face to put to the name now, one he's seen unknowingly a million times before. And there's an identity to put to the mysterious carrier of the fire superpower that he's been tracking down.
He just needs to get close enough to start picking it apart.
"It is absolutely inhumane," says Kris, "To toss people out of windows. We are not tossing this man out the window."
And the man's lucky the window's probably not big enough, because if he were tossed out of it, he'd never survive. He might get his face scraped off on the ground beneath him, or maybe he'd snap his neck on impact. Maybe his skull would crack open. There's no way he'd live, Kris thinks, getting tossed out of here.
This is because 'here' is a speeding black van on a back road in the middle of the night.
This is also because the van is being chased.
It happened something like this: The man's name is Im Hyunkyun. A little while ago, not too long ago, he was the head of Chanyeol's personal security team. His resignation was rather sudden, and extremely unexpected (but according to Jongdae's Thought Inception Device, quite timely). And the thing is, this was meant to be a very quick mission; they were going to snatch Hyunkyun out of his bed, extract from his mind the information they needed, and have him back there before sunrise. According to Yixing's surveillance, Hyunkyun's own security detail would leave his mansion in time to make this possible.
Yixing's surveillance didn't factor in the possibility of the security detail ordering Chinese takeaway and staying late.
And that's how Kris ends up here: on the floor in the back of this van with the rest of the combat team, clinging onto whatever they can reach as Baekhyun whips the van around a corner at 180km/h and stomps on the accelerator harder. That's how they end up being chased by the security detail, who apparently deemed them more important than the half-finished container of chicken lo mein. That's also how they end up discussing how to get rid of Hyunkyun before they get back to the Black Pearl Luxury Hotel, as Jongdae hurriedly scrolls through Hyunkyun's memory on the Soul Data Transmission Device. The Jolin Tsai song Luhan's got playing on the radio gives the whole scene a very surreal quality.
Because nobody's listening, Kris repeats, "We are not tossing him out the window."
"We're amateurs," groans Minseok, rubbing his temples. "They're just going to increase Chanyeol's security even more after this."
"Just tie him up, leave him in a vaguely secure location and find a way to frame the mafia," Luhan suggests, very helpfully, from the passenger seat of the van. He leans over to turn the music up.
They can hear the screech of the wheels before they feel the shudder that goes through the vehicle as Baekhyun swerves wildly to keep the security guards' car from coming up beside them, bumping unceremoniously over the kerb and speeding through a red traffic light. Jongdae's head slams against the wall of the van and he curses, nearly dropping the device in his hand. The wires attached to Hyunkyun's head jerk.
"How the hell did you get your driving licence?" Jongdae snaps, narrowing his eyes at Baekhyun. Kris can see his fingers inching in the direction of the Mild Pain Implementation Device in the bottom of his briefcase.
"Well, I wasn't in the middle of a fucking car chase."
Baekhyun swerves again, and they all nearly go toppling over onto each other. Kris hurries to grab Hyunkyun's legs so that he doesn't slide to the back of the van, and Zitao grabs his feet. Jongdae squints at the SDTD's screen, zooming in on one more soul strand before shaking his head.
"It's not here. Not even Chanyeol's own security team knows he's not human."
"So we were right." Kris looks up from where he's giving Hyunkyun another quick zap with Jongdae's Consciousness Eradicating Device to make sure he stays out the whole time. "They really don't intend for anyone besides four people to know. And they think no one else knows either."
"Seems like it." Kris can see Jongdae hovering over another cluster of soul strands, the ones that he knows contain the specific detail of Chanyeol's security. His main source of protection. The defences they will have to breach. He watches Jongdae tap two buttons on the screen menu - copy. save.
He watches the progress bar finish loading, and Jongdae slowly disconnect the wires. He's extremely careful not to fry Hyunkyun's brain as Baekhyun slams on the brakes half a second before merging onto the main road, suddenly down to a leisurely 100km/h as he weaves in and out of lanes in an unpredictable pattern. Luhan continuously checks the mirror to watch the progress of the car behind them as they gradually manage to leave it behind in traffic. On the radio, the Jolin Tsai song ends.
"So," says Zitao, after a long silence, "Is it time to toss him out the window?"
A fun fact about the Black Pearl Luxury Hotel is that it's renowned for its event hosting. Business meetings, charity balls, press conferences. Book signings, weddings, political dinners. Celebrity parties. It has a reputation for sparing no expense when it comes to hospitality, from the speed of the arrangements to the effort of adhering exactly to the client's wishes to the impeccable attention to detail. Many high-profile events have taken place within its expansive ballrooms, fancy dining rooms and lavish garden terrace.
A fun fact about Chanyeol's birthday is that it's a bit over a month away.
Kris entered the hotel ownership business as a matter of convenience. Not too much advance thinking of the possibilities occurred. But this - oh, Kris couldn't have done this any better if he'd planned it. It's him personally who formally contacts Chanyeol's family requesting the honour of hosting his birthday party. The deal he offers is irresistible.
Chanyeol's family is perfect. Just the rich, fussy type of clients that they're used to accommodating. He fits right in the centre of their target market.
It's not really Chanyeol's birthday, he knows. Chanyeol's real birthday was almost five months ago, while he was deep underground stealing Chanyeol's deepest secrets from the mind of the father he was taken from. The one who watched from his place in the labyrinth as Chanyeol grew up without ever knowing him. The one who accepted the offer to blend Chanyeol in seamlessly with his cousin's family, putting him in the place of the missing baby. The one who gave Chanyeol up so that Chanyeol could have things he couldn't provide: power suppression training to teach him how to control his volatile flame powers, a perfect cover for his strange private life and security guards to keep him or his secrets from ever falling into the wrong hands.
But this is the birthday of the fake persona Park Chanyeol, the one who's one-hundred-percent human. And Kris thinks, this is perfect. He couldn't have planned it any better. And with a deal like that, Kris knows, they won't refuse.
They don't.
Chanyeol's family contacts him surprisingly quickly. It's a short amount of time before he has official confirmation that the contract is his. Immediately, the place is transformed into a flurry of activity and noise and chaos as negotiations begin on the specifics and preparations for the party get underway. Kris's staff are professionals, the best in their field; he has complete confidence that nothing will go awry.
That is, nothing that isn't planned to.
The party date is set for 27th April, a month after the phone call. Chanyeol's fake birthday. And with that, Kris and his team of ten begin some preparations of their own.
Room 444 isn't like the rest of the fourth floor. There's no elegantly patterned carpeting, no antique vases, no chandelier lights. No wall-length windows, no plush sofas and armchairs, no large gilded mirrors on the walls. This room couldn't be any more different.
There's something clinically cold about the tile floors and the blank white walls. There are stainless steel tables placed around the edges of the room, rolling carts scattered around the middle of it; the only seating is three heavily-scratched wooden stools, wobbly from the difference in length of their legs. The only decorations are the various metal parts and rubber-coated wires scattered around the tables and in carts, and in half-opened cardboard boxes beside them. Little data chips and disconnected buttons and blank screens waiting to be put in place. Assorted nails and screws, spanners and hammers, screwdrivers and pliers and tweezers fill the remaining spaces amidst the rest of the technological chaos. For all intents and purposes, the place looks like a mad scientist's lab.
