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“I think I have a way for both of us to get out of this alive.”
Sitting handcuffed across from Dahyun, Tzuyu gave her a flat glare.
“Just like you had a way to murder the CEO and pin it on me?”
“Hey! My plan worked didn’t it? They arrested you.”
“Sure.” Tzuyu jerked her arms experimentally. “And what part of the plan involved getting caught and thrown in jail with me?”
“Alright, I admit it.” Dahyun used a lockpick to fiddle with her own handcuffs. “Getting arrested leaving the scene of the crime was not my proudest moment. But you have to agree, the frame job was perfect.”
“Aside from the fact that we both work for the same organization.”
“And that would be a problem if we were both working for the same bakery.” Dahyun snorted. “Rival assassins frame each other all the time. The less active killers they have, the more jobs I get. The bosses know this and they don’t care.”
Phew, these handcuffs were pretty tough. As expected from the security team of the world’s richest CEO. No doubt the FBI would arrive very soon. Dahyun was glad she’d tucked her favourite lockpick into her hair before being arrested. Old Pointy had gotten her out of a fair number of dangerous situations, and it hadn’t cracked yet.
“I’m sure they won’t mind me killing you in revenge.” Tzuyu seemed dead set on only communicating in deadpan.
“Careful.” Dahyun smirked. “Talk like that and I’ll leave you behind in my escape plan.”
“Weren’t you going to already? Why frame me just to rescue me?”
She raised a good point. Dahyun wondered whether to tell the truth. In the end, she decided that she might as well be honest and shoot her shot now.
“Never met you before. Didn’t realise you were this beautiful.”
Her response actually made Tzuyu laugh, and Dahyun smiled back. A laugh like that combined with such a cute face was infectious and deadly, even though she was probably laughing at Dahyun instead of with her.
“You changed your mind because I’m pretty?” Tzuyu scoffed.
“Well I can’t let a face like that rot in jail. I’m a killer, not a monster.”
“How kind of you.” Tzuyu said dryly. “Is this how you normally ask a girl out?”
“Well normally when I interact with people, I’m pointing a gun to their head. Be a bit rude to ask them out then. I’m not a fan of coercion.”
“Big on consent, an interesting quality for a killer.”
“Again, not a monster.” Dahyun shrugged. “I don’t care if my victims consent to die or not obviously, but other than that I’d never force anyone to do something they’re uncomfortable with.”
“That’s almost sweet.”
“What can I say? I’m a charmer.” Dahyun’s grin was cocky and she knew it.
“Not the word I’d use to describe you, but ok.”
“Really?” Dahyun smirked victoriously as the handcuffs finally popped open. “How about now? Am I not the image of a charming rescuer?”
Tzuyu looked straight into her eyes, and then slowly lifted her hands from behind her back. Her handcuffs fell to the ground, and even the thump against the floor sounded sarcastic to Dahyun.
“Why didn’t you just leave?” Dahyun was genuinely shocked.
“Who knows?” For the first time Tzuyu seemed more playful than annoyed. “Maybe I found you interesting.”
Well now, this was a curious development.
“Why Miss Tzuyu,” Dahyun pressed her hand to her heart. “Are you saying my face is also too pretty for jail?”
“If that’s what you think I said then you should probably get your hearing tested. Firing guns too close to your ears can lead to serious problems you know.”
“Oh, I know my gun safety.” Dahyun risked a wink. “I can give you a demonstration, once all this is over.”
Dahyun was smart enough to know her strengths and weaknesses. She was an expert marksman and strategist, and she could hold her own in hand to hand combat. But Tzuyu was much stronger than her, and was the best martial artist out of the entire roster of assassins. Seeing as Dahyun was locked in a room alone with her, after framing her, and with no weapons, the smartest thing for Dahyun to do would be to shut up and pray Tzuyu didn’t strangle her.
But her handler had once told her something profound, words Dahyun took to heart and tried to follow every day.
Live fast die young, bad girls do it well.
Chaeyoung had just been singing aloud at the time, but sometimes the wisest of lessons are unintentional.
So after getting Tzuyu arrested, flirting with her, and now outright propositioning her, Dahyun really had no idea if she would make it out of this cell alive. Thankfully, Tzuyu seemed quite calm about the whole almost-leaving-you-to-take-the-fall thing, as she merely rolled her eyes and squatted down to unlock the cell door.
