(WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN) ON THREE-OH-EIGHT WINCHESTER for CHANMIMI
For: chanmimi
Title: (What Could Have Been) On Three-Oh-Eight Winchester
Pairing(s): Chanyeol/D.O, implied!Kai/D.O prior to events in fic
Rating: PG-13
Warning(s):[Spoiler]Implied character death
Length: 5,535w
Summary: This is the story of Do Kyungsoo, the assassin who witnessed the world end-twice.
It is not often we see the past when we look down a gun barrel through gridded lines on the scope of a sniper, propped up on elbows and black metal at the corner of a concrete roof. It is not often that we recognize the face of a long-range killer, and even less often that we remember the timbre of his voice from day we met him, and recall, when the gun is pointed at us, that his tongue on ours tasted like notes dipped in January’s honey harvest; that when he tuned his guitar, the strings seemed a part of him as they danced beneath his fingers; that he sang us love songs on the street after we met him in a bar where he bought us a poktanju and two cocktails. It is also not often that we see how the world ends behind the flashing defeat of the GAME OVER screen, not often that we play the game that broken-hearted killers play, not often that we are broken-hearted killers, and not often that we break our own hearts by pointing a gun at someone else.
These are things that do not happen often, but that does not mean that they cannot happen anyway.
At the wrong corner of Winchester, Do Kyungsoo looks up to see the face behind a rifle pointed at him from the roof of a building, the top of a black guitar case just visible against grey clouds where the sun peeks through, bleaching every edge in glaring white.
The day they meet, the weather is a cross between frosted grass and blooming flowers. Just outside the alley opening, he can see a couple with a baby, cars lined up at the traffic light, teenagers with Starbucks on the opposite sidewalk. In the dumpster behind him, there are two dead men split between five trash bags, buried under three inches of dry grass. Between his lips, there is an unlit cigarette; in his pocket, a lighter, almost empty.
Things seem to echo a lot when you are doing something you aren’t supposed to. As he walks out toward the street, he can hear his own footsteps around him from all directions. He listens as the distance grows between himself and the dumpster, accompanied the rhythmic clicking of his shoes with the snap of the lighter. He catches the cigarette between his fingers and watches the embers flare until he can smell the air around him burning; stops, quietly, at the opening of the alley, and tosses the cigarette over his shoulder.
He watches the crowd pass by: an old man bumbling along, a teenager staring down at her cell phone as she walks briskly over the road. He slides the lighter into his pocket. As if on some imperceptible cue, he takes the final step out onto the sidewalk.
It has been a while since his previous job, but people always have to do what they can to make a living. For the most part, he is good at it. Having a bold, black question mark where one’s heart should be always accompanies a talent for pulling triggers and ignoring the recoil. There is a reason he quit business school, after all.
Seven blocks later, long after the teenager and the old man go their separate ways, Kyungsoo approaches the corner of the block, where the brick wall of Sehun’s bar sits feebly, concrete chipping, color fading to expose thick, rusting screws and ugly granite. Seven blocks away, he listens to the music of the sirens that have just begun to blare, imagining the way the firetruck will race clumsily over the road, ladder rattling against the side, metal hose tips bouncing in their curled up seats. Too slow to put the fire out. Justice here is too unwieldy.
From behind the brick, Kyungsoo makes out a figure leaning against the white stucco wall across the street. Against the backdrop, his white shirt makes him look almost torsoless; just arms and legs and a floating head above a black collar of smoke, cigarette leaking grey limbs of cancer into the air. Like a photoshoot for an album cover, one of his Converse pressed against the wall, black guitar case leaning upright just beside him. Kyungsoo gets the feeling that the figure expects to see him even though they’ve never met-he has that feeling a lot; in the end those people always end up dead for one reason or another-and stops still where he is. He has half the mind to assume that he hasn’t been seen yet. Regardless, there is no room for mistakes. Time pauses itself for no one. He inhales softly, exhales just the same; lets the scent of burning tobacco scorch the air suspended before him. Time pauses itself, he thinks, for no one. He turns onto the next street.
Out of the corner of his eye, through the glare of the sun from the stranger’s glasses, he sees that the man is looking straight at him. He tucks his hand into his sleeve and pushes open the glass door to Sehun’s bar. When it closes, he lets sardony curl his lips into a wry smile.
At the wrong corner of Winchester, Do Kyungsoo looks up to see the face behind a rifle pointed at him from the roof of a building, the top of a black guitar case just visible against grey clouds where the sun peeks through, bleaching every edge in glaring white. The man behind the sniper ducks down behind the concrete, prepared to shoot. Kyungsoo smiles and looks right through the scope, straight past the gun, and says, exaggerating the lip movements as much as he can: “Coward.”
“Woo me,” Kyungsoo says when they leave the bar, rapping his knuckles on the body of Chanyeol’s guitar case after he makes a case for one night stands. “Then maybe I’ll consider it.”
They end up in the center of the downtown shopping district. He watches Chanyeol’s reaction from the corner of his eye when they turn the corner to see the mass of people: stiffened jaw, fading smile, slowed pace. It only lasts for a split second before he adjusts the guitar on his back and turns down the street, sitting down on the sidewalk under a fabric overhang and opening the case. There’s something a little funny about the way the clasp works and the black plastic lining the two separate halves seems a little thick on the top. Kyungsoo files it away in the back of his mind along with the memory of Chanyeol looking straight at him when he turned the corner into the back entrance of Sehun’s bar and all the other dead giveaways, under the category of Things To Un-notice.
Tucking his hands into his jacket pockets, Kyungsoo shuffles over to sit beside Chanyeol, watching as he tunes his guitar; pale, slender fingers plucking strings that seem almost a part of him, tangling with metallic herringbone patterns; eyes cast downward, a relaxed smile resting, faded, on his lips. Kyungsoo reciprocates, tucking the mental folder far, far away, just above the time capsule locking away worn, golden-coffee eyes. Taking a deep breath, he looks up at the fabric overhang, traces the metal braces holding it up, and lets his eyelids flutter shut for a moment before turning to Chanyeol.
“Do you have a soul, Chanyeol?”
Chanyeol cocks his head to the side, adjusting the pegs. “What?”
“I heard a quote once, that a musician has an obligation to his soul, and an obligation to give soul. So, do you have a soul?”
“That’s a little deep, considering the goals I have for our relationship.”
“Just answer the question. We’re making light conversation before you attempt to woo me.”
“Alright. I guess I have a soul. Everyone has a soul, right?”
“Hm.”
Turning away, Kyungsoo looks out towards the streets where people walk back and forth, lit underneath the sky in bright grey. Offbeat footsteps drum on concrete, couples hold hands, babies cry, children nag their parents for ice cream; thin, almost fragile looking fingers run over the shape of a lighter, almost empty, tucked into the pocket on a pair of jeans. Chanyeol strums arbitrary chords behind the sound of voices in old radio static-two or three mutilated corpses found in a burning dumpster this morning… police are working to identify the bodies and recover evidence from the crime scene-and Kyungsoo leans his head back against the window and relaxes, rolling his shoulders back, smiling. A voice crescendos from a shy drizzle into scratchy thunder, rumbling in clear, quiet song.