And that's precisely what it is. This is Jongdae's Device Construction Laboratory, and it's nearly blown the whole building up more times than any of them can count.
This is where Jongdae invents and creates their various technological implements. This is where the Memory Blurring Devices and Consciousness Eradicating Devices come from. This is the origin of the Mild Pain Implementation Device. The furnace in which the Soul Data Transmission Device was forged. It's also the birthplace of the rarely useful Plant Life Detection Device and the aggressively unreliable Catastrophe Countdown Device.
"Shame it's not the birthplace of more creative names," Sehun often mutters under his breath. "What about apparatus? Appliance? Contraption? Invention? A thesaurus isn't half as complicated as those technical manuals you read."
But none of those things are the most prominent feature of the room. That would be the thing in the centre of it, the product of three years of work. The result of a hundred sleepless nights, a hundred cuts and burns, a thousand seemingly insurmountable technical hurdles. This is Jongdae's magnum opus.
This is Jongdae's Soul Extraction Device.
It's a big hulking thing, formed around a metal chair. The number of unlabelled buttons and levers on the side is so overwhelming that Kris wonders if Jongdae can even remember what they all do. The screen of this device is easily the length of one of his arms, mounted on the wall directly behind it; the graphics are much clearer, the control features more advanced, because the mechanisms of this device are much more precise and require more greater detail. The wires on this one are manoeuvred by mechanical clips controlled by the touchscreen. They're much thicker, but the electrical current that flows through them is much, much stronger. One doesn't need to imagine what the restraints on the arms of the chair are for.
But by far, the most interesting feature is the chair attached to the back of it. It's an exact replica, but with only one small change - there are no restraints.
This is Jongdae's Soul Transference Device.
Four days before Chanyeol's birthday party, they all gather around and watch as Jongdae finally, after three years of work, powers on the just-completed device. Kris is filled with a growing, inexplicable sense of horror and awe as he watches the huge machine come to life. It's an amazing moment, really, the eleven of them standing there silent and watching as Jongdae's greatest work finally comes together.
"That's it," says Jongdae, breathlessly. "It's done."
For a few moments, the only sound in the room is the loud hum of the device's power source as they all take in its details. And then Jongdae's turning to them with a device that makes Kris shiver.
"I'm going to test it tonight," he says. "You all might want to stay far away from here."
The morning of the fancy garden tea party, Park Chanyeol's fake birthday party, Kris is sitting on his balcony looking out over the terrace. He's absent-mindedly skimming a newspaper as he watches the proceedings. Joonmyun, Jongin, Jongdae and Yixing are lounging on the floor of the balcony around him; Jongin's asleep with his head in Joonmyun's lap, and Yixing is disinfecting and bandaging a few cuts from sharp wire ends on Jongdae's palm. Baekhyun is leaning on the railing, observing the events below with great interest.
Down on the terrace, a team of decorators is draping the tables with silky white tablecloths, straightening out the edges so that each side is perfectly even.
"Stains easily," says Baekhyun.
25C with 0% chance of rain, says the newspaper's weather forecast. Picture of illustrated sun with no clouds.
Down on the terrace, another team of decorators has begun to place large glass vases on the tables that have already been covered with tablecloths. They use rulers to align them precisely in the centre, not a millimeter too far to the side.
"Highly breakable," says Baekhyun.
English Premier League Upcoming Fixtures. Tomorrow: Manchester United vs Arsenal, says the newspaper's sport section. Picture of illustrated football.
Down on the terrace, another team of decorators is carefully taking bunches of flowers off of a wheeled cart to place into the vases. They even out the stems, fluff up the petals, space them out just the slightest bit apart.
"Those won't last a minute," says Baekhyun.
Two Seoul men missing since Wednesday night, says the newspaper's front page. Photograph of two men who Kris finds eerily familiar.
This party, Kris thinks, is the best he's ever hosted.
All the right company is there as the guests sashay in, everyone taking the opportunity to show off their latest fashions and expensive accessories. The entirety of the guest list has shown up, as denoted by the calligraphy place-cards on each of the tables. They waste no time in finding their way to their seats; they're all quite distinguished, from business prowess to political importance to television and film appearances.
It's interesting, Kris thinks, that they seem to pay minimal attention to Chanyeol. Any interest they display is purely political. Perhaps it's the lack of press photographers that keeps them from making a greater effort to keep up appearances (Kris had strongly insisted - for purely integrity reasons, of course), but it's only Chanyeol's father they're interested in.
Kris wonders if Chanyeol's got a single friend here.
Up in his room, he knows Kyungsoo, Yixing and Joonmyun will be loading guns with the little dart versions of Jongdae's Consciousness Eradicating Devices that he developed specifically for the occasion. One direct hit, and the several bodyguards stationed around the terrace will be out cold. With how quick a shot Kyungsoo is, he's got no doubt that the three of them can take out most of the guards before they can even figure out what's happening.
Well, all but four. Minseok, Zitao, Baekhyun and Luhan aren't there for target practice.
And it's a shame, really. So much work went into the intricate details of this party. Every flower was hand-picked by an expert, every eclair's frosting design was done by a professional, the particular pattern of china plates was specifically ordered for the occasion. The precise placement of the dozens of tables on either side of the centre aisle took hours. All the shaped shrubs and bushes had very strict care regimens. The tea and dessert selection took days to agree upon, and just as long to produce. Really, Kris thinks, this is his best party yet.
He can take small consolation in the fact that it'll be the best one he's ever destroyed.
So they're all there, businessmen and actors and politicians and socialites and Park Chanyeol. They're sipping their tea, talking about their socially-acceptable politically-neutral religion-free non-controversial topics. Visits to art exhibitions and musical performances and tropical islands, with a carefully controlled tone that implies no bragging. Minor business deals, with a tinge of modesty that assures no overstatement of prowess. The recent news, with great care to avoid taking any bold position on any of the topics. Mutual friends, in small enough doses not to name-drop. It's all very comfortably dull. Soothingly lacklustre. Delightfully boring.
It's funny, the way the only one not engaged in this pantomime of conversation is Chanyeol.
It's funny, the way that it's Chanyeol's party and everyone is ignoring him.
It's funny, the way this isn't even his real birthday and yet he's here amongst the shallow mimicry of communication completely alone.
It's kind of sad, how this is the way he's spending his last few hours.
They should've bought wine, Kris thinks.
Minseok and Zitao look perfectly respectable in their sleek black suits. Baekhyun and Luhan look quite charming in their dress shirts and ties. They fit right in amongst the fancy people talking about trivial topics over a cup of tea that costs more than most people's groceries for a week. They clean up well. Really, Kris is quite proud.
The only thing out of place about them is the little smiles on their faces when Kyungsoo, Joonmyun and Yixing appear on Kris's balcony above the terrace and start shooting knockout darts at the guests.
And this takes the story up to the part where Kris is standing on a table, putting a bullet through the skull of a bodyguard belonging to Chanyeol's father. Then the part where he's sprinting back into the hotel lobby. Then the part where Zitao scrambles all the witnesses' memories, and now the part where the five of them are leaning against the piano covered in blood and laughing.
