Chapter Text
April
Well, Minho was fucked. Utterly and royally fucked. It happened. Again. Because Minho was incapable of hearing literal gunshots outside of his hideout in his sleep. A gun could literally go off right next to his ear and he wouldn’t hear it. This is why he is usually never left partnerless because at least then, someone would hear it and wake the other up somehow. But here Minho was, at 7 am, with 2 stray bullet holes on his door.
His hideout was a shitty rundown apartment. The only thing it had was a single metal chair. There was no electricity, no heating, no food. The chair wasn’t even comfortable so how the hell did Minho fall asleep?
He kicked himself mentally as he drove over to the station, trying to prepare himself for the ass kicking his boss, Soo, was going to give him. This isn’t the first time Minho has promised to stay aware and that he didn’t need a partner for this. And twice now, he has let them down. Minho parked his undercover car in the parking lot and took his time walking in. As soon as he got into the offices, his boss behind the glass wall of his office, motioned for him to come to him with his finger. Yeah, Minho was fucked.
He smiled sheepishly as he entered.
“Heyyyyy, Captain Soo, uh…funny story.”
“Shut it, Lee. Sit your ass down.” Minho sighed and closed the door behind him and sat down on the chair in front of his boss’s desk.
“So, you want to tell me what happened?”
“Well, you see, I wasn’t hearing anything suspicious, and I’ve been awake since 5 am yesterday and I guess as I took a quick power nap…the shooting began?” Minho cringed at his shitty explanation. It was no damn power nap. He fell asleep at 11 because he swore to himself nothing was going to happen. That it was just going to be a regular degular stake out with no outcome. But no, of course the one time he falls asleep, two bullets miss him.
“Our target was shot dead last night. Brought him in this morning.” Minho sighed. They needed that guy for questioning and now he’s dead because Minho turns into a dead man at night.
“Instead, we got new intel from his buddy who caved in.” Soo dropped a file in front of Minho. Minho hesitated in picking it up. So….did that mean that Minho wasn’t fired? Minho opened the file and the first thing he saw was a paper with a mugshot clipped to the top of a young-looking man with a scratch on his right eyebrow and a bruise on his left eye. He looked at the next picture and saw another guy. He didn’t have any bruises on his face and he didn’t look as menacing as the previous guy but as he skimmed his file, he found that he has hacked into government protected files before. As Minho flipped to the next page, his boss continued talking.
“They call themselves the Stray Kids. They boost cars, steal money, run guns, and get into trouble with gangs while running a car garage and washing business on the side. Bang Chan, their leader, he’s suspected to have been the killer last night. Several shots were heard but only one bullet from one specific gun was found lodged into Jung’s head. Bang is military trained, and he never misses.” Minho gulped. He flipped back to the first page and this guy didn’t look patriotic at all. His menacing gaze, the dark circles around his eyes, the scratch on his eyebrow, and the slight lift of the right side of his lip screams ‘look at me and I’ll kill you.’
“Since I remember you telling me you used to fix cars for your dad and that you were a car junkie yourself, I’m switching you to this case. Your last case if you let me down.” Minho looked up. He was expecting to have already been let off and now he was given this one last chance. That is, if Bang Chan himself doesn’t kill him before he could redeem himself first.
“Read these files,” Soo said as he slapped another 3 set of files in front of him. “Memorize them, recite them in your sleep. Don’t let a single detail pass you, because we need hard evidence to convict these bastards for life. You have until the end of the year. If you can’t give me anything by then, you’re good as gone and I will find somebody else to replace you. Do you understand me?” Minho gulped once more and nodded.
“Speak, boy!”
“Yes! I understand, sir.”
“Good.” Soo looked through some papers in front of him as Minho sat there, not really knowing what to do. “Well, what the hell are you still doing here? Go! Meet with Kang to get your new alias and set a background story. Bang Chan will do a background check on you, so everything needs to be immaculate.” Minho nodded and bowed before running out of the room and towards Kang on the other side of the building.
Kang grinned cheekily at him as Minho ran in, out of breath.
“How much of your ass did he chew off?” All Minho had the energy to do was to flick him off which only caused Kang to laugh.
“Ahhhh, anyways. How does Choi Minho sound?” Minho sneered at the name but Kang ignored. “Great. Welcome to the world of fixing cars, Choi Minho. You’re a mechanic from Gimpo. You moved to Kimul recently and are looking for a job. And for him to trust you, you basically have to have a bit of a bad record so you got in trouble in 2014 and 2015 for trying to rob a gas station, and again earlier this year for breaking and entering someone’s house with a blunt force weapon. Also, the necessary 2 years of juvie for attempting to hot wire a police car.” Minho gave him a ‘really’ face which Kang pretended to not notice as he continued typing with a smug look on his face.
“So, if he tries to run a background check on Choi Minho from Gimpo, this will pop up. Your new ID and shit will be ready by the end of the day so don’t forget to come back for it.” After that, Minho knew Kang was going to get into his zone of making Choi Minho come to life so Minho left him to do his thing.