“Do you see my heart? Why is it love?
I was never gonna fall in love, I’m a fool.
Why am I happy? I think of your face;
Only stay by my side, forever, you.”
Across the street, Kyungsoo spots his own reflection in the window, slim shoulders beside Chanyeol’s broad ones, and stares at it through half-lidded eyes. Everything before and beyond his translucent image in the glass blurs and blurs until the colors disappear altogether, becoming another window, between himself and his reflection. The boy behind the window stands and waves at someone down the road, someone with broad shoulders and tanned skin, golden-coffee eyes and half-slicked half-tousled hair; with arms stronger than his, arms wrapping around his waist and picking him up, chin tilted up, smiling into a familiar kiss. Arms that eventually set him down, where he tip-toes on the concrete and pulls love down by the collar, slides one arm around his neck and dances with him, in the middle of a crowded street, to music playing only for them.
“You came to me with the wind, like the swaying flowers;
You knocked on my heart. I love you.
My heart hurts when I see you-it’s alright, it’s love.
My flawed heart and love-
Will you accept it? Me?”
Kyungsoo blinks, diverting his gaze away from the reflection and looking up at the overhang, calculating the threadcount of the fabric and the number of screws in the metal frame until his mind comes back from the time capsule six years deep to now, where he sits on a crowded street before sunset on a spring-winter day next to a stranger singing over radio advertisements and does math problems about the cloth hanging over his head.
“This is so cheesy,” he says, looking back to the window, watching himself slide over until his head rests on Chanyeol’s shoulder. “Is this how you usually woo people? Are you a virgin?”
Still playing the instrumental of the song, Chanyeol laughs and eyes Kyungsoo’s reflection. “I don’t usually have to woo people in order to do things that make me not a virgin, thanks.”
“Change the song. This one is making me sad.”
“I only know sad songs. The happy ones don’t go well with my voice.”
“Nope.”
“Like you said,” Chanyeol says, setting his guitar down across his lap, “I, as a musician, have an obligation to my soul. My soul says sad songs are better.”
“My soul says that you haven’t wooed me successfully because you’re making me sad. Let’s just do this the normal way.”
“What’s the normal way?”
“Take me on a date.”
“But-”
“Maybe I don’t do one night stands,” Kyungsoo grins. “You should’ve seen it coming when I told you that you had to woo me before I considered it.”
Ignoring the loud sigh leaving Chanyeol’s lips, Kyungsoo stands up and starts on his way home. He hears Chanyeol strum a few more chords on his guitar before he stops and calls, “How am I supposed to take you on a date if I don’t have your number?”
“Ask the bartender!” Kyungsoo replies, waving without turning around. “He’ll tell you.”
At the wrong corner of Winchester, Do Kyungsoo looks up to see the face behind a rifle pointed at him from the roof of a building, the top of a black guitar case just visible against grey clouds where the sun peeks through, bleaching every edge in glaring white. The man behind the sniper ducks down behind the concrete, prepared to shoot. Kyungsoo smiles and looks right through the scope, straight past the gun, and says, exaggerating the lip movements as much as he can: “Coward.” From here, he can see the man’s hands tense around the trigger. Still smiling, he reaches into his back pocket and cocks his handgun behind him. He wishes he hadn’t expected this.
“I told you to ask him for my phone number, not my address,” Kyungsoo says as he turns the corner down the hall to his apartment. Chanyeol stands in front of his door, hands tucked into the pockets of his leather jacket, guitar strapped to his back. He wonders if Chanyeol has a gun in there. His jacket moves where his fist tightens, just barely enough to brush against the fabric. Kyungsoo smiles and stops in front of him.
“Didn’t think you’d be out so early,” Chanyeol grumbles, shifting his weight. “Wanted to surprise you, maybe.”
“I thought you just wanted to do well enough to get in my pants.”
“Yeah, well, seems like you’ve got high standards.”
“Very astute.”
A brief silence settles between them, only to be broken when Chanyeol offers a hand to Kyungsoo. “Walk with me, then?”
Eyes barely flitting over the pocket where his other hand is still tucked, Kyungsoo smiles and nods.
They walk from there back to downtown, where Chanyeol offers time and conversation over a cup of coffee despite Kyungsoo’s protests that first dates at cafés are too cliché. He learns that Chanyeol is a world-class guitarist even though no one ever talks about him and tells Chanyeol that he’s a director. When Chanyeol asks for the list of movies, he says, “Look it up.” They laugh after that, primarily because Kyungsoo finds the irritated look on Chanyeol’s face much too amusing, and Chanyeol orders another round of drinks. They split an apple turnover and Gyeongju bread before Kyungsoo goes back to nagging Chanyeol to sing a song for him.
Eventually, he concedes, and Kyungsoo practically drags him out the door to the overhang they sat under yesterday.
“Do you mind if it’s in another language?” Chanyeol asks. Kyungsoo listens to the latches clicking open on his guitar case, making sure to not notice the abnormal thickness of the top half. “I know a happy-sounding song in another language.”
“Is it actually happy?”
“Do you know Japanese?”
Kyungsoo shakes his head.
“Then yes, it’s actually happy.”
Half-listening to the breaking news on the radio behind them-bodies pieced together… two men with ties to the Japanese mafia… speculated assassination by Korean counterparts… no suspects identified-Kyungsoo rests his head on Chanyeol’s shoulder again, smiling as he tunes out the radio and focuses on the movement of muscle beneath Chanyeol’s jacket, the sound of fingers dancing with well-tuned strings on crisp mornings, feeling the rumble of scratched thunder from honeyed vocal chords as he leans against the other, eyes closed.
“La la la, la-la la, la-la, la-la, la-la la
La la la, la-la la, la-la, la-la, la-la la
A love that should never have ended has now ceased to exist;
A life that seems to have been all used up.
‘You are wrong-please, no-it cannot be.’
My heart yells, and my soul is crying.”
Behind closed lids, Kyungsoo sees love again, standing before him, still shirtless, in his apartment bedroom, arm outstretched and shaking as he points his handgun at Kyungsoo’s sleeping figure, curled up under the covers. He imagines that love stood there for minutes, maybe hours, trembling and biting his lip and counting the rises and falls under the covers, counting the rises and falls and whimpering away tears when he thought about how this had to end, what he was supposed to do-counting the rises and falls and imagining the bullet leaving the gun, silent; leaving everything silent with the robbery of the rises, the falls. He tries to stop from remembering the next part, but he already has. Every time he thinks about love, the memory is there, dancing in the shadows of all the others, calling his name.
Once upon a time, he thinks, there was a boy who loved him, truly, because he couldn’t shoot. Kyungsoo wishes that he could have. Not to kill, maybe, but just enough so that Kyungsoo wouldn’t shoot back, out of fear, out of baseless betrayal. Things would have been different. They could have covered their tracks, gotten married. No one else will ever love him the same way. Exhaling heavily, Kyungsoo opens his eyes.