This is because of the part between those first two, where Sehun and Jongin sneak onto the terrace and grab what they need and sneak back out, completely unnoticed.
This is because the thing they snuck out with was the unconscious body of Park Chanyeol.
And this is how the sequence of events starts to come to a close.
Five months after this all started, on Chanyeol's real birthday, they've succeeded. Chanyeol is here, in Kris's grasp. And as he starts up the secret flight of stairs, the only way in the building to get to the invisible fourth floor, he smiles. Upstairs, Chanyeol will be just waking up.
"It's standard procedure," says Jongdae, checking the restraints on Chanyeol's arms, "To feel a little electrical shock when the wires are attached. Don't panic."
Where they are is Room 444 of the Black Pearl Luxury Hotel. Jongdae's mad scientist laboratory. Chanyeol is strapped securely into his magnum opus, the Soul Extraction Device; thanks to Jongdae's Emotional Sedation Device, he's barely struggling. Thanks to Jongdae's Superpower Suppression Device, he couldn't fight back if he tried.
Jongdae is attaching Soul Extraction wires to Chanyeol's head, and he's warning for a little electrical shock.
"It's standard procedure," says Jongdae, adjusting a few levers on the side of the chair, "To hear a soft humming noise when the device turns on. Don't worry."
Chanyeol's eyes are big. So big. And even with the Emotional Sedation Device suppressing the majority of his reactions, Kris can still see the fear in them - they would be beautiful, he thinks, if they weren't so afraid.
Jongdae is turning on a Soul Extraction Device, and he's warning for a soft humming noise.
"It's standard procedure," says Jongdae, "To feel an indescribable agony when your soul is extracted. Don't be alarmed."
Ah. Now they're getting somewhere.
Chanyeol's eyes are still wide, so wide, as he begins to slip free of the technological haze and struggle harder. The fear in them is growing deeper, until Kris can't imagine what they'd look like if they were smiling. And he says, "Why?"
His voice is so naive. So stupid. He flinches away when Kris reaches out to touch his cheek, like a wounded animal. "Why? There's only one reason I'd be extracting your soul. Because I want it."
And he can't believe it, but Chanyeol says again, "Why?"
It's funny, really, how all the eyes on the room are on him, but all he can see are Chanyeol's. Under different circumstances, maybe, he could've loved them. It's a curious thought, but he's sure he's had stranger thoughts while sending men to their deaths.
"Did you think," Kris says, very slowly, "That no one else knew your secret? That no one would find out about your powers?"
His lips, too. Kris couldn't love them the way they are now, half-parted and bitten in terror, but they look plush and soft. And he thinks maybe, under other circumstances, he would love those too.
"And did you think," Kris continues, "That you were alone? That there were no other mutants?"
All of Chanyeol's face is illuminated so nicely with the light of the small flame that appears in Kris's palm. As he looks at Chanyeol he feels the energy increase, and the flame twists and writhes and forms itself in a haze around Chanyeol. Embracing him without enveloping him. Caressing him without touching him. Under other circumstances, Kris thinks, he could've done this himself.
"I want your power," says Kris, his voice so soft it surprises even himself. "I want to combine it with my own. You can imagine that, right? Our powers merged. They would be so strong, you know, that no one could match them."
The electricity is beginning to pulse through the wires of the Soul Extraction Device now. The device is fully powered on, the touchscreen on the wall filled with the image of Chanyeol's soul. The little strands of it are almost entirely like everyone else's: long, red, thin. Made up of little memory fibres that intersect and weave together to form the whole. But the difference is, all of Chanyeol's are surrounded with glowing halos of fire.
Kris's are like that too.
"It's standard procedure," says Jongdae, as Kris seats himself in the Soul Transference Device and begins to attach the wires to his head, "To warn you how terribly this could go wrong."
And with the way they're connected now, little bits of Chanyeol's soul reaching out to his own through the wires before the initial merging, Chanyeol's feelings are becoming palpable to him - he can feel Chanyeol's thoughts. His being. It won't be too long now, Kris knows; it's a fairly quick process. Once Chanyeol's soul is extracted, Jongdae will filter it. He'll take those little fire auras wrapped around it, suck them out, and feed them through the wires into Kris's. If everything goes right, they'll merge; the fire auras will blend together, intensify, until they become an inferno enshrouding the core of Kris's being.
If it goes wrong, no one knows what happens.
Kris is so far inside himself now, as he feels the device begin to work. Outside Chanyeol is yelling, struggling against the restraints, asking - begging - them to stop. And inside, Kris is telling him, Be calm. Relax. There's no use spending your last moments so afraid.
Outside Chanyeol is pleading, fighting, still trying to break free even as his strength begins to ebb away. Inside, Kris is telling him, It's okay. You'll be alright. Not too much longer now.
Outside, Chanyeol is fading. His breaths are slowing and his noises are fading, but his presence within Kris only becomes stronger. He can feel it, vibrant and alive, growing more powerful every second. And inside he's saying, You won't really die. You'll live on as part of me.
Outside and inside, everything goes black.
For: itachibana13
Pairing: Kris-centric; minor Kris/Chanyeol
Rating: PG-13
Length: 7 560
Summary: It's not every Saturday afternoon that a group of hotel owners destroys a tea party to steal an awkward twenty-year-old chaebol with raspberry tea staining his tie. But this isn't just any Saturday afternoon - this is Park Chanyeol's fake birthday, and it seems only fitting that he'll spend it having his soul extracted.[Warnings/Notes]Violence, potentially disturbing concepts and implied character death. Parts of the idea inspired by Man Of Steel.
Kris's idea of a good time isn't having a shoot-out at a fancy garden tea party at 3PM on a Saturday afternoon, but he supposes it's close enough.
The ladies in their shapeless skirts and big fancy hats are shrieking as ivy-decorated lattice fences come crashing down on the terrace around them. The gentlemen in their spotless fitted suits are trying to hurry the screaming women behind the manicured bushes, inside the tablecloths covering the serving carts, under the the last few tables left standing.
Kris wants to tell them not to bother with the tables. They're not very stable. And he would know, because he's standing on one.
It's not an ideal vantage point. The silky white tablecloth is too smooth to give his Italian leather loafers much traction, and he almost slips on it; he barely dives into a kneeling position as another bullet whips by his head and lodges itself in a tasteful flower arrangement on a nearby table. But when he stands back up, the added height advantage lets him put a bullet through the skull of a six-foot bodyguard at just the right angle to have him crumpling where he stands. The man takes an artfully-shaped potted tree down with him.
A fun fact about shootouts is that they're nowhere near as efficient as you see in television programmes. Almost every shot misses.
This works in Kris's favour, he thinks, when he leaps down from the table and begins to sprint through the wreckage of smashed dessert plates and custard-stained napkins. Little gold-rimmed china teacups. Dropped designer handbags with their contents spilling out the side. He almost slips on a tube of aubergine lipstick as he tears through the centre aisle of the terrace, weaving between tables; instead, he trips on the elbow of a half-conscious Estonian diplomat.
