Chapter Text
When Minho wakes up, he’s hurting a lot more than he was before.
His head is pounding, and all he wants to do is just fall asleep forever. His memories are mushed together, and he struggles to tease out what was real, and what was just a horrible nightmare.
A pained shout makes his eyes fly open.
He lifts his head, neck aching, arms straining against the firm wood of the chair he’s sitting on. His hands are tied to the chair, but his legs are free, like they didn’t think he’d run.
Some distance away, there’s a man on the rough warehouse ground, getting the shit beaten out of him. The one above steps over the guy on the floor, and Minho realises it’s Yeonjun, looking almost manic.
Yeonjun sinks his foot into the guy’s stomach, eliciting a shout and a pained groan, as the guy rolls over on the floor, hair falling into his face. Minho feels his chest freeze over.
It’s Jisung.
The rest of the trainees are milling around or standing guard, like watching Yeonjun enable his psychopathic sadist tendencies on some guy has long lost its novelty. All except Soobin, who walks over, patting Yeonjun’s shoulder.
“That’s it, let it out,” he says, chuckling when he gets shoved away.
“Don’t think I’m going to follow you like a fucking dog after this,” Yeonjun growls.
“Let it go, hyung,” Taehyun complains from where he’s cross-legged on a crate, his phone in one hand. “Soobin-hyung got you the target, didn’t he?”
“All nice and wrapped up too, for you to take out however you want,” Soobin clicks his tongue. “Admit it. We work better together.”
“Whatever. As long as I get to fuck him up,” Yeonjun twitches away from Soobin, aiming another kick at Jisung’s stomach. “Not so cocky now, huh, bastard? When you’re about to get your brains blown out for a cheap thirty grand?”
“You guys are fucking psychopaths,” Jisung spits blood out onto the floor. “You’d do that to one of your own? For a fucking bounty, are you serious?”
A couple steps away from Minho, Beomgyu frowns and whispers to Hueningkai. “One of our own?”
“He’s talking about the cleaner,” the other guy mumbles back, glancing over at Minho and then away quickly when he meets his eyes.
“Yeah, well, that’s what happens to people who sell out their org,” Yeonjun sits down roughly on Jisung’s chest, grabbing his collar. He doesn’t seem to realise that Minho’s awake. “That’s why you came for him, wasn’t it? He was telling you where I was all those times?”
Jisung wheezes, still managing to make it sound like a laugh. “Is that what you think, Eyebrows? Is that what Mr All-Talk over there wants you to believe?” he jerks his chin at Soobin. “Because the man you guys just kidnapped and beat up didn’t even breathe about you to me. You’re getting played like a fucking piano, pea-brain.”
That earns him a backhand to the face, hard enough that the sound reverberates through the room. Then Yeonjun glances back at Soobin, eyes narrowed. “Minho did sell us out, right?”
“Of course he did. How else would the punk manage to evade you all this time?” Soobin replies deftly. “Now hurry up and finish the job. We’ve been here long enough.”
Yeonjun chuckles darkly, pulling a gun and pressing it to Jisung’s head, the other man surprisingly quiet all of a sudden, dark eyes watchful. “Speaking of that…Yoongi hyung had me all worried, telling me to be careful ‘cause some real big bad wolf was backing you up.”
He clicks the safety off, as Minho struggles to sit up, desperate to buy just a second more.
“Where’s your scary friend now, bastard?”
Jisung grins, then, bone white streaked with red. “Why? Wanna meet him?”
The next few seconds happen in slow motion. There’s a hiss and fizz from the electric door, and a beat of silence as heads swivel towards it, like deer in the headlights.
Minho watches, mute, as the 200-pound block of steel-reinforced wood is ripped clean out of the wall, bringing cables and sparking wires with it, sheer mass recalibrating cleanly for a second, as though whoever’s behind it is taking aim.
Then, with the accuracy of a railgun, the door shoots through the air, slamming into both Hueningkai and Taehyun with a crash. Through the smoke and the shouts and the confusion, Minho sees a figure zip through the room, barrelling into Yeonjun hard enough that even Minho hears his rib crack.