“You’re right,” Kyungsoo murmurs, shifting his head just slightly on Chanyeol’s shoulder to better quench the burning in his eyes. “It does sound happy.”
A smile seeps into Chanyeol’s voice as he continues singing. Somewhere along the way he begins to sway from side to side with the music and Kyungsoo can’t lean on him properly anymore, so he sits up and sways with him, eyes lightly shut, mouth parted in a smile. He hums along to the verses, occasionally bumping shoulders with Chanyeol, sometimes breaking from the melody to harmonize a little bit. He feels Chanyeol turns toward him a little and peeks an eye open to see Chanyeol grinning at him, wide-eyed. He nudges him with his elbow and closes his eyes again.
“I, just myself, cannot continue living alone
And so I foolishly fall in love once again.
There’s so much sorrow in my heart,
There just are no words to describe it.”
Without meaning to, Kyungsoo joins in at the end of the chorus, still swaying, not even noticing until Chanyeol’s voice fades a little to harmonize with him. Letting his eyes open in a squint against the bright afternoon sun, he turns to Chanyeol only to see him smiling down at him, round eyes contented in an almond shape when their gazes meet.
“La la la, la-la la, la-la, la-la, la-la la
La la la, la-la la.
There just are no words to describe it.”
“I love how you only sing the la-la parts,” Chanyeol says, playing the instrumental to the song while Kyungsoo continues to hum, “and just hum your way through everything else.”
Kyungsoo laughs. “I told you, I don’t know Japanese.”
“I know. It’s cute.”
They sing well into the evening. Chanyeol picks sad songs that sound happy when Kyungsoo pretends he doesn’t understand them. The crowd thins out along with Chanyeol’s voice, which still rumbles like thunder even when it cracks. At the end, when the moon takes its seat in the center of the sky and knocks a jar of silver specks over navy blue, Kyungsoo reaches for Chanyeol’s hand and kisses him, pretending he can remember how it felt to have love’s lips on his.
At the wrong corner of Winchester, Do Kyungsoo looks up to see the face behind a rifle pointed at him from the roof of a building, the top of a black guitar case just visible against grey clouds where the sun peeks through, bleaching every edge in glaring white. The man behind the sniper ducks down behind the concrete, prepared to shoot. Kyungsoo smiles and looks right through the scope, straight past the gun, and says, exaggerating the lip movements as much as he can: “Coward.” From here, he can see the man’s hands tense around the trigger. Still smiling, he reaches into his back pocket and cocks his handgun behind him. He wishes he hadn’t expected this.
Slowly, deliberately, Kyungsoo brings shaking fingers to the thin chain around his neck, pulling it out until the locket at the bottom-the one Chanyeol bought for him at the night markets-comes out from under his collar, and raises it like a glass of wine, angled straight towards the sniper barrel, and watches the shooter tense the wrong way, almost flinching. Slowly, deliberately, he lifts the chain over his head and undoes the clasp, removing the photograph before hanging the pendant just in front of his own gun, between himself and Chanyeol.
“I’ve decided that you maybe have a soul,” Kyungsoo says at the end of their sixth date, resting under the same overhang with empty ice cream cups on the concrete between their feet. He fingers the empty locket around his neck that Chanyeol bought for him just a few minutes ago. “Maybe not your own, but you maybe have soul to give people.”
“Is that so?”
Kyungsoo nods, gazing up from where his head is nestled on Chanyeol’s lap, right in front of his guitar. “Maybe.”
“I think you maybe just said ‘maybe’ four times in ten seconds.”
“Maybe.” When Chanyeol chuckles, Kyungsoo cracks a smile. “Anyway, what was that you said on the first day, about your goals for our relationship?”
For a moment almost brief enough for Kyungsoo to ignore, Chanyeol tenses. His eyes flicker toward the top half of his guitar case, where the too-thick plastic lining meets the handle, and Kyungsoo already knows that the world between them will come to an unfortunate end. He brings out the Things to Un-notice folder and puts all of this inside, smiling at Chanyeol expectantly.
“I think I got very off track,” he mumbles, now staring at the tip of Kyungsoo’s nose.
“In a good way, right?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Maybe?”
Chanyeol laughs, a weak drizzle of voice rather than the usual storm. “Maybe.”
At the wrong corner of Winchester, Do Kyungsoo looks up to see the face behind a rifle pointed at him from the roof of a building, the top of a black guitar case just visible against grey clouds where the sun peeks through, bleaching every edge in glaring white. The man behind the sniper ducks down behind the concrete, prepared to shoot. Kyungsoo smiles and looks right through the scope, straight past the gun, and says, exaggerating the lip movements as much as he can: “Coward.” From here, he can see the man’s hands tense around the trigger. Still smiling, he reaches into his back pocket and cocks his handgun behind him. He wishes he hadn’t expected this.
Slowly, deliberately, Kyungsoo brings shaking fingers to the thin chain around his neck, pulling it out until the locket at the bottom-the one Chanyeol bought for him at the night markets-comes out from under his collar, and raises it like a glass of wine, angled straight towards the sniper barrel, and watches the shooter tense the wrong way, almost flinching. Slowly, deliberately, he lifts the chain over his head and undoes the clasp, removing the photograph before hanging the pendant just in front of his own gun, between himself and Chanyeol.
Ready.
At the end of the first month, Kyungsoo wakes up to the sound of an old polaroid camera snapping and the brush of Chanyeol’s cheek against his. Immediately, he blinks himself awake and sits up, stealing Chanyeol’s jacket off the floor just beside the bed and putting it on to cover up. He feels no weight in any of the pockets, but he doesn’t check them either.
“Polaroids? Really?”
“It’s for my soul,” he says, still shirtless as he walks over to his refrigerator and sticks them on with thick, ceramic tourist magnets. “I think my goals for our relationship have changed. Also, you can pick one for the locket I got you.”
“Is that so?”
“It’s very so.”
Sighing, Kyungsoo leans back against the headboard and re-notices the things he deliberately un-noticed. That Chanyeol was looking straight at him when he walked into Sehun’s bar, that the top half of his guitar was thick enough for two compartments, that he stiffened when he saw the crowd, that in the middle of the night he had seen Chanyeol turn away from on the bed to look at the guitar case, reached for a pair of keys on the nightstand and studied them for hours before putting them back down, that he tensed the first time Kyungsoo asked him about his goals for whatever this was, this game that they labeled a relationship to have goals for. It was not so, it would never be so.
“Good.”
At the wrong corner of Winchester, Do Kyungsoo looks up to see the face behind a rifle pointed at him from the roof of a building, the top of a black guitar case just visible against grey clouds where the sun peeks through, bleaching every edge in glaring white. The man behind the sniper ducks down behind the concrete, prepared to shoot. Kyungsoo smiles and looks right through the scope, straight past the gun, and says, exaggerating the lip movements as much as he can: “Coward.” From here, he can see the man’s hands tense around the trigger. Still smiling, he reaches into his back pocket and cocks his handgun behind him. He wishes he hadn’t expected this.