Minseok's next to him when he stumbles, a gun in one hand and a knife in the other. He grips the handle of the knife between his teeth, sticking out an arm to grab the back of Kris's rumpled black dress shirt as he falls. It's enough to keep Kris upright, and when he regains his balance, he plucks the knife out of Minseok's mouth and scoffs at it.
"Didn't anyone tell you to never bring a knife to a gunfight?"
"Not that guy," says Minseok, and points to some corrupt second-generation chaebol right next to Kris's foot. His crisp white shirt has been punctured with five different stab wounds, the holes still oozing blood at a leisurely pace. Minseok grins at him, before firing two more shots at another bodyguard trying a suicidal leap over the edge of the garden terrace.
"Fair enough," says Kris, and keeps running.
A fun fact about shootouts is that they're not like they are in action films, where it only takes a minute or two for all the bad guys to end up dead.
Kris knows this because he's one of the bad guys, and he's still standing.
The door back into the hotel's lobby isn't too far away now. It's just through a long latticework tunnel twined with thick green vines, and as he runs through it, he can hear the noise of the slowing gunfight getting further and further away. Luhan and Baekhyun are ahead of him, Baekhyun's hand reaching for the gilded door handle; he can hear Minseok beginning to follow behind him. They dash inside the building, their shoes skidding on the smooth polished floor, and then everything goes silent.
It's another few seconds before Zitao comes into view, sprinting through the door with one of Jongdae's Memory Blurring Devices in hand. He tugs off his Blur-proof protective helmet and tosses it onto the floor next to Luhan's feet, panting slightly as he sets the metallic rod down beside it. "Sorry. Wanted to make sure you were all out of range."
The door slams shut behind him, and Baekhyun turns the lock. There's a black Steinway grand piano against the wall beside them, and they drag it over on its wheels to roll in front of the door as a barricade. They lean against it to catch their breaths, each one harsh in their throats - and then, suddenly, they're laughing. With their crooked suit jackets and loosened ties, their messy hair and blood-splattered trousers, they're laughing. With their guns tucked safely into their pockets, suddenly everything is hysterical. Because it's a curious phenomenon, the rush of giddiness that comes with adrenaline and thrill.
If this were a film, Kris knows, the audience would be raging in their seats. They would hate this. They'd spend the rest of the day mulling over the injustice of it all, cursing the immorality of the screenwriter in their heads. No one wants to watch a film where the bad guys win.
So this scene here would make a terrible film. Because this time, the bad guys are the ones left standing. The bad guys are the ones who stole what they needed to steal, killed who they needed to kill, escaped when they needed to escape. There was no hero to save the day.
No one wants to watch a film where the bad guys win. And this scene would make a terrible film, because they won the moment Jongin and Sehun made it up to the fourth floor of the hotel with Park Chanyeol.
Taken out of context, this all seems a bit bizarre. It's not every Saturday afternoon that a group of hotel owners destroys a tea party to steal an awkward twenty-year-old chaebol with raspberry tea staining his tie. But this isn't just any Saturday afternoon - this is Park Chanyeol's fake birthday, and it seems only fitting that he'll spend it having his soul extracted.
The thing is, today isn't the beginning of this sequence of events. They began to unfold last autumn, about five months ago, on Park Chanyeol's real birthday. And put in context, the situation seems less bizarre.
So this is how it all begins:
Five months ago, the five of them are standing in an enormous underground room with an ancient filing clerk, and Kris is thinking it's kind of sad how this old man works alone in the dark all day filing papers.
He's one of the most valuable men on the planet, but he's here in this endlessly long room surrounded by towering stacks of metal filing cabinets that reach all the way up to the ceiling in immovable blocks. There are three sections of them, and with how far back the rows in them go, Kris can't see the end of them down the two small aisles. They only get smaller and smaller until they vanish into pitch-black.
This man knows one of the world's most important secrets, but he's here sorting thick beige folders alphabetically by the names of past business clients who are already dead.
He's got knowledge that could turn the world upside down, but he's here rifling through drawers to arrange the numerical order of expired contract IDs.
He's all alone down here in the dark, and it's all too easy to come up behind him with one of Jongdae's Consciousness Eradicating Devices. He never saw it coming, this poor old man, and Kris and Jongdae drag him between two of the rows of filing cabinets (Section A, Row 25-26) almost silently.
Back here, it's impossible to see anything at all.
"Hold this." Jongdae shoves a flashlight into Kris's hand, and he turns it on. They both wince away from it for a moment; the sudden burst of light sends their unacclimated eyes flashing with splotches of colour, floating clouds of purples and greens and blues that that don't fit in with their dark monochrome backdrop. When the old man's face comes into clear view, Kris isn't the slightest bit surprised at how truly aged he looks.
"It's kind of funny," says Jongdae, as he sets down his combination-locked briefcase and turns the dial to the right sequence of numbers to snap it open. "You think they'd want him where they can keep an eye on him, but instead they keep him where no one can see him."
"And it's kind of funny," says Jongdae, as he pulls out of the briefcase a bundle of wires and a large disc-shaped device. "You think they'd want to keep him safe, but it seems like they just want to keep him out of the way."
Just outside the row of filing cabinets (Aisle 1, between Section A and Section B), Kris can see the shadow-shapes of Minseok and Zitao pacing up and down the five meters surrounding them on either side. Vague smoky outlines drifting past them, keeping watch. Something about the way Zitao's aimlessly spinning his gun makes Kris shiver, and he tells Jongdae, "Get on with it."
"Alright, alright." Jongdae's voice is tinged with irritation, and Kris could swear he mutters, "You couldn't do this yourself in a million years."
Kris doesn't like to watch this part. The little whining noise the device makes when it powers up always makes his teeth grind, and something about the way the wires tangle together reminds him of the little strands that Jongdae's technology can reduce a person's soul to. The core of their being, represented as thin red cords of information clusters.
This is Jongdae's Soul Data Transmission Device, and Kris hates to be around it.
"Shit," curses Jongdae, as the wires he's connected to the old man's head pulse with electricity. There's an audible crackling noise as the old man twitches. He grins up at Kris, something mischievous on his cat-like face. "Sorry in advance if I fry his brain before I can get what I want out of it."
"Don't even joke about that."
Jongdae's barely concentrating as he skims his finger over the SDTD's touchscreen, zooming in on specific soul strands before shaking his head and moving on to the next potential target. Looking. Carelessly rifling through the vast stores of information in this poor old man's soul without any regard for order. Hunting through everything this man holds dear like they're pages in an encyclopaedia. Searching his mind for the answer to the question they spent so long tracking him down for, as if it's an impersonal computer database instead of a human safe-deposit box with secrets, joys, fears and hopes stored there. Really, Kris thinks, the whole process is very inhumane.
But then again, Jongdae's never made his technology through normal human means.
The metallic stone floor is so cold that Kris's knees are going numb as he kneels on it, and he wraps his arms around himself and rubs his biceps for warmth. That's ten times, he counts. Ten times that Zitao and Minseok's paths have intersected in front of the space between Row 25 and 26 as they pace down Aisle 1 in opposite directions. He doesn't like it when they get too far away.