The thing is, Yeonjun is a tough guy. Every kilogram on him is skin and bone and pure muscle, honed from a childhood spent brawling and teenage years spent under the brutal but concise tutelage of Yoongi. Minho’s seen him send other trainees flying just by walking into them in the corridor.
And yet, he watches this guy reach down with just one titanium hand, grabbing Yeonjun by the throat and lifting him clean in the air, like he weighs nothing.
From a foot away, Taehyun struggles up, bleeding from the nose and clearly stunned from the door blast, but apparently still desperate enough to rush forward, electric charged knuckle-dusters employed.
“Yeonjun!”
“Chan-hyung, look out!”
The man in question doesn’t even look over, raising a gun to pump a charge straight into Taehyun’s chest, sending him spasming to the ground. None of the rest try, after that.
For a while, Minho had wondered who Jisung’s affiliation was, who was so powerful that it’d warrant coming to them for disposal. He’d expected some gang, some big-time fixer, just definitely not a-…
“Fucking cyber psycho,” Yeonjun gasps, struggling in the man’s grip.
“Don’t call him that,” Jisung snaps, quieting only when the man – Chan, holds up a hand.
“You guys really can’t take a hint, can you?” Chan says calmly, not even a bit out of breath. He’s got the kind of look that makes you think twice, and not just from the sheer, muscled bulk of his upper body, nor the fact that more than half of him is made of military-grade enhancements, some still branded with the C-SWAT insignia.
It’s the rock steady surety, the iron-fisted control over the situation at hand that just pours off in waves from his body, that makes one think twice.
His fist tightens around Yeonjun’s throat, slow and calculated, and Minho watches, heartbeat picking up as the boy’s eyes roll up into his head, fingers scrabbling uselessly at the metal around his throat.
Slowly, Chan turns his eyes on the rest of the sub-team, cool red scanning each of them in turn. “Just going to stand there and watch him die?”
None of them move. Just as Yeonjun’s body starts to go limp, though, Chan releases him, and he crumples into a pile on the floor, completely motionless except for the weak heaves of his chest.
Then he reaches down to lift Jisung’s arm over his shoulder. The younger man flinches, holding onto his side – probably some bruised ribs.
When Chan turns to look back at them, there’s a frigid, terrifying fury brewing in his eyes, tamped down like water on gunpowder.
“I catch any of you following him one more time, and you’re going to wish I’d killed you today.”
As they start to walk out through the other door, Jisung glances at Minho, still tied to the chair, eyes wide and worried. Minho gives the tiniest shake of his head – this is the only chance they’re going to get to escape. He wants – needs them to get away. He can worry about what happens to him later.
“I don’t think so.”
The room goes quiet.
Soobin steps up, folding his arms across his chest. “You’re good at acting all tough, but I bet you wouldn’t kill. You wouldn’t dare.”
Chan lets out a breath that’s a bit like an amused laugh, but he keeps walking.
Soobin tilts his head a fraction. “Next time we come for you, it’s not just going to be the street trash on our hit list. We’re coming after your whole rat pack. And I’ll bet some of them break easier than he does.”
The other man finally stops.
Minho watches, stomach twisting, as Chan removes Jisung’s arm from his shoulder. “Stay here,” he says quietly, a little sternly, like he’s talking to a wayward child with attitude issues.
Then the next few seconds happen so fast Minho barely catches it – he zips back towards them, definitely some sort of speed enhancement, but stops one step away from Soobin, who hasn’t even flinched.
There’s a frown on Chan’s face, barely perceptible from Minho’s angle.
Then he quickly lifts an arm in the direction of the other door, hand transforming into a blaster, last piece clicking into place just as there’s a wave of energy through the room from the door, and a cacophony of shouts, sparks flying.
Minho opens his eyes again to see everyone on the ground. Chan’s the worst of them, struggling to get up, chromed limbs twitching like the wiring in them’s been shot. The door swings open, and he feels his stomach turn over.