Minho didn’t have anything else to do so he went off to his favorite underground bar restaurant. It was a tad rundown, but he was in the owner’s good graces for helping him kick out rude and overly drunk people out.
“Minhooo!!” The owner yelled at him as a greeting which Minho reciprocated.
“Sungwooooo!! What’s up, man?” Minho stopped by the bar to talk with Sungwoo for a bit.
“The usual, you know. Kicked out a few Nazis for thinking that groping my girls when they bring them their drinks was an okay thing.” The thing about Sungwoo was that, looking past his 6’2” burly image, he was a giant with a giant heart. His ‘girls’ were 3 of the girls who work for the place and Sungwoo swears day in and day out that he will make sure they don’t get abused by disrespectful punks.
“The usual.” Minho rolled his eyes.
“Hey, Minho.” One of the girls smiled at him. She was his favorite. She was originally from America but she moved to Korea a few years ago on a whim. The nasty men love to target her because of how different she looked with her dark skin and curly hair.
“Hey, Nana.” Annabeth was her name. Minho couldn’t pronounce it very well and neither could most Korean people so she preferred being called Nana.
“Working?” They don’t really know about his job since his position is usually undercover and so he didn’t want the people he knew to know that and blow his cover accidentally.
“Yeah, uh…kinda looking for a job at the moment, actually.” Minho decided to go with that, thinking back to his story since he knew this was going to take over his life for the next 8 months.
“Oh, really? What kind are you looking for? I mean, I know it’s not much but you’re always welcome to work here.” Sungwoo said and really, if Minho was telling the truth, he would take the job. He probably would take it if he gets let go at the end of the year if the offer is still available.
“I appreciate it, Sungwoo. Truly. But I’ve been thinking of going back to my roots, you know. Always been interested in cars, fixing them, and making them better for not the most outrageous prices but you know anything to do with cars right now is on my radar.” Minho said with a shrug.
“Ah, well, I hope you find one soon.”
“Me, too. Anyways, get me a pint?”
“Sure, brother.” Minho smiled at them both and went off to sit at his usual booth in the back corner where no one can look over his shoulder and he could see his entire surroundings. Soon, Nana brought him his pint and a small basket of fries. Minho looked up at her with a little smile.
“On the house, sweetheart.”
“Thank you, Nana. You’re the best.” Minho winked at her and immediately ate a fry. She chuckled and walked away. After taking a nice, long sip of his beer. He settled comfortably on his seat and opened the first file, the one with the mugshots of everyone in this gang.
Bang Chan. 27. Birthday, October 3rd. Ooh, he’s a Libra. Okay, Minho, focus. Lived in Australia. Not the tallest. Minho was taller. Ha. In your face, big bad Bang Chan. La la la, suspicions of murder, arson, and domestic violence, blah blah blah, stealing cars and money, blah blah blah. Okay, next.
Seo Changbin. 24. Older half-brother of Kim Seungmin. Pro car booster. The shortest but the nimblest. Grew up poor. Several visits to juvie for stealing from grocery stores and gas stations for food. Minho almost felt bad for him then he read that he had suspicions of arson and man slaughter. Okay. Next.
Kim Seungmin. 23. Hacker. Believed to have hacked into police scanners and heavily encrypted files. The brains, the planner. Not much else is known about him. Okay, next.
Lee Felix. 23. The trickster. The bait if you will. Tricks or distracts the victims, acts innocent when confronted. Hmm, sounds like Minho’s kind of guy. Lived in Australia. Cousin to leader Bang Chan. Interesting. Next.
Hwang Hyunjin. 23. Why are they all so young? They didn’t go to school? Or aimed higher than, oh look, arson. Haven’t seen that one before. Oh, streaking...interesting. Few visits to juvie for pranking his high school teachers. How do you prank a teacher so bad that you end up in juvie for it? Minho didn’t want to know. Next.
Han Jisung. 23. Really? The runaway guy. Always ready to get the others out before police could infiltrate. Believed to be in a relationship with…oh? Lee Felix? Very interesting. Minho highlighted that for later usage. Next.
Yang Jeongin. 22. Not much is known about him except he is the youngest and fresh out of college. Oh, come on Jeongin-ah. You could’ve had a better life than to be caught in the wrong crowd. There wasn’t even a mug shot of him. It was a stalkerish, zoomed in photo of Jeongin looking up as he loaded groceries into a very sporty looking car. The car didn’t even look like it belonged to him. He looked too much like an innocent baby to be driving a bright neon green decked out Mitsubishi. There wasn’t any criminal record of him. He was presumably a good kid. What the hell is he doing in this file?
Kim Woojin. 27. The muscle. Oh, Happy Birthday, Woojin. Good with his fists and legs. Good with knives. Domestic Violence. Domestic Violence. Domestic Violence with a weapon. Domestic violence. Okay, so this guy has anger issues. Time to close the file and go for the next one.
By the time Minho got to the second file, all the fries were gone, and Nana came to bring Minho a new pint which he appreciated. He really was going to need it after reading and trying to retain all this information.