Jongdae's hovering his finger over another highlighted strand, standing out red and bright against the pale pink ones surrounding it, and he pauses a moment before tapping on it. He taps again, just twice, and the corner of his mouth stretches up in something that could be a smirk. "Hm. That was easier than I expected. It's not any harder to find all of Park Chanyeol's deepest, darkest secrets than memories of this man's cat."
"That quickly?" Kris raises an eyebrow. "You're lying."
Jongdae's zoomed in so close on the highlighted soul strand that Kris can see the tiny interlocking fibres of memory that make it up. He watches as Jongdae opens the menu on the side of the touchscreen and taps two buttons: copy. save. The SDTD lets out an unearthly whir as it scans the contents of the strand, creates a perfect reproduction of them and stores them for Jongdae to read later. Steadily, the progress bar counts up: 13%, 38%, 44%, 49%, 53%.
"That can't really be the one, can it? Right in the front of his soul?"
Zitao and Minseok, the deadly wraith-shapes, intersect for the eleventh time as the progress bar keeps counting up, faster this time: 83%, 94%.
Jongdae shakes his head, and the harsh glow from the device's screen hits his sharp cheekbones at an eerie angle. When his eyes meet Kris's, they seem almost to be glowing. "After all those years, he still feels the pain enough to keep it fresh. But then again, wouldn't you?"
100%.
A fun fact about buildings in East Asia is that many of them don't have fourth floors. There aren't 4 buttons on the lifts, and no 4th flight on the stairs. This is because they're very unlucky, fourth floors, and people don't appreciate the number of death staring them in the face. They don't want to be treated on the fourth floor of a hospital, where it's inevitable that the treatment will fail. They don't want to work on the fourth floor of an office building, or live on the fourth floor of a residential building. They don't want a fourth floor in their hotels, either; nobody wants to have a business meeting in a room that will make certain they never close their deal. Nobody wants to go on holiday in a place that might kill them.
A fun fact about the Black Pearl Luxury Hotel is that it's got a fourth floor.
A fun fact about the fourth floor is that only eleven people know it's there.
The lifts don't go to the fourth floor. The stairs don't either. The buttons in the lift skip straight from 3 to 5, and so do the numbers on the flights of stairs. And with fourth floors being quite unlucky, this seems completely normal. If the lift trip between the 3rd and 5th floors is a second too long, or the space between the 3rd and 5th flights of stairs seems to take a bit longer to climb, no one pays enough attention to notice.
A fun fact about the fourth floor is that Kris lives on it. And he's never died.
Kris lives in Room 400. It's very comfortable. Very luxurious. It's one of those extensive suites that seems designed for at least ten people, but is only occupied by one. It's got everything you would expect for such lavish accommodations: smooth hardwood floors with intricately patterned rugs on top, a king-sized bed with a feather duvet, a chandelier ceiling lamp. A bathroom with marble countertops and a hot tub. Floor-to-ceiling windows. A balcony. A wonderful view of the sunset. Nothing about it suggests a bad omen.
His ten neighbours are absolutely lovely. The one in Room 413 makes excellent coffee, and is happy to bring it out to the fourth floor's spacious lounge every morning. The one in Room 438 dispenses quite useful health and wellness advice. The one in 453 has a lovely singing voice, and provides harmonic melodies for his neighbours while he's in the shower. The other seven of them are just as agreeable.
Though there are only eleven of them, they're quite happy with their life on the fourth floor. The rooms are well-furnished, the lounge is quite cosy and the company is excellent. Quite frequently, they stop by Room 444 just for a visit; this room by far is the most intriguing one, and numerically speaking, the most unlucky one. Somehow none of them have ever died, and they tempt death more than Kris knows.
A fun fact about the Black Pearl Luxury Hotel is that Kris owns it. So do his ten neighbours.
A fun fact about Kris's neighbours is that the one in Room 413 is named Baekhyun. The one in Room 438 is Joonmyun, and the one in 453 is Jongdae. The other seven are Yixing, Kyungsoo, Sehun, Jongin, Luhan, Minseok and Zitao.
Really, it's a wonder none of them have ever died.
Kris has many talents. For example, he would make an excellent runway model. Or a rapper. Or an abstract artist. But at the moment, he owns a hotel and leads a team of highly specialised criminals in a hunt for a priceless commodity. Entering the property ownership business was simply a matter of convenience; he had an impressive amount of un-invested money, and needed a place to live on his own rather complicated terms. The profit return was also a plus.
Entering the criminal enterprise business, however, was simply a matter of applying his moral bankruptcy to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Their roles are rather clearly defined: Kris masterminds the schemes and gives orders. Jongdae creates the necessary technology to carry them out. Zitao, Minseok, Baekhyun and Luhan accompany him into potential combat situations. Jongin and Sehun handle the closure of missions; transporting stolen goods, disposing of evidence, covering tracks. Yixing conducts surveillance and reconnaissance. Joonmyun and Kyungsoo specialise in deciphering the complicated coded information from Jongdae's many devices, and put them into usable form.
Unfortunately, Joonmyun and Kyungsoo don't specialise in punctuality.
This is why Kris has spent the last three hours waiting for them to present their report on the decrypted information from the copied strand on the Soul Data Transmission Device. At the moment, he's reading a three-day-old newspaper and listening to Jongin and Sehun take turns counting the lights on the chandelier.
He's not sure either of them are really keeping track.
"13," says Sehun.
"38," says Jongin.
2C with 30% chance of freezing rain, says the newspaper's weather forecast. Picture of illustrated cloud with four small raindrops.
"44," says Sehun.
"49," says Jongin.
English Premier League Upcoming Fixtures. Tomorrow: Manchester United FC vs Reading FC, says the newspaper's sport section. Picture of illustrated football.
"53," says Sehun.
"83," says Jongin.
Yet another Chaebol heir opens luxury import store, says the newspaper's front page. Photograph of wild-haired young man holding expensive French designer shoe upside down.
"94," says Sehun.
"100," says Jongin.
And this is when a frighteningly thick stapled stack of paper printouts comes falling from the sky and nearly breaks Kris's nose.
"Hiding in plain sight."
The stack of papers is so thick that the edge of it bends over the side of Kris's hand as he flips through them. They're marked up with neon highlighter, the words framed with blue and pink and green and orange in some code that only the person who created it understands. That person is Joonmyun, and he's saying, "The whole time, Chanyeol was hiding in plain sight."
27th November 1992: Birthday. Highlighted blue.
"After all that time we spent tracking him down, he was right in front of our eyes."
27th January 1993: Discovered unnatural powers. Highlighted pink.
"We probably saw his face a million times while we were looking for him, and we never knew."
27th April 1993: Adopted. Name and birthday changed. Highlighted blue.
"Where would you expect someone to be," says Joonmyun, "If they're trying to hide a huge secret? You'd think they'd keep to themselves, right? Live a normal life, somewhere quiet. Try to stay out of the public eye. Lay low. Avoid attention. That would make sense, right?"
27th November 1993: Power suppression training begun. Highlighted pink.
"The last thing you'd expect that person to do," says Joonmyun, "Is to be famous. Someone important. It wouldn't make sense to invite all that scrutiny. They wouldn't want their every move watched. It would be better to disappear and act like they don't exist, right?"