“Chris Bang, isn’t it?” Kim Namjoon walks through, all 1.81m of chrome and subtle power under black and grey Armani. There’s a gun holstered at his chest, like he’d need something like that to kill someone. “You talk a real big game for someone whose Max-Tac unit burned to hell in that Busan chem plant meltdown.”
One of them must’ve called the core team, Minho thinks, gut sinking. But why would Namjoon himself show up, of all people? Minho barely saw him in headquarters, as it was.
He taps his wrist, and the little blue hover screen goes away. “Like the localised EMP blast? Stupidly overpriced custom job. It temporarily incapacitates cybernetic enhancements, which is…” Namjoon looks down at him. “Pretty much all of you, isn’t it?”
Chan lifts his head, glaring at Namjoon, before there’s a click of a gun from the other end of the room, and a shout. Minho’s heart sinks, knowing Taehyung’s got Jisung now, forcing him to the ground with a gun to his head.
“Any sudden moves, and the next time you turn around, you’ll find out what colour your friend’s brains are against the concrete,” Namjoon says calmly.
Minho watches, mute and wide-eyed, as more of them appear – Yoongi strides in, checking Yeonjun’s pulse quickly, while Seokjin and Jungkook help Soobin to his feet, still shaky from the EMP blast. He hasn’t seen them all in the same place in years. Not since Jimin was still alive.
“You okay?” someone whispers behind Minho, making him jump, and he turns, nodding shakily when he sees Hoseok, untying his bindings.
“Hyung,” Minho whispers, trembling. “They did this. They-…”
“Don’t worry. It’s okay, I know.”
“No, you don’t understand-…”
“Trust me.”
“While we’re still young, anyone care to explain to me what happened here?” Namjoon glances at the kids, eyes settling on Soobin.
“Of course, hyung,” Soobin lets go of Seokjin, big eyes wide and honest, voice low enough that Minho has to strain to hear him. “It was Yeonjun’s target – Han Jisung. He realised Minho was the cleaner on this case, so he tracked him down and kidnapped him. He thought we’d go after him to get Minho back, and he was right – we fell into his trap,” he hangs his head. “I’m sorry we didn’t inform you earlier. We didn’t want to trouble the core team.”
Minho feels winded. That fucking liar. That little fucking snake doesn’t want to risk the tiniest smear on his rep by telling them what they did to me.
And the worst part? Soobin’d planned this. Because if anyone were to tell the truth, it’d mean forcefully outing the relationship Minho and Jisung had, because why else would Jisung come for him when he was in danger?
From the look Chan is giving him, he knows it too. He’s not saying anything for this very reason.
This leaves Minho with two choices. Stay silent and stay safe, or…
“He’s lying.”
Confess.
Everyone’s looking at him now. His voice sounds unnatural. No, that’s the wrong word – unfamiliar is more like it. He’s not used to speaking in anything more than a subservient mumble.
“The subteam were the ones who cornered and knocked me out at the cybernetic dojo. They used me to lure Jisung to them.” Minho’s throat feels like a desert.
“Is that so?”
“He’s confused,” Soobin supplies, glancing at Minho once. Under the veneer of modest confidence, a murderous intent gleams, threatening him to shut up. “He hit his head, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
“Of course,” Seokjin adds, obsidian eyes staring straight into Minho’s soul. “Because why, exactly, would the target even come for Minho?”
The agent takes a deep breath. “Because Jisung and I know each other. We met outside. And no, I didn’t tell him anything about this job, or sell anyone out, regardless of whatever Soobin told Yeonjun. But yes,” he says in almost a whisper. “I did ask them not to kill him.”
This is it. It’s the most terrified he’s felt in years, and also the most alive.
It isn’t admitting it to them that’s making him feel this way, he realises. It’s confessing to himself. Finally accepting, with all his heart, the way he’d felt around Jisung. What Jisung and his friends had made him believe.
The tension in the room is unreal, pulled so taut it’s like they’re frozen in time. All except for Namjoon, who still has his hands held behind his back.