Slowly, deliberately, Kyungsoo brings shaking fingers to the thin chain around his neck, pulling it out until the locket at the bottom-the one Chanyeol bought for him at the night markets-comes out from under his collar, and raises it like a glass of wine, angled straight towards the sniper barrel, and watches the shooter tense the wrong way, almost flinching. Slowly, deliberately, he lifts the chain over his head and undoes the clasp, removing the photograph before hanging the pendant just in front of his own gun, between himself and Chanyeol.
Ready.
Aim.
At the end of two months, Kyungsoo watches Chanyeol get up at two in the morning with the pair of keys from the top of the nightstand and walk towards his guitar case. He opens it. Slides the key into the space under a flap, just inside, between the two clasps on the outside. It clicks. He turns to check on Kyungsoo, squints for a while before he’s satisfied and turns back to his case. Closes the case again and opens the top, the secret compartment. Kyungsoo almost laughs. Handguns, sniper rifle, ammunition, copper glinting against the moonlight as it filters through the thin curtains over the window.
Slowly, Kyungsoo slides his foot to the end of the bed, where his jeans lie beneath the covers, and pulls them just close enough that he can reach into the pocket and pull out his own gun. Just as slowly, he props his pillow up and slides into a sitting position, gun by his side.
Chanyeol cocks his gun and turns around to take aim.
“Oh,” he says. “You’re awake.”
“Yeah. I’m awake. Are you pointing that at me?”
“Yeah. I’m pointing it at you.”
“Okay.”
“I think I should tell you, I’m not really a world-class guitarist.”
“You disgusting liar,” Kyungsoo states, monotone sarcasm peeking out from the quirk of his eyebrow. “I cannot believe you.”
“Well, you’re not really a director either, right?”
“I could argue that I am.” Under the covers, Kyungsoo wraps his hand around the handle of his gun. “So you’re pointing it at me. Are you going to shoot?”
“I’m trying. I’m trying to shoot.”
I’ll shoot you, Jongin had said, a million years ago in a time capsule buried beneath false attempts at love, I’ll really shoot you. Don’t pull the trigger, Kyungsoo, I’ll shoot you. But the thing Kyungsoo couldn’t see then was that Jongin’s finger never tensed on the trigger. He was just holding it, holding the gun. And Kyungsoo had clicked off the safety and pointed the gun at Jongin and tensed his finger on the trigger and that’s why Jongin started crying, and why Kyungsoo started crying, and why Kyungsoo couldn’t see anymore that Jongin’s finger wasn’t tense on the trigger and why, when he kept saying, I’ll shoot you, Kyungsoo, I’ll really shoot you, Kyungsoo had felt the world end in an explosion of darkness, felt the ground shake beneath him as the earth quaked and the buildings crumbled to the floor in chunks of solid concrete and bent metal, heard electricity crackling out from wires and dissipating into the water flooding out of the drains beneath the sidewalk, why his finger tensed on the trigger without him asking for it to, why he pulled it until there were no more bullets and sat there, pulling it, listening to it click, why he sat there, pointing it at himself, listening to it click empty by the vacuum inside him, above him, below him, everywhere around him but Jongin.
“I can see that.”
No one, ever again, will tell him I’ll shoot you just so that he will shoot them first instead, just so that he will save his own life. Perhaps it is time to stop looking. It suddenly hits him, how tired he is. How there are no tears for him this time even though there are for Chanyeol, even though Chanyeol is trembling, even though he knows Chanyeol will keep the polaroids after he kills the person he took them with. How he hasn’t the slightest twinge of heartbreak anymore. How it is just him with a gun in his hand across from some large chasm of absolutely nothing where Chanyeol stands on the other side, gun in hand.
“I’m a bounty hunter,” he says, not really looking at Kyungsoo anymore. “I make a good living, killing people for money. There’s a big reward for you. I could pay off what’s left of my mother’s hospital bills and send my sister to medical school and still have enough money to buy everyone in my family a Lamborghini. The reward is huge. I would never have to kill anyone ever again. It’s huge.”
“You won’t hit me if you’re crying.”
Chanyeol shoots. Kyungsoo doesn’t even flinch, only turning his head after the bullet digs into the headboard a few inches away from him. He shoots again, shoots again, shoots again. Kyungsoo cocks his gun and aims back.
“I said, you won’t hit me if you’re crying.”
“I’m trying. I’m trying to hit you.”
Smiling, Kyungsoo closes his eyes and sways gently, back still against the pillow as he starts to sing.
“La la la, la-la la, la-la, la-la, la-la la.
La la la, la-la la,
There are just no words to describe it.
So much joy when I met you, had been with you, loved you.
So much joy, so much joy,
there are just no words to describe it.”
Chanyeol sets the gun down on the floor and sinks to his knees, staring at the carpet while he blinks back tears. “You know Japanese,” he says.
“Yeah, I do.”
Chanyeol laughs. Kyungsoo slips into his jeans, ruffles Chanyeol’s hair when he walks past him toward the door. Just before he leaves, he turns back to see Chanyeol with his hand around the gun again, raising it to take aim. Kyungsoo waves goodbye.
The door slams shut.
At this particular end, Kyungsoo thinks as he walks down the hallway, the world will fall apart before him. He imagines a great city collapsing, lights flashing, electricity fizzing between wires ripped in half, zapping people. In the thunder, thick clouds above his head like black smoke dancing over burnt cotton, he will hear something deep and resonant grumble in ironic petulance, taste cold honey as it drips from the sky with decadent languor. The one, the very first one, the one he should not have shot, will rip him open again, and watch all these things flow out of him, and kiss him on the forehead, and cry, and cup his cheeks, and try to weld him back together saying I love you. But people cannot be welded back together, and this is the beginning of the end. This is game over.
At the wrong corner of Winchester, Do Kyungsoo looks up to see the face behind a rifle pointed at him from the roof of a building, the top of a black guitar case just visible against grey clouds where the sun peeks through, bleaching every edge in glaring white. The man behind the sniper ducks down behind the concrete, prepared to shoot. Kyungsoo smiles and looks right through the scope, straight past the gun, and says, exaggerating the lip movements as much as he can: “Coward.” From here, he can see the man’s hands tense around the trigger. Still smiling, he reaches into his back pocket and cocks his handgun behind him. He wishes he hadn’t expected this.
Slowly, deliberately, Kyungsoo brings shaking fingers to the thin chain around his neck, pulling it out until the locket at the bottom-the one Chanyeol bought for him at the night markets-comes out from under his collar, and raises it like a glass of wine, angled straight towards the sniper barrel, and watches the shooter tense the wrong way, almost flinching. Slowly, deliberately, he lifts the chain over his head and undoes the clasp, removing the photograph before hanging the pendant just in front of his own gun, between himself and Chanyeol.