Note: biological father is second cousin of adoption father. Highlighted green.
"But then again," says Joonmyun, "That's the brilliance of it. It's perfectly normal for prominent figures to desire some type of secrecy in their private life. It makes complete sense for them to have security protection. And everyone thinks, if they had a secret that big to hide, wouldn't you expect them to be hiding as well?"
27th December 1992: adopted mother has miscarriage of biological child. Miscarriage is never publicly reported. Highlighted blue and green.
27th April 1993: Birth of adopted mother's biological child is announced according to procedure. Adoption process of Park Chanyeol completed. Highlighted blue and green.
"Nobody would think," says Joonmyun, "That a third-generation chaebol of one of the country's biggest conglomerates might be a mutant."
[END OF REPORT: Data retrieved from the mind of Park Chanyeol's biological father.] Highlighted orange.
Most public figures have a private life. One that's kept secret, away from the cameras and reporters and news headlines. These big and famous people are all about image, appearance, saving face. Their dirty secrets might be packaged away, but they've still got them.
For example, a virtuous media-darling actor could have a nasty drug habit.
For example, a boyband member marketed as a pure, innocent little angel could be into erotic asphyxiation and sadomasochism.
For example, the grandson of a chaebol founder could have a superpower.
Some of these secrets emerge, plastered on internet news sites and shouted as questions during press conferences and reflected in rapidly dropping stock prices. Some of these secrets are hidden away under piles of money. Some of these secrets are never discovered. And some of them are known by so few people, so well covered up, that they might as well not exist.
For example, that virtuous actor could be spending his nights in the thick, numbing haze of a few too many pills he swears are only for his headache.
For example, that angelic boyband member could be touching himself to the thought of being choked and slapped across the face.
For instance, that chaebol grandson could be able to light things on fire just by willing energy through his fingertips as he visualises them bursting into flames.
Sometimes you know what secrets are behind those famous people's masks. Sometimes you don't. Kris doesn't know about that actor, and he doesn't know about that boyband member, but he does know about the chaebol grandson. He knows that the Park Chanyeol they've been looking for has been right under their noses the whole time. There's a face to put to the name now, one he's seen unknowingly a million times before. And there's an identity to put to the mysterious carrier of the fire superpower that he's been tracking down.
He just needs to get close enough to start picking it apart.
"It is absolutely inhumane," says Kris, "To toss people out of windows. We are not tossing this man out the window."
And the man's lucky the window's probably not big enough, because if he were tossed out of it, he'd never survive. He might get his face scraped off on the ground beneath him, or maybe he'd snap his neck on impact. Maybe his skull would crack open. There's no way he'd live, Kris thinks, getting tossed out of here.
This is because 'here' is a speeding black van on a back road in the middle of the night.
This is also because the van is being chased.
It happened something like this: The man's name is Im Hyunkyun. A little while ago, not too long ago, he was the head of Chanyeol's personal security team. His resignation was rather sudden, and extremely unexpected (but according to Jongdae's Thought Inception Device, quite timely). And the thing is, this was meant to be a very quick mission; they were going to snatch Hyunkyun out of his bed, extract from his mind the information they needed, and have him back there before sunrise. According to Yixing's surveillance, Hyunkyun's own security detail would leave his mansion in time to make this possible.
Yixing's surveillance didn't factor in the possibility of the security detail ordering Chinese takeaway and staying late.
And that's how Kris ends up here: on the floor in the back of this van with the rest of the combat team, clinging onto whatever they can reach as Baekhyun whips the van around a corner at 180km/h and stomps on the accelerator harder. That's how they end up being chased by the security detail, who apparently deemed them more important than the half-finished container of chicken lo mein. That's also how they end up discussing how to get rid of Hyunkyun before they get back to the Black Pearl Luxury Hotel, as Jongdae hurriedly scrolls through Hyunkyun's memory on the Soul Data Transmission Device. The Jolin Tsai song Luhan's got playing on the radio gives the whole scene a very surreal quality.
Because nobody's listening, Kris repeats, "We are not tossing him out the window."
"We're amateurs," groans Minseok, rubbing his temples. "They're just going to increase Chanyeol's security even more after this."
"Just tie him up, leave him in a vaguely secure location and find a way to frame the mafia," Luhan suggests, very helpfully, from the passenger seat of the van. He leans over to turn the music up.
They can hear the screech of the wheels before they feel the shudder that goes through the vehicle as Baekhyun swerves wildly to keep the security guards' car from coming up beside them, bumping unceremoniously over the kerb and speeding through a red traffic light. Jongdae's head slams against the wall of the van and he curses, nearly dropping the device in his hand. The wires attached to Hyunkyun's head jerk.
"How the hell did you get your driving licence?" Jongdae snaps, narrowing his eyes at Baekhyun. Kris can see his fingers inching in the direction of the Mild Pain Implementation Device in the bottom of his briefcase.
"Well, I wasn't in the middle of a fucking car chase."
Baekhyun swerves again, and they all nearly go toppling over onto each other. Kris hurries to grab Hyunkyun's legs so that he doesn't slide to the back of the van, and Zitao grabs his feet. Jongdae squints at the SDTD's screen, zooming in on one more soul strand before shaking his head.
"It's not here. Not even Chanyeol's own security team knows he's not human."
"So we were right." Kris looks up from where he's giving Hyunkyun another quick zap with Jongdae's Consciousness Eradicating Device to make sure he stays out the whole time. "They really don't intend for anyone besides four people to know. And they think no one else knows either."
"Seems like it." Kris can see Jongdae hovering over another cluster of soul strands, the ones that he knows contain the specific detail of Chanyeol's security. His main source of protection. The defences they will have to breach. He watches Jongdae tap two buttons on the screen menu - copy. save.
He watches the progress bar finish loading, and Jongdae slowly disconnect the wires. He's extremely careful not to fry Hyunkyun's brain as Baekhyun slams on the brakes half a second before merging onto the main road, suddenly down to a leisurely 100km/h as he weaves in and out of lanes in an unpredictable pattern. Luhan continuously checks the mirror to watch the progress of the car behind them as they gradually manage to leave it behind in traffic. On the radio, the Jolin Tsai song ends.
"So," says Zitao, after a long silence, "Is it time to toss him out the window?"
A fun fact about the Black Pearl Luxury Hotel is that it's renowned for its event hosting. Business meetings, charity balls, press conferences. Book signings, weddings, political dinners. Celebrity parties. It has a reputation for sparing no expense when it comes to hospitality, from the speed of the arrangements to the effort of adhering exactly to the client's wishes to the impeccable attention to detail. Many high-profile events have taken place within its expansive ballrooms, fancy dining rooms and lavish garden terrace.
A fun fact about Chanyeol's birthday is that it's a bit over a month away.
Kris entered the hotel ownership business as a matter of convenience. Not too much advance thinking of the possibilities occurred. But this - oh, Kris couldn't have done this any better if he'd planned it. It's him personally who formally contacts Chanyeol's family requesting the honour of hosting his birthday party. The deal he offers is irresistible.
Chanyeol's family is perfect. Just the rich, fussy type of clients that they're used to accommodating. He fits right in the centre of their target market.