“I’m sure this startling disparity in accounts could be corroborated with CCTV evidence,” he says, almost bored.
Minho sees Soobin glance at Hueningkai, their unofficial netrunner, who gives a tiny nod. “Yes, of course. We can go through the footage back at base, I could-…”
“We could,” Namjoon cuts in, eyes suddenly flashing. “And we could, also, go through the footage from the dojo camera on Hoseok’s own secured network, that a netrunner wouldn’t be able to hack and alter so easily,” his stony expression doesn’t change. “Which I already did, on the way here.”
Soobin doesn’t say anything. For the first time tonight, and in his life, Minho sees genuine panic flashing through his eyes.
“Let’s talk, you and me,” Namjoon gestures to Soobin, before brushing past Seokjin, the other man’s expression unreadable. “Clean up here. I don’t want to see a single fucking person in this room when I’m back.”
Then he’s gone, Soobin following behind him like a lamb led to slaughter.
Minho hunches in on himself, feeling Hoseok’s hand on his back, a tiny comfort despite the fuse ready to blow in the room. A fuse that’s burning in Seokjin, as he lays eyes on Chan first, then Jisung. He’s going to kill them. He’s going to kill them for what happened to Soobin.
“Just be glad I need to do this quick,” he spits, a tiny, cruel knife appearing in his hand. Chan’s eyes are searching him, lightning fast, coming up with nothing – that’s the thing about Seokjin, how he doesn’t need an implant or a gun to kill someone. “If I had more time, trust me, there’d be nothing left of either of you to find.”
“Stop!” Minho stands, wobbling and holding on tight to the armrest. He straightens slowly, taking deep breaths.
“Haven’t you done enough?” Seokjin snaps, but he doesn’t pull a knife on him. Wouldn’t, not in front of so many witnesses.
“Haven’t you had enough of making other people pay for your mistakes?” step by aching step, Minho makes his way over. Again, no one else dares to move. “Of manipulating people? Using the things we care about against us?”
Seokjin doesn’t say anything, speechless with shock for a moment.
“Let them go,” Minho grits out eventually. “Both of them. Now, or else.”
The older man lets out a disbelieving sound, lips curling. “Is that a threat?”
The disposal agent says nothing for a moment, leaning in, eyes never once leaving Seokjin’s. “Funny, isn’t it? How I know all your skeletons in the closet, hyung?” he says eventually. “Because you made me bury them?”
Seokjin’s gaze hardens, just as there’s a sound behind them, and Yoongi stands. “I fucking knew it,” he growls, shouldering past Jungkook to get at Seokjin. “You fucking monster, admit it!” he roars. “Admit you killed Jimin!”
“Shut up, you don’t know what you’re saying!” Jungkook pushes him off, more angry than Minho’s seen him in a while. He still wears the bracelet Jimin gave him years ago, Minho realises - a cloth and leather braid around his wrist. “You’re disrespecting his memory!”
Yoongi ignores him, eyes still dead set on Seokjin, whose expression’s gone stony. “You sent him that distress call, got him down to your torture basement that night, didn’t you? Because you knew that he’d never say no to a call for help, that getting rid of him would get both him and I out of your way in one go. You slit his throat and made Minho clean up your mess, so we’d – we’d never find the body.”
“Stop it. Seokjin-hyung wouldn’t do that,” Jungkook insists. His eyes are starting to mist up. “None of us would’ve wanted that.”
“You’re delusional, Suga,” Seokjin says, but his voice is funny. Losing its grip. He turns to Minho, furious and frozen for a second, then makes a sharp gesture at Chan. “Get out.”
Taehyung blinks, where he’s still holding Jisung down, and probably had tuned out of the discussion long ago. “Huh?”
“I said get out!” Seokjin screams, and Chan gets up, speeds over to Jisung’s side in the blink of an eye, before pulling him from the room.
Minho lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding in.
“What happened to you?” Seokjin hisses, and it takes Minho a while to realise he’s talking to him. “What happened to putting the team first?”