Ready.
Aim.
Fire.
Title: (What Could Have Been) On Three-Oh-Eight Winchester
Pairing(s): Chanyeol/D.O, implied!Kai/D.O prior to events in fic
Rating: PG-13
Warning(s):[Spoiler]Implied character death
Length: 5,535w
Summary: This is the story of Do Kyungsoo, the assassin who witnessed the world end-twice.
It is not often we see the past when we look down a gun barrel through gridded lines on the scope of a sniper, propped up on elbows and black metal at the corner of a concrete roof. It is not often that we recognize the face of a long-range killer, and even less often that we remember the timbre of his voice from day we met him, and recall, when the gun is pointed at us, that his tongue on ours tasted like notes dipped in January’s honey harvest; that when he tuned his guitar, the strings seemed a part of him as they danced beneath his fingers; that he sang us love songs on the street after we met him in a bar where he bought us a poktanju and two cocktails. It is also not often that we see how the world ends behind the flashing defeat of the GAME OVER screen, not often that we play the game that broken-hearted killers play, not often that we are broken-hearted killers, and not often that we break our own hearts by pointing a gun at someone else.
These are things that do not happen often, but that does not mean that they cannot happen anyway.
At the wrong corner of Winchester, Do Kyungsoo looks up to see the face behind a rifle pointed at him from the roof of a building, the top of a black guitar case just visible against grey clouds where the sun peeks through, bleaching every edge in glaring white.
The day they meet, the weather is a cross between frosted grass and blooming flowers. Just outside the alley opening, he can see a couple with a baby, cars lined up at the traffic light, teenagers with Starbucks on the opposite sidewalk. In the dumpster behind him, there are two dead men split between five trash bags, buried under three inches of dry grass. Between his lips, there is an unlit cigarette; in his pocket, a lighter, almost empty.
Things seem to echo a lot when you are doing something you aren’t supposed to. As he walks out toward the street, he can hear his own footsteps around him from all directions. He listens as the distance grows between himself and the dumpster, accompanied the rhythmic clicking of his shoes with the snap of the lighter. He catches the cigarette between his fingers and watches the embers flare until he can smell the air around him burning; stops, quietly, at the opening of the alley, and tosses the cigarette over his shoulder.
He watches the crowd pass by: an old man bumbling along, a teenager staring down at her cell phone as she walks briskly over the road. He slides the lighter into his pocket. As if on some imperceptible cue, he takes the final step out onto the sidewalk.
It has been a while since his previous job, but people always have to do what they can to make a living. For the most part, he is good at it. Having a bold, black question mark where one’s heart should be always accompanies a talent for pulling triggers and ignoring the recoil. There is a reason he quit business school, after all.
Seven blocks later, long after the teenager and the old man go their separate ways, Kyungsoo approaches the corner of the block, where the brick wall of Sehun’s bar sits feebly, concrete chipping, color fading to expose thick, rusting screws and ugly granite. Seven blocks away, he listens to the music of the sirens that have just begun to blare, imagining the way the firetruck will race clumsily over the road, ladder rattling against the side, metal hose tips bouncing in their curled up seats. Too slow to put the fire out. Justice here is too unwieldy.
From behind the brick, Kyungsoo makes out a figure leaning against the white stucco wall across the street. Against the backdrop, his white shirt makes him look almost torsoless; just arms and legs and a floating head above a black collar of smoke, cigarette leaking grey limbs of cancer into the air. Like a photoshoot for an album cover, one of his Converse pressed against the wall, black guitar case leaning upright just beside him. Kyungsoo gets the feeling that the figure expects to see him even though they’ve never met-he has that feeling a lot; in the end those people always end up dead for one reason or another-and stops still where he is. He has half the mind to assume that he hasn’t been seen yet. Regardless, there is no room for mistakes. Time pauses itself for no one. He inhales softly, exhales just the same; lets the scent of burning tobacco scorch the air suspended before him. Time pauses itself, he thinks, for no one. He turns onto the next street.
Out of the corner of his eye, through the glare of the sun from the stranger’s glasses, he sees that the man is looking straight at him. He tucks his hand into his sleeve and pushes open the glass door to Sehun’s bar. When it closes, he lets sardony curl his lips into a wry smile.
At the wrong corner of Winchester, Do Kyungsoo looks up to see the face behind a rifle pointed at him from the roof of a building, the top of a black guitar case just visible against grey clouds where the sun peeks through, bleaching every edge in glaring white. The man behind the sniper ducks down behind the concrete, prepared to shoot. Kyungsoo smiles and looks right through the scope, straight past the gun, and says, exaggerating the lip movements as much as he can: “Coward.”
“Woo me,” Kyungsoo says when they leave the bar, rapping his knuckles on the body of Chanyeol’s guitar case after he makes a case for one night stands. “Then maybe I’ll consider it.”
They end up in the center of the downtown shopping district. He watches Chanyeol’s reaction from the corner of his eye when they turn the corner to see the mass of people: stiffened jaw, fading smile, slowed pace. It only lasts for a split second before he adjusts the guitar on his back and turns down the street, sitting down on the sidewalk under a fabric overhang and opening the case. There’s something a little funny about the way the clasp works and the black plastic lining the two separate halves seems a little thick on the top. Kyungsoo files it away in the back of his mind along with the memory of Chanyeol looking straight at him when he turned the corner into the back entrance of Sehun’s bar and all the other dead giveaways, under the category of Things To Un-notice.
Tucking his hands into his jacket pockets, Kyungsoo shuffles over to sit beside Chanyeol, watching as he tunes his guitar; pale, slender fingers plucking strings that seem almost a part of him, tangling with metallic herringbone patterns; eyes cast downward, a relaxed smile resting, faded, on his lips. Kyungsoo reciprocates, tucking the mental folder far, far away, just above the time capsule locking away worn, golden-coffee eyes. Taking a deep breath, he looks up at the fabric overhang, traces the metal braces holding it up, and lets his eyelids flutter shut for a moment before turning to Chanyeol.
“Do you have a soul, Chanyeol?”
Chanyeol cocks his head to the side, adjusting the pegs. “What?”
“I heard a quote once, that a musician has an obligation to his soul, and an obligation to give soul. So, do you have a soul?”
“That’s a little deep, considering the goals I have for our relationship.”
“Just answer the question. We’re making light conversation before you attempt to woo me.”
“Alright. I guess I have a soul. Everyone has a soul, right?”
“Hm.”
Turning away, Kyungsoo looks out towards the streets where people walk back and forth, lit underneath the sky in bright grey. Offbeat footsteps drum on concrete, couples hold hands, babies cry, children nag their parents for ice cream; thin, almost fragile looking fingers run over the shape of a lighter, almost empty, tucked into the pocket on a pair of jeans. Chanyeol strums arbitrary chords behind the sound of voices in old radio static-two or three mutilated corpses found in a burning dumpster this morning… police are working to identify the bodies and recover evidence from the crime scene-and Kyungsoo leans his head back against the window and relaxes, rolling his shoulders back, smiling. A voice crescendos from a shy drizzle into scratchy thunder, rumbling in clear, quiet song.