It's not really Chanyeol's birthday, he knows. Chanyeol's real birthday was almost five months ago, while he was deep underground stealing Chanyeol's deepest secrets from the mind of the father he was taken from. The one who watched from his place in the labyrinth as Chanyeol grew up without ever knowing him. The one who accepted the offer to blend Chanyeol in seamlessly with his cousin's family, putting him in the place of the missing baby. The one who gave Chanyeol up so that Chanyeol could have things he couldn't provide: power suppression training to teach him how to control his volatile flame powers, a perfect cover for his strange private life and security guards to keep him or his secrets from ever falling into the wrong hands.
But this is the birthday of the fake persona Park Chanyeol, the one who's one-hundred-percent human. And Kris thinks, this is perfect. He couldn't have planned it any better. And with a deal like that, Kris knows, they won't refuse.
They don't.
Chanyeol's family contacts him surprisingly quickly. It's a short amount of time before he has official confirmation that the contract is his. Immediately, the place is transformed into a flurry of activity and noise and chaos as negotiations begin on the specifics and preparations for the party get underway. Kris's staff are professionals, the best in their field; he has complete confidence that nothing will go awry.
That is, nothing that isn't planned to.
The party date is set for 27th April, a month after the phone call. Chanyeol's fake birthday. And with that, Kris and his team of ten begin some preparations of their own.
Room 444 isn't like the rest of the fourth floor. There's no elegantly patterned carpeting, no antique vases, no chandelier lights. No wall-length windows, no plush sofas and armchairs, no large gilded mirrors on the walls. This room couldn't be any more different.
There's something clinically cold about the tile floors and the blank white walls. There are stainless steel tables placed around the edges of the room, rolling carts scattered around the middle of it; the only seating is three heavily-scratched wooden stools, wobbly from the difference in length of their legs. The only decorations are the various metal parts and rubber-coated wires scattered around the tables and in carts, and in half-opened cardboard boxes beside them. Little data chips and disconnected buttons and blank screens waiting to be put in place. Assorted nails and screws, spanners and hammers, screwdrivers and pliers and tweezers fill the remaining spaces amidst the rest of the technological chaos. For all intents and purposes, the place looks like a mad scientist's lab.
And that's precisely what it is. This is Jongdae's Device Construction Laboratory, and it's nearly blown the whole building up more times than any of them can count.
This is where Jongdae invents and creates their various technological implements. This is where the Memory Blurring Devices and Consciousness Eradicating Devices come from. This is the origin of the Mild Pain Implementation Device. The furnace in which the Soul Data Transmission Device was forged. It's also the birthplace of the rarely useful Plant Life Detection Device and the aggressively unreliable Catastrophe Countdown Device.
"Shame it's not the birthplace of more creative names," Sehun often mutters under his breath. "What about apparatus? Appliance? Contraption? Invention? A thesaurus isn't half as complicated as those technical manuals you read."
But none of those things are the most prominent feature of the room. That would be the thing in the centre of it, the product of three years of work. The result of a hundred sleepless nights, a hundred cuts and burns, a thousand seemingly insurmountable technical hurdles. This is Jongdae's magnum opus.
This is Jongdae's Soul Extraction Device.
It's a big hulking thing, formed around a metal chair. The number of unlabelled buttons and levers on the side is so overwhelming that Kris wonders if Jongdae can even remember what they all do. The screen of this device is easily the length of one of his arms, mounted on the wall directly behind it; the graphics are much clearer, the control features more advanced, because the mechanisms of this device are much more precise and require more greater detail. The wires on this one are manoeuvred by mechanical clips controlled by the touchscreen. They're much thicker, but the electrical current that flows through them is much, much stronger. One doesn't need to imagine what the restraints on the arms of the chair are for.
But by far, the most interesting feature is the chair attached to the back of it. It's an exact replica, but with only one small change - there are no restraints.
This is Jongdae's Soul Transference Device.
Four days before Chanyeol's birthday party, they all gather around and watch as Jongdae finally, after three years of work, powers on the just-completed device. Kris is filled with a growing, inexplicable sense of horror and awe as he watches the huge machine come to life. It's an amazing moment, really, the eleven of them standing there silent and watching as Jongdae's greatest work finally comes together.
"That's it," says Jongdae, breathlessly. "It's done."
For a few moments, the only sound in the room is the loud hum of the device's power source as they all take in its details. And then Jongdae's turning to them with a device that makes Kris shiver.
"I'm going to test it tonight," he says. "You all might want to stay far away from here."
The morning of the fancy garden tea party, Park Chanyeol's fake birthday party, Kris is sitting on his balcony looking out over the terrace. He's absent-mindedly skimming a newspaper as he watches the proceedings. Joonmyun, Jongin, Jongdae and Yixing are lounging on the floor of the balcony around him; Jongin's asleep with his head in Joonmyun's lap, and Yixing is disinfecting and bandaging a few cuts from sharp wire ends on Jongdae's palm. Baekhyun is leaning on the railing, observing the events below with great interest.
Down on the terrace, a team of decorators is draping the tables with silky white tablecloths, straightening out the edges so that each side is perfectly even.
"Stains easily," says Baekhyun.
25C with 0% chance of rain, says the newspaper's weather forecast. Picture of illustrated sun with no clouds.
Down on the terrace, another team of decorators has begun to place large glass vases on the tables that have already been covered with tablecloths. They use rulers to align them precisely in the centre, not a millimeter too far to the side.
"Highly breakable," says Baekhyun.
English Premier League Upcoming Fixtures. Tomorrow: Manchester United vs Arsenal, says the newspaper's sport section. Picture of illustrated football.
Down on the terrace, another team of decorators is carefully taking bunches of flowers off of a wheeled cart to place into the vases. They even out the stems, fluff up the petals, space them out just the slightest bit apart.
"Those won't last a minute," says Baekhyun.
Two Seoul men missing since Wednesday night, says the newspaper's front page. Photograph of two men who Kris finds eerily familiar.
This party, Kris thinks, is the best he's ever hosted.
All the right company is there as the guests sashay in, everyone taking the opportunity to show off their latest fashions and expensive accessories. The entirety of the guest list has shown up, as denoted by the calligraphy place-cards on each of the tables. They waste no time in finding their way to their seats; they're all quite distinguished, from business prowess to political importance to television and film appearances.
It's interesting, Kris thinks, that they seem to pay minimal attention to Chanyeol. Any interest they display is purely political. Perhaps it's the lack of press photographers that keeps them from making a greater effort to keep up appearances (Kris had strongly insisted - for purely integrity reasons, of course), but it's only Chanyeol's father they're interested in.
Kris wonders if Chanyeol's got a single friend here.
Up in his room, he knows Kyungsoo, Yixing and Joonmyun will be loading guns with the little dart versions of Jongdae's Consciousness Eradicating Devices that he developed specifically for the occasion. One direct hit, and the several bodyguards stationed around the terrace will be out cold. With how quick a shot Kyungsoo is, he's got no doubt that the three of them can take out most of the guards before they can even figure out what's happening.
Well, all but four. Minseok, Zitao, Baekhyun and Luhan aren't there for target practice.