This, at least, is easy to answer. “I was never part of the team,” Minho’s voice sounds heavy to his own ears, like the realisation’s just sinking in. A guillotine, cutting off the final ties holding him down here. “God knows I tried so,” his voice wavers. “So hard to be, when I was an idiot kid who didn’t know any better. Now I do. And I’m done.”
“You think you can end things just like that, Minho-yah? You think you can make it on your own out there?” Seokjin's nails dig into Minho’s arm, dragging him forward. “You’re going to come running back, begging for help once New Seoul chews you up and spits you out. And we’re not going to be as charitable as we were the first time.”
“I won’t be on my own,” Minho wrenches his arm free. His eyes linger on Seokjin’s hard gaze, and he lowers his voice to a whisper once more. “Hurt me, or anyone I care about, and you can be sure that they,” he nods in Jungkook’s direction, barely there. “Will never forget it.”
Then he turns, limping out of the room, body aching, spirit finally free.
*
Minho rents an apartment on the fringe of his old territory. He foots the downpayment and hush money without a hitch – happens, when you work for ten years without a holiday.
He stands at the window that night, scratching idly behind Soonie’s ears and smiling at the responding purr. Ten minutes away by hyperscooter, the Hwaseong multi-expressway looms, illuminated from top to bottom like a circuit board.
The warmth fades momentarily, flickering like a candle.
Forty-eight hours later, he’s sitting outside a CU, warming his hands on two paper cups of coffee. Someone pulls out the chair across him, and he pushes one cup over.
“You look well,” Hoseok says wryly. It’s true.
“You look better, hyung,” Minho replies. Also true. He takes a sip of coffee, steaming in the cold, wet night. “I heard.”
“Well, Yoongi wasn’t exactly subtle about it, I suppose,” Hoseok shrugs, sighing. “Yeah. He and I are out for good. Yeonjun and Taehyun came along for the ride. This street we’re sitting on? That swanky apartment you got for yourself half an hour away?” He gestures around them, smirking. “Agust-D territory, now.”
Minho takes a slow sip of coffee. “Should I be worried?”
Hoseok laughs. He looks more relaxed than Minho’s seen him in five years. “Nah. Don’t tell him I told you this, but Yoongi credits his wake-up call to your incredible display of balls that day. I don’t think even he thought anyone could stand up to Seokjin like that, until you did. Stay on our streets, and you’ll be safe – at least until Namjoon’s finished taking out his rage on whatever precincts BTS still owns.”
“Thanks,” Minho says, genuinely grateful. “I owe it to you, you know.”
“Nah, you don’t. You owe it to the guy who came for you when everyone else couldn’t. Even though you barely knew each other,” Hoseok says, smile fading into something serious. “Yoongi, me, Yeonjun – we were all just toy soldiers, marching along to Seokjin’s beat, fighting to survive in the little playpen he’d built to keep us in. He opened your eyes, and you opened ours.”
The younger man’s grip tightens on his coffee, heart squeezing tightly in his chest. “I know.”
“You going out there to find your Peter Pan, then?”
Minho looks down. “I don’t know,” he scuffs a shoe against the leg of the table. “He got caught and messed up because of me. Him and his friend – none of that would’ve happened if we never met. I don’t think he wants to see me again.”
“You don’t know that,” Hoseok takes a drink of coffee, shaking his head. “Don’t let the fear isolate you. That’s how he controlled us, you know – Seokjin. Always making me second guess how much I could actually trust Yoongi, and him with me. Seokjin knew we could find strength in each other, and he wanted to keep us weak.”
Minho takes a deep breath, hand coming to rest behind his head, against the cool metal of the implant drilled against his cerebellum. If he’s really going to do this…he’s going to have to cut off every loose end.
“Hyung,” he says quietly. “I have a favour to ask.”
Hoseok nods. “Ask me anything.”
“Do you know a ripperdoc I can trust?”
*
There’s a big, busy highway on the way back to the Minho’s apartment block. It’s always full of hypercars and civilians in the evening, people on the way back from work and on with their lives.