“Do you see my heart? Why is it love?
I was never gonna fall in love, I’m a fool.
Why am I happy? I think of your face;
Only stay by my side, forever, you.”
Across the street, Kyungsoo spots his own reflection in the window, slim shoulders beside Chanyeol’s broad ones, and stares at it through half-lidded eyes. Everything before and beyond his translucent image in the glass blurs and blurs until the colors disappear altogether, becoming another window, between himself and his reflection. The boy behind the window stands and waves at someone down the road, someone with broad shoulders and tanned skin, golden-coffee eyes and half-slicked half-tousled hair; with arms stronger than his, arms wrapping around his waist and picking him up, chin tilted up, smiling into a familiar kiss. Arms that eventually set him down, where he tip-toes on the concrete and pulls love down by the collar, slides one arm around his neck and dances with him, in the middle of a crowded street, to music playing only for them.
“You came to me with the wind, like the swaying flowers;
You knocked on my heart. I love you.
My heart hurts when I see you-it’s alright, it’s love.
My flawed heart and love-
Will you accept it? Me?”
Kyungsoo blinks, diverting his gaze away from the reflection and looking up at the overhang, calculating the threadcount of the fabric and the number of screws in the metal frame until his mind comes back from the time capsule six years deep to now, where he sits on a crowded street before sunset on a spring-winter day next to a stranger singing over radio advertisements and does math problems about the cloth hanging over his head.
“This is so cheesy,” he says, looking back to the window, watching himself slide over until his head rests on Chanyeol’s shoulder. “Is this how you usually woo people? Are you a virgin?”
Still playing the instrumental of the song, Chanyeol laughs and eyes Kyungsoo’s reflection. “I don’t usually have to woo people in order to do things that make me not a virgin, thanks.”
“Change the song. This one is making me sad.”
“I only know sad songs. The happy ones don’t go well with my voice.”
“Nope.”
“Like you said,” Chanyeol says, setting his guitar down across his lap, “I, as a musician, have an obligation to my soul. My soul says sad songs are better.”
“My soul says that you haven’t wooed me successfully because you’re making me sad. Let’s just do this the normal way.”
“What’s the normal way?”
“Take me on a date.”
“But-”
“Maybe I don’t do one night stands,” Kyungsoo grins. “You should’ve seen it coming when I told you that you had to woo me before I considered it.”
Ignoring the loud sigh leaving Chanyeol’s lips, Kyungsoo stands up and starts on his way home. He hears Chanyeol strum a few more chords on his guitar before he stops and calls, “How am I supposed to take you on a date if I don’t have your number?”
“Ask the bartender!” Kyungsoo replies, waving without turning around. “He’ll tell you.”
At the wrong corner of Winchester, Do Kyungsoo looks up to see the face behind a rifle pointed at him from the roof of a building, the top of a black guitar case just visible against grey clouds where the sun peeks through, bleaching every edge in glaring white. The man behind the sniper ducks down behind the concrete, prepared to shoot. Kyungsoo smiles and looks right through the scope, straight past the gun, and says, exaggerating the lip movements as much as he can: “Coward.” From here, he can see the man’s hands tense around the trigger. Still smiling, he reaches into his back pocket and cocks his handgun behind him. He wishes he hadn’t expected this.
“I told you to ask him for my phone number, not my address,” Kyungsoo says as he turns the corner down the hall to his apartment. Chanyeol stands in front of his door, hands tucked into the pockets of his leather jacket, guitar strapped to his back. He wonders if Chanyeol has a gun in there. His jacket moves where his fist tightens, just barely enough to brush against the fabric. Kyungsoo smiles and stops in front of him.
“Didn’t think you’d be out so early,” Chanyeol grumbles, shifting his weight. “Wanted to surprise you, maybe.”
“I thought you just wanted to do well enough to get in my pants.”
“Yeah, well, seems like you’ve got high standards.”
“Very astute.”
A brief silence settles between them, only to be broken when Chanyeol offers a hand to Kyungsoo. “Walk with me, then?”
Eyes barely flitting over the pocket where his other hand is still tucked, Kyungsoo smiles and nods.
They walk from there back to downtown, where Chanyeol offers time and conversation over a cup of coffee despite Kyungsoo’s protests that first dates at cafés are too cliché. He learns that Chanyeol is a world-class guitarist even though no one ever talks about him and tells Chanyeol that he’s a director. When Chanyeol asks for the list of movies, he says, “Look it up.” They laugh after that, primarily because Kyungsoo finds the irritated look on Chanyeol’s face much too amusing, and Chanyeol orders another round of drinks. They split an apple turnover and Gyeongju bread before Kyungsoo goes back to nagging Chanyeol to sing a song for him.
Eventually, he concedes, and Kyungsoo practically drags him out the door to the overhang they sat under yesterday.
“Do you mind if it’s in another language?” Chanyeol asks. Kyungsoo listens to the latches clicking open on his guitar case, making sure to not notice the abnormal thickness of the top half. “I know a happy-sounding song in another language.”
“Is it actually happy?”
“Do you know Japanese?”
Kyungsoo shakes his head.
“Then yes, it’s actually happy.”
Half-listening to the breaking news on the radio behind them-bodies pieced together… two men with ties to the Japanese mafia… speculated assassination by Korean counterparts… no suspects identified-Kyungsoo rests his head on Chanyeol’s shoulder again, smiling as he tunes out the radio and focuses on the movement of muscle beneath Chanyeol’s jacket, the sound of fingers dancing with well-tuned strings on crisp mornings, feeling the rumble of scratched thunder from honeyed vocal chords as he leans against the other, eyes closed.
“La la la, la-la la, la-la, la-la, la-la la
La la la, la-la la, la-la, la-la, la-la la
A love that should never have ended has now ceased to exist;
A life that seems to have been all used up.
‘You are wrong-please, no-it cannot be.’
My heart yells, and my soul is crying.”
Behind closed lids, Kyungsoo sees love again, standing before him, still shirtless, in his apartment bedroom, arm outstretched and shaking as he points his handgun at Kyungsoo’s sleeping figure, curled up under the covers. He imagines that love stood there for minutes, maybe hours, trembling and biting his lip and counting the rises and falls under the covers, counting the rises and falls and whimpering away tears when he thought about how this had to end, what he was supposed to do-counting the rises and falls and imagining the bullet leaving the gun, silent; leaving everything silent with the robbery of the rises, the falls. He tries to stop from remembering the next part, but he already has. Every time he thinks about love, the memory is there, dancing in the shadows of all the others, calling his name.
Once upon a time, he thinks, there was a boy who loved him, truly, because he couldn’t shoot. Kyungsoo wishes that he could have. Not to kill, maybe, but just enough so that Kyungsoo wouldn’t shoot back, out of fear, out of baseless betrayal. Things would have been different. They could have covered their tracks, gotten married. No one else will ever love him the same way. Exhaling heavily, Kyungsoo opens his eyes.