And it's a shame, really. So much work went into the intricate details of this party. Every flower was hand-picked by an expert, every eclair's frosting design was done by a professional, the particular pattern of china plates was specifically ordered for the occasion. The precise placement of the dozens of tables on either side of the centre aisle took hours. All the shaped shrubs and bushes had very strict care regimens. The tea and dessert selection took days to agree upon, and just as long to produce. Really, Kris thinks, this is his best party yet.
He can take small consolation in the fact that it'll be the best one he's ever destroyed.
So they're all there, businessmen and actors and politicians and socialites and Park Chanyeol. They're sipping their tea, talking about their socially-acceptable politically-neutral religion-free non-controversial topics. Visits to art exhibitions and musical performances and tropical islands, with a carefully controlled tone that implies no bragging. Minor business deals, with a tinge of modesty that assures no overstatement of prowess. The recent news, with great care to avoid taking any bold position on any of the topics. Mutual friends, in small enough doses not to name-drop. It's all very comfortably dull. Soothingly lacklustre. Delightfully boring.
It's funny, the way the only one not engaged in this pantomime of conversation is Chanyeol.
It's funny, the way that it's Chanyeol's party and everyone is ignoring him.
It's funny, the way this isn't even his real birthday and yet he's here amongst the shallow mimicry of communication completely alone.
It's kind of sad, how this is the way he's spending his last few hours.
They should've bought wine, Kris thinks.
Minseok and Zitao look perfectly respectable in their sleek black suits. Baekhyun and Luhan look quite charming in their dress shirts and ties. They fit right in amongst the fancy people talking about trivial topics over a cup of tea that costs more than most people's groceries for a week. They clean up well. Really, Kris is quite proud.
The only thing out of place about them is the little smiles on their faces when Kyungsoo, Joonmyun and Yixing appear on Kris's balcony above the terrace and start shooting knockout darts at the guests.
And this takes the story up to the part where Kris is standing on a table, putting a bullet through the skull of a bodyguard belonging to Chanyeol's father. Then the part where he's sprinting back into the hotel lobby. Then the part where Zitao scrambles all the witnesses' memories, and now the part where the five of them are leaning against the piano covered in blood and laughing.
This is because of the part between those first two, where Sehun and Jongin sneak onto the terrace and grab what they need and sneak back out, completely unnoticed.
This is because the thing they snuck out with was the unconscious body of Park Chanyeol.
And this is how the sequence of events starts to come to a close.
Five months after this all started, on Chanyeol's real birthday, they've succeeded. Chanyeol is here, in Kris's grasp. And as he starts up the secret flight of stairs, the only way in the building to get to the invisible fourth floor, he smiles. Upstairs, Chanyeol will be just waking up.
"It's standard procedure," says Jongdae, checking the restraints on Chanyeol's arms, "To feel a little electrical shock when the wires are attached. Don't panic."
Where they are is Room 444 of the Black Pearl Luxury Hotel. Jongdae's mad scientist laboratory. Chanyeol is strapped securely into his magnum opus, the Soul Extraction Device; thanks to Jongdae's Emotional Sedation Device, he's barely struggling. Thanks to Jongdae's Superpower Suppression Device, he couldn't fight back if he tried.
Jongdae is attaching Soul Extraction wires to Chanyeol's head, and he's warning for a little electrical shock.
"It's standard procedure," says Jongdae, adjusting a few levers on the side of the chair, "To hear a soft humming noise when the device turns on. Don't worry."
Chanyeol's eyes are big. So big. And even with the Emotional Sedation Device suppressing the majority of his reactions, Kris can still see the fear in them - they would be beautiful, he thinks, if they weren't so afraid.
Jongdae is turning on a Soul Extraction Device, and he's warning for a soft humming noise.
"It's standard procedure," says Jongdae, "To feel an indescribable agony when your soul is extracted. Don't be alarmed."
Ah. Now they're getting somewhere.
Chanyeol's eyes are still wide, so wide, as he begins to slip free of the technological haze and struggle harder. The fear in them is growing deeper, until Kris can't imagine what they'd look like if they were smiling. And he says, "Why?"
His voice is so naive. So stupid. He flinches away when Kris reaches out to touch his cheek, like a wounded animal. "Why? There's only one reason I'd be extracting your soul. Because I want it."
And he can't believe it, but Chanyeol says again, "Why?"
It's funny, really, how all the eyes on the room are on him, but all he can see are Chanyeol's. Under different circumstances, maybe, he could've loved them. It's a curious thought, but he's sure he's had stranger thoughts while sending men to their deaths.
"Did you think," Kris says, very slowly, "That no one else knew your secret? That no one would find out about your powers?"
His lips, too. Kris couldn't love them the way they are now, half-parted and bitten in terror, but they look plush and soft. And he thinks maybe, under other circumstances, he would love those too.
"And did you think," Kris continues, "That you were alone? That there were no other mutants?"
All of Chanyeol's face is illuminated so nicely with the light of the small flame that appears in Kris's palm. As he looks at Chanyeol he feels the energy increase, and the flame twists and writhes and forms itself in a haze around Chanyeol. Embracing him without enveloping him. Caressing him without touching him. Under other circumstances, Kris thinks, he could've done this himself.
"I want your power," says Kris, his voice so soft it surprises even himself. "I want to combine it with my own. You can imagine that, right? Our powers merged. They would be so strong, you know, that no one could match them."
The electricity is beginning to pulse through the wires of the Soul Extraction Device now. The device is fully powered on, the touchscreen on the wall filled with the image of Chanyeol's soul. The little strands of it are almost entirely like everyone else's: long, red, thin. Made up of little memory fibres that intersect and weave together to form the whole. But the difference is, all of Chanyeol's are surrounded with glowing halos of fire.
Kris's are like that too.
"It's standard procedure," says Jongdae, as Kris seats himself in the Soul Transference Device and begins to attach the wires to his head, "To warn you how terribly this could go wrong."
And with the way they're connected now, little bits of Chanyeol's soul reaching out to his own through the wires before the initial merging, Chanyeol's feelings are becoming palpable to him - he can feel Chanyeol's thoughts. His being. It won't be too long now, Kris knows; it's a fairly quick process. Once Chanyeol's soul is extracted, Jongdae will filter it. He'll take those little fire auras wrapped around it, suck them out, and feed them through the wires into Kris's. If everything goes right, they'll merge; the fire auras will blend together, intensify, until they become an inferno enshrouding the core of Kris's being.
If it goes wrong, no one knows what happens.
Kris is so far inside himself now, as he feels the device begin to work. Outside Chanyeol is yelling, struggling against the restraints, asking - begging - them to stop. And inside, Kris is telling him, Be calm. Relax. There's no use spending your last moments so afraid.
Outside Chanyeol is pleading, fighting, still trying to break free even as his strength begins to ebb away. Inside, Kris is telling him, It's okay. You'll be alright. Not too much longer now.
Outside, Chanyeol is fading. His breaths are slowing and his noises are fading, but his presence within Kris only becomes stronger. He can feel it, vibrant and alive, growing more powerful every second. And inside he's saying, You won't really die. You'll live on as part of me.
Outside and inside, everything goes black.