A man sits on the edge of the bridge, looking down at the brilliant crisscross of lights from the highways below him. It’s dazzling, as it always has been. Like you could take a step off and fall forever into a web of yellow and white.
His feet dangle, kicking slowly at the miles of nothingness between him and rock bottom.
Behind him, people pass by as they always have been, chatting or rushing or driving. A man brushes past his back on a slow stroll with a cigarette.
“Han Jisung!”
Jisung startles, turning around and deflating a little. “Hi, harabeoji!” he smiles toothily. “How are you and the others?”
The elderly man lifts a hand off the outdoor vacuum unit he’s pushing to tip his cleaner’s hat at him, mirroring the smile. “Well-fed,” he barks, thumping Jisung’s back with a spidery hand as he passes. “That’s all that matters. You’re here again?”
“I’m waiting for someone, harabeoji.”
“Mmh,” the cycle-sweeper says over the rumble of his vacuum unit. He stops his determined shuffle forward for a while. People continue to mill by, mostly never lingering. “You’ve been waiting long.”
Jisung shrugs. “Don’t know if he’s showing up, honestly. He’s good at staying unnoticed.”
The old man laughs. “So were the people of Gusan-dong. Yet you still come home for Chuseok every year. What can us nobodies do to get rid of someone who’ll never forget us?”
“Maybe I just come back for ahjumma Jiyoung’s free yukgaejang and pocket money,” Jisung says with a cheeky smile, and the old man threatens him with a forehead flick. “Bye, harabeoji! I’ll come by with your favourite rice cakes next week!”
The silence returns once the cycle-sweeper is gone, the comforting whir of his vacuum unit going with him. Jisung sighs, wrapping his jacket a little tighter around himself.
This is stupid. Jeongin’s already complaining about having to monitor highway traffic for him every night so far, and there’s only so much banana milk Jisung can afford to bribe him with.
He’s not coming, Sungie.
Just as he makes to turn around, though, the people around him seem slow to a stop, as the man who’d been savouring a cigarette beside him flicks the little stick of ash off the edge, and turns to him, straightening up. Immediately, Jisung tenses, still-tender body bracing for a fight.
Then the man pushes his hood back, and Jisung forgets whatever he’d been about to say.
“Minho-hyung?” His voice doesn’t waver as embarrassingly as he thought it would. Nice, taking that as a win.
“Jisung,” the other man replies, almost immediately. He’s wearing a denim jacket over the hoodie, the circles under his eyes still ever present, but there’s a layer of contentment cushioning that fatigue, now.
Something’s different about him. Not just the way he looks, hair styled into gentle brown waves and a healthy flush over his cheeks, but the way he carries himself – shoulders thrown back rather than hunched in, finally walking in something other than the terrified deer tread he used to have.
It looks comfortable on him. Looks beautiful on him.
Everything looks beautiful on Minho, but this makes Jisung warm in indescribable ways.
“You came,” he breathes, before spluttering. “I mean, of course you came. My crew doesn’t just extend invites to anyone, you know.”
“That so?” Minho raises a brow. It looks infuriatingly good. “I’m honoured to be graced by your presence, then.”
“Y-yeah. That. What kept you, anyways?” Jisung hops down, folding his arms across his chest. This isn’t quite going how he’d envisioned. Good thing he’s always had a talent for improv (“Changing the plan ten minutes in isn’t improv, Jisung, it’s you never paying attention when I’m talking”).
Minho finally ducks his head. He doesn’t say anything for a moment. “How are you holding up?” he asks tentatively. “And your friend, of course.”
“Oh, me? Pfft, that was nothing, I've taken worse since I was ten,” Jisung waves, posthumously aware that that doesn’t sound as badass as he’d intentioned. “And Chan’s doing way better now. He said we owed you, you know – if he’d accidentally killed any of them trying to get me out of there then we’d probably have to leave the country, no kidding. We had no idea it was BTS backing those shrimps up. Not that I uh, needed help or anything, though,” he clears his throat. “I had it all under control.”
“I’ll bet,” Minho says, but the mirth in his voice sounds distant. He’s biting his lower lip. “Are you sure about this?”