“You’re right,” Kyungsoo murmurs, shifting his head just slightly on Chanyeol’s shoulder to better quench the burning in his eyes. “It does sound happy.”
A smile seeps into Chanyeol’s voice as he continues singing. Somewhere along the way he begins to sway from side to side with the music and Kyungsoo can’t lean on him properly anymore, so he sits up and sways with him, eyes lightly shut, mouth parted in a smile. He hums along to the verses, occasionally bumping shoulders with Chanyeol, sometimes breaking from the melody to harmonize a little bit. He feels Chanyeol turns toward him a little and peeks an eye open to see Chanyeol grinning at him, wide-eyed. He nudges him with his elbow and closes his eyes again.
“I, just myself, cannot continue living alone
And so I foolishly fall in love once again.
There’s so much sorrow in my heart,
There just are no words to describe it.”
Without meaning to, Kyungsoo joins in at the end of the chorus, still swaying, not even noticing until Chanyeol’s voice fades a little to harmonize with him. Letting his eyes open in a squint against the bright afternoon sun, he turns to Chanyeol only to see him smiling down at him, round eyes contented in an almond shape when their gazes meet.
“La la la, la-la la, la-la, la-la, la-la la
La la la, la-la la.
There just are no words to describe it.”
“I love how you only sing the la-la parts,” Chanyeol says, playing the instrumental to the song while Kyungsoo continues to hum, “and just hum your way through everything else.”
Kyungsoo laughs. “I told you, I don’t know Japanese.”
“I know. It’s cute.”
They sing well into the evening. Chanyeol picks sad songs that sound happy when Kyungsoo pretends he doesn’t understand them. The crowd thins out along with Chanyeol’s voice, which still rumbles like thunder even when it cracks. At the end, when the moon takes its seat in the center of the sky and knocks a jar of silver specks over navy blue, Kyungsoo reaches for Chanyeol’s hand and kisses him, pretending he can remember how it felt to have love’s lips on his.
At the wrong corner of Winchester, Do Kyungsoo looks up to see the face behind a rifle pointed at him from the roof of a building, the top of a black guitar case just visible against grey clouds where the sun peeks through, bleaching every edge in glaring white. The man behind the sniper ducks down behind the concrete, prepared to shoot. Kyungsoo smiles and looks right through the scope, straight past the gun, and says, exaggerating the lip movements as much as he can: “Coward.” From here, he can see the man’s hands tense around the trigger. Still smiling, he reaches into his back pocket and cocks his handgun behind him. He wishes he hadn’t expected this.
Slowly, deliberately, Kyungsoo brings shaking fingers to the thin chain around his neck, pulling it out until the locket at the bottom-the one Chanyeol bought for him at the night markets-comes out from under his collar, and raises it like a glass of wine, angled straight towards the sniper barrel, and watches the shooter tense the wrong way, almost flinching. Slowly, deliberately, he lifts the chain over his head and undoes the clasp, removing the photograph before hanging the pendant just in front of his own gun, between himself and Chanyeol.
“I’ve decided that you maybe have a soul,” Kyungsoo says at the end of their sixth date, resting under the same overhang with empty ice cream cups on the concrete between their feet. He fingers the empty locket around his neck that Chanyeol bought for him just a few minutes ago. “Maybe not your own, but you maybe have soul to give people.”
“Is that so?”
Kyungsoo nods, gazing up from where his head is nestled on Chanyeol’s lap, right in front of his guitar. “Maybe.”
“I think you maybe just said ‘maybe’ four times in ten seconds.”
“Maybe.” When Chanyeol chuckles, Kyungsoo cracks a smile. “Anyway, what was that you said on the first day, about your goals for our relationship?”
For a moment almost brief enough for Kyungsoo to ignore, Chanyeol tenses. His eyes flicker toward the top half of his guitar case, where the too-thick plastic lining meets the handle, and Kyungsoo already knows that the world between them will come to an unfortunate end. He brings out the Things to Un-notice folder and puts all of this inside, smiling at Chanyeol expectantly.
“I think I got very off track,” he mumbles, now staring at the tip of Kyungsoo’s nose.
“In a good way, right?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Maybe?”
Chanyeol laughs, a weak drizzle of voice rather than the usual storm. “Maybe.”
At the wrong corner of Winchester, Do Kyungsoo looks up to see the face behind a rifle pointed at him from the roof of a building, the top of a black guitar case just visible against grey clouds where the sun peeks through, bleaching every edge in glaring white. The man behind the sniper ducks down behind the concrete, prepared to shoot. Kyungsoo smiles and looks right through the scope, straight past the gun, and says, exaggerating the lip movements as much as he can: “Coward.” From here, he can see the man’s hands tense around the trigger. Still smiling, he reaches into his back pocket and cocks his handgun behind him. He wishes he hadn’t expected this.
Slowly, deliberately, Kyungsoo brings shaking fingers to the thin chain around his neck, pulling it out until the locket at the bottom-the one Chanyeol bought for him at the night markets-comes out from under his collar, and raises it like a glass of wine, angled straight towards the sniper barrel, and watches the shooter tense the wrong way, almost flinching. Slowly, deliberately, he lifts the chain over his head and undoes the clasp, removing the photograph before hanging the pendant just in front of his own gun, between himself and Chanyeol.
Ready.
At the end of the first month, Kyungsoo wakes up to the sound of an old polaroid camera snapping and the brush of Chanyeol’s cheek against his. Immediately, he blinks himself awake and sits up, stealing Chanyeol’s jacket off the floor just beside the bed and putting it on to cover up. He feels no weight in any of the pockets, but he doesn’t check them either.
“Polaroids? Really?”
“It’s for my soul,” he says, still shirtless as he walks over to his refrigerator and sticks them on with thick, ceramic tourist magnets. “I think my goals for our relationship have changed. Also, you can pick one for the locket I got you.”
“Is that so?”
“It’s very so.”
Sighing, Kyungsoo leans back against the headboard and re-notices the things he deliberately un-noticed. That Chanyeol was looking straight at him when he walked into Sehun’s bar, that the top half of his guitar was thick enough for two compartments, that he stiffened when he saw the crowd, that in the middle of the night he had seen Chanyeol turn away from on the bed to look at the guitar case, reached for a pair of keys on the nightstand and studied them for hours before putting them back down, that he tensed the first time Kyungsoo asked him about his goals for whatever this was, this game that they labeled a relationship to have goals for. It was not so, it would never be so.
“Good.”
At the wrong corner of Winchester, Do Kyungsoo looks up to see the face behind a rifle pointed at him from the roof of a building, the top of a black guitar case just visible against grey clouds where the sun peeks through, bleaching every edge in glaring white. The man behind the sniper ducks down behind the concrete, prepared to shoot. Kyungsoo smiles and looks right through the scope, straight past the gun, and says, exaggerating the lip movements as much as he can: “Coward.” From here, he can see the man’s hands tense around the trigger. Still smiling, he reaches into his back pocket and cocks his handgun behind him. He wishes he hadn’t expected this.