Jisung scratches his head, accidentally getting a freshly-healed cut and wincing. “Yes, I am,” he pauses, voice lowering with a bit of sadness. “Why aren’t you?”
“I’m not New Seoul’s average mercenary, you know. I don’t know if my skillset’s going to be useful to you guys,” Minho says, words tumbling out, like this is all he’s been thinking about over the past week. “And I’ve got…a lot of baggage,” he laughs helplessly. “Powerful people who’d kill me if they can figure out how. What if I put you all in danger?”
Jisung snorts. “Then you’d be joining the club. Come on, you heard what the big BTS bossman said to Chan, he’s got more baggage than the rest of us combined. Innie is on the run from his whole damn clan, and Jinnie isn’t even supposed to be alive. It’s nothing we’ve never seen before.”
When the older man doesn’t say anything, still looking at the ground, Jisung scuffs his sneaker on the rusty metal railing.
“You know,” he mumbles, barely audible above the rush of cars past them. “When I got left behind by my previous team, it felt like my world ended. Most days I just felt pain, ‘cause my shoulder was busted, but some days I felt…like an alien, you know. Crash landed on this earth, in this sea of people who couldn’t understand me, smiling even though I just felt so fucking lonely all the time. I just wanted it all to end.”
Minho looks up curiously, like the thought is unfathomable.
“Then I met Chan!” Jisung brightens. “Well, almost got killed by him. So I stol – uh, I got him some meds, got him out of that boarded-up old place on the Seoul border, and the rest is history,” he beams. “Thinking back, we kinda saved each other, that week. People aren’t people without other people, hyung. We could all be a fam-…okay, that’s a little fast. We could make a great team!”
The other man smiles wryly, like he’s heard that somewhere before. The smile flickers momentarily. “What if we do, and then…we don’t? What if we end up hating what we’ve become?” he folds his arms over his chest. “What would it cost us?”
Jisung thinks about this for a while, then smiles. “Nothing we can’t afford to fix it, if we want to.”
He holds Minho’s gaze then, the tentative, wondrous look in his eyes, and for a single, gripping moment, wants nothing more than to show it to him, show him what a real family means and that he’s as deserving of it as anyone else is.
The younger man hops down from the ledge, leaning down to mess with the bag he’d propped up beside him, and takes out two cups, now lukewarm from the chill.
Minho looks surprised. “A little late for coffee, don’t you think?”
“I did say I’d get us some real Americanos after all this was over. The ahjussi a couple stops away does it best, plus he gives me free toast,” the younger man smiles, handing one cup over. “So…you in or not?”
Minho takes the coffee, the edge of his lips tugging upwards, and the balloon in Jisung’s chest inflates, lifting his spirits.
“Only one condition: no killing.”
“Done. Chan doesn’t really like that either. Minnie’s still coming around,” Jisung shrugs. “Anything else?”
Minho looks around them, at the towering neighbourhoods of New Seoul. “I know the city well, but…not the people. My previous employer didn’t really like me chatting around,” he admits. “Guess I’m going to have to learn, if I want to work with you guys.”
Jisung throws an arm around Minho’s shoulder. He smells of coffee, rich and golden despite the stinging cold air. “Lucky for you then, phonebook knowledge of the people in this shit city happens to be a specialty of mine.”
The other man laughs, taking a sip. “Looks like I’m going to have to stick with you for a long while, then.”
It really is the best coffee he’s ever tasted.
*
“So there’s…actually another reason I took so long to come around.”
“Coming through!” Felix sails through from the kitchen of their base, carrying a pot of something delicious. “Thanks for helping with dinner, Minho-hyung, we’ve been wanting to do a proper welcome meal for you for ages.”
His eyes widen, then, at the bit of steel and fibreglass Minho had just set down on the table.
“Neural implant?” Jeongin picks it up critically, retinal scanners bathing it in green. “It’s offline. What does it do?”
“It was supposed to be a dampener. To make people forget I exist,” Minho tastes the stew, humming appreciatively. “But seeing as it didn’t work on Jisung, I’m guessing it was just a tracker my old boss put in my head to keep tabs on where I went. I wanted to get it out of me before I joined you guys proper.”
Felix and Jeongin look at each other, then. “Uh, actually…the dampener does work,” Felix says sheepishly, holding up the implant. “It looks like a pretty expensive custom job. Hyunjin and I actually totally forgot what you looked like, that time after we first met. Jisung thought we were making fun of him.”
Minho frowns. “Then how did Jisung…?”
Jeongin yells, then, as Jisung springs into the room, cackling. “What’s the illegal gathering for? Are we stealing Chan’s hyperscooter again?”
“Hyung,” the maknae complains. “Can you not-…”
“Han Jisung,” Chan looms in the doorway of the kitchen, and the younger man yelps, hiding behind Felix. “Dinner’s almost ready, and Hyunjin’s reaching anytime now, so please help to lay the table. No implants on the table during meals, please, thank you Minho.”
Minho’s still got a hand on the old implant, wondering absently, when they’re all seated five minutes later, and he’s in the middle of two very stimulating conversations.
“Listen hyung, Jinnie’s boyfriend is a little, uh,” Jisung’s eyes are comically wide with worry. “He can get a little intense. If he-…”
“Is your memory really photographic?” Felix asks on his other side, tugging on his sleeve. “How does that even work? Like, can you-…”
“…-threatens to kill you a couple of times, he’s really just trying to get to know you, okay? But I won’t let him-…”
“…-remember everything? Like someone’s face you see in a mugshot? Or-…”
“I’ll be fine, Sungie, don’t worry about me,” Minho chuckles, though he’s more than a little nervous as the front door opens in the next room, and Hyunjin loudly sashays back into the house. “And yes, Felix, I just happen to remember places and faces really well.”
“Minho-hyung,” Hyunjin marches a tall man in uptight office clothes to the table, looking extremely pleased with himself. “This is-…”
“Kim Seungmin?”
There’s a moment of silence at the table, as everyone looks between Minho and Seungmin. As always, Jisung’s the first one to break it.
“You two know each other?”
“I do not,” Seungmin says calmly. Out of the corner of his eye, Minho sees Chan wince, preparing to do some damage control. “Which most likely means that you were paid to kill me.”
“Well, not me,” Minho shrugs. “But the people I worked for, yes.”
“Hm. Sounds like a promising venture,” the corporate replies, expression unmoving. “Why didn’t you take it up?”
“Mm, well, the client couldn’t afford your…price.”
Seungmin takes off his glasses, then, setting them on the table, before he leans over, a large hand spread on the old wood. “I don’t suppose you’d have any names for me, Minho-ssi?”
Minho smirks, a slow, contemplative movement. “I’ve got names, addresses, contact numbers. Just let me know what you need.”
Chan sighs in his chair, then, massaging his temples, as Jisung stares at Minho, mouth slightly open. “Can we please at least keep the assassination talk until after dinner?”
To his mild surprise (and apparently everyone else’s at the table) Seungmin laughs, settling at the table across Jeongin and gently nudging Hyunjin into his seat, suddenly the picture of perfect prosociality.
“Sorry hyung,” Seungmin apologises, pressing a feather kiss on Hyunjin’s cheek and eliciting a strong blush when the other man hands him his chopsticks. “You needn’t have worried in the car, Jinnie. Looks like Minho-ssi and I will get along just fine.”
Minho feels a light squeeze around his hand under the table, and turns to see Jisung grinning, still with that slightly breathless, wonderstruck look about him, and wonders how to tell him that he feels the same, always has since the day they met.
“Thank you for the meal!” Jeongin announces, signalling that he’s tired of distractions from the food. The people around them start to eat, arguing over side dishes and rice portions, but Minho’s only looking at Jisung.
“Thanks,” he says, unable to muster up much else. Thank you for saving my life. For giving me all this.
Jisung smiles, dark brown eyes going soft, still sparkling with mirth. “Don’t worry about it, sweetheart.”