Slowly, deliberately, Kyungsoo brings shaking fingers to the thin chain around his neck, pulling it out until the locket at the bottom-the one Chanyeol bought for him at the night markets-comes out from under his collar, and raises it like a glass of wine, angled straight towards the sniper barrel, and watches the shooter tense the wrong way, almost flinching. Slowly, deliberately, he lifts the chain over his head and undoes the clasp, removing the photograph before hanging the pendant just in front of his own gun, between himself and Chanyeol.
Ready.
Aim.
At the end of two months, Kyungsoo watches Chanyeol get up at two in the morning with the pair of keys from the top of the nightstand and walk towards his guitar case. He opens it. Slides the key into the space under a flap, just inside, between the two clasps on the outside. It clicks. He turns to check on Kyungsoo, squints for a while before he’s satisfied and turns back to his case. Closes the case again and opens the top, the secret compartment. Kyungsoo almost laughs. Handguns, sniper rifle, ammunition, copper glinting against the moonlight as it filters through the thin curtains over the window.
Slowly, Kyungsoo slides his foot to the end of the bed, where his jeans lie beneath the covers, and pulls them just close enough that he can reach into the pocket and pull out his own gun. Just as slowly, he props his pillow up and slides into a sitting position, gun by his side.
Chanyeol cocks his gun and turns around to take aim.
“Oh,” he says. “You’re awake.”
“Yeah. I’m awake. Are you pointing that at me?”
“Yeah. I’m pointing it at you.”
“Okay.”
“I think I should tell you, I’m not really a world-class guitarist.”
“You disgusting liar,” Kyungsoo states, monotone sarcasm peeking out from the quirk of his eyebrow. “I cannot believe you.”
“Well, you’re not really a director either, right?”
“I could argue that I am.” Under the covers, Kyungsoo wraps his hand around the handle of his gun. “So you’re pointing it at me. Are you going to shoot?”
“I’m trying. I’m trying to shoot.”
I’ll shoot you, Jongin had said, a million years ago in a time capsule buried beneath false attempts at love, I’ll really shoot you. Don’t pull the trigger, Kyungsoo, I’ll shoot you. But the thing Kyungsoo couldn’t see then was that Jongin’s finger never tensed on the trigger. He was just holding it, holding the gun. And Kyungsoo had clicked off the safety and pointed the gun at Jongin and tensed his finger on the trigger and that’s why Jongin started crying, and why Kyungsoo started crying, and why Kyungsoo couldn’t see anymore that Jongin’s finger wasn’t tense on the trigger and why, when he kept saying, I’ll shoot you, Kyungsoo, I’ll really shoot you, Kyungsoo had felt the world end in an explosion of darkness, felt the ground shake beneath him as the earth quaked and the buildings crumbled to the floor in chunks of solid concrete and bent metal, heard electricity crackling out from wires and dissipating into the water flooding out of the drains beneath the sidewalk, why his finger tensed on the trigger without him asking for it to, why he pulled it until there were no more bullets and sat there, pulling it, listening to it click, why he sat there, pointing it at himself, listening to it click empty by the vacuum inside him, above him, below him, everywhere around him but Jongin.
“I can see that.”
No one, ever again, will tell him I’ll shoot you just so that he will shoot them first instead, just so that he will save his own life. Perhaps it is time to stop looking. It suddenly hits him, how tired he is. How there are no tears for him this time even though there are for Chanyeol, even though Chanyeol is trembling, even though he knows Chanyeol will keep the polaroids after he kills the person he took them with. How he hasn’t the slightest twinge of heartbreak anymore. How it is just him with a gun in his hand across from some large chasm of absolutely nothing where Chanyeol stands on the other side, gun in hand.
“I’m a bounty hunter,” he says, not really looking at Kyungsoo anymore. “I make a good living, killing people for money. There’s a big reward for you. I could pay off what’s left of my mother’s hospital bills and send my sister to medical school and still have enough money to buy everyone in my family a Lamborghini. The reward is huge. I would never have to kill anyone ever again. It’s huge.”
“You won’t hit me if you’re crying.”
Chanyeol shoots. Kyungsoo doesn’t even flinch, only turning his head after the bullet digs into the headboard a few inches away from him. He shoots again, shoots again, shoots again. Kyungsoo cocks his gun and aims back.
“I said, you won’t hit me if you’re crying.”
“I’m trying. I’m trying to hit you.”
Smiling, Kyungsoo closes his eyes and sways gently, back still against the pillow as he starts to sing.
“La la la, la-la la, la-la, la-la, la-la la.
La la la, la-la la,
There are just no words to describe it.
So much joy when I met you, had been with you, loved you.
So much joy, so much joy,
there are just no words to describe it.”
Chanyeol sets the gun down on the floor and sinks to his knees, staring at the carpet while he blinks back tears. “You know Japanese,” he says.
“Yeah, I do.”
Chanyeol laughs. Kyungsoo slips into his jeans, ruffles Chanyeol’s hair when he walks past him toward the door. Just before he leaves, he turns back to see Chanyeol with his hand around the gun again, raising it to take aim. Kyungsoo waves goodbye.
The door slams shut.
At this particular end, Kyungsoo thinks as he walks down the hallway, the world will fall apart before him. He imagines a great city collapsing, lights flashing, electricity fizzing between wires ripped in half, zapping people. In the thunder, thick clouds above his head like black smoke dancing over burnt cotton, he will hear something deep and resonant grumble in ironic petulance, taste cold honey as it drips from the sky with decadent languor. The one, the very first one, the one he should not have shot, will rip him open again, and watch all these things flow out of him, and kiss him on the forehead, and cry, and cup his cheeks, and try to weld him back together saying I love you. But people cannot be welded back together, and this is the beginning of the end. This is game over.
At the wrong corner of Winchester, Do Kyungsoo looks up to see the face behind a rifle pointed at him from the roof of a building, the top of a black guitar case just visible against grey clouds where the sun peeks through, bleaching every edge in glaring white. The man behind the sniper ducks down behind the concrete, prepared to shoot. Kyungsoo smiles and looks right through the scope, straight past the gun, and says, exaggerating the lip movements as much as he can: “Coward.” From here, he can see the man’s hands tense around the trigger. Still smiling, he reaches into his back pocket and cocks his handgun behind him. He wishes he hadn’t expected this.
Slowly, deliberately, Kyungsoo brings shaking fingers to the thin chain around his neck, pulling it out until the locket at the bottom-the one Chanyeol bought for him at the night markets-comes out from under his collar, and raises it like a glass of wine, angled straight towards the sniper barrel, and watches the shooter tense the wrong way, almost flinching. Slowly, deliberately, he lifts the chain over his head and undoes the clasp, removing the photograph before hanging the pendant just in front of his own gun, between himself and Chanyeol.
Ready.
Aim.
Fire.