Dahyun watched her work for a minute, appreciating her precision and delicacy when twisting the lockpicks. There were at least ten inappropriate comments that came into her head as she watched the taller girl work, but Dahyun still had some sense of self-preservation remaining, so she kept her mouth shut for once.
When the door finally popped open, she couldn’t resist giving a quiet clap of appreciation.
“I could have done it in half the time, but I like how careful you are.” She winked as she walked out past Tzuyu. “In this line of work, it's good to have a partner with perfectionist tendencies.”
“Partner?” Tzuyu raised an eyebrow.
“Well, I’m on my way to kill the second in command who got us both locked up. Want to come?”
“Technically you got me locked up, and I still haven’t forgotten that. But yeah, I do want to kill this guy too.”
“Cool, cool, cool. First things first, I gotta check in with my handler and make sure everything’s ok.”
“Yeah, Chaeyoung is probably freaking out right now.” Tzuyu chuckled.
Dahyun paused, one foot stuck out ready to walk. She swivelled around so she was facing Tzuyu again.
“Chaeyoung? As in Son Chaeyoung?”
“Yes?” Tzuyu frowned. “Do you know her?”
“Know her? She’s my handler!”
“What? No she’s not, she’s my handler.”
“Alright.” Dahyun could feel a headache forming. “We find a phone, we contact her and sort this out, then we kill the guy. Deal?”
“Deal.”
It took them five minutes and one unconscious security guard to find a phone. Dahyun rifled through the man’s pockets until she found his gun and his mobile, then she dialled the emergency number Chaeyoung had given her, waiting impatiently as it rang.
“Hello?”
“Chaeyoung? It’s me. I’m here with Tzuyu.”
“Oh good, you’re both alive.”
“Yep, sure are. Alive and pissed that you’re cheating on me with another operative!”
“Dahyun, did you really think you were the only assassin I was in charge of?”
“You never told me about her!” Tzuyu’s indignant nodding told Dahyun that the lack of knowledge was mutual.
“Because it wasn’t relevant to your work.”
“It wasn’t-” Dahyun looked at Tzuyu, and they shared an annoyed glare. “Alright you know what? We’re going to kill the second in command. Have an extraction team ready for us in ten minutes.”
She covered the phone and gave her full attention to Tzuyu.
“Do you like chicken wings?”
“Never tried them.”
“You never had chicken wings? What kind of awful handler has Chaeyoung been to you?” Dahyun took her hand away from the phone. “And Chaeyoung, when we meet up with you next, I want two buckets of chicken wings! One for me and one for Tzuyu.”
“Will do.” They could hear Chaeyoung start to bark orders at the other end of the phone. “And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the conflict of interest. It’s just that sometimes it feels like I’m herding cats instead of deadly assassins, so it was easier to keep you both in the dark.”
“I forgive you.” Dahyun shrugged, ignoring Tzuyu’s surprised look. “You taught me how to make a mixtape, I owe you a life debt for that.”
“You really don’t.”
“But anyway, I’m probably going to date Tzuyu once this business is done, so deal with the higher ups for me, will you? Love you.”
She quickly ended the call, then smashed the phone against the ground. Tzuyu didn’t even flinch, just reached down to steal the guard’s spare gun. All the while, she kept looking at Dahyun with that one raised eyebrow of mild amusement.
“You’re going to date me?”
“I mean… if you want.” Dahyun grinned sheepishly. “We can go our separate ways once we kill this guy and eat chicken wings, but if you want a second date, I’m up for it.”
“You’re counting murder and chicken wings as our first date?”
“Well yes. Isn’t it?”
Tzuyu stared at her. Dahyun waited for the inevitable moment where she was pushed out a window and the agency had to find a new sharpshooter.
“Fine.” Tzuyu started walking again. “But only if I get to kill him.”
Dahyun blinked, amazed at how effective her rusty flirting skills were turning out to be. Last time she’d risked asking a girl out, it had been two years ago and she’d been a bumbling mess. Nayeon was very kind about it, gently letting her down by explaining that she was already dating her handler Mina.
Today, with a very bad first impression and nothing to lose, she’d gone for the bold and direct approach. This was a whole new type of adventure, but Chou Tzuyu was very pretty and very unpredictable, so Dahyun was definitely up for the challenge.
“Are you coming? If you fall behind I’m leaving without you.”
Dahyun snapped out of her thoughts, running after her hopefully future girlfriend.
“Chaeyoung would never leave me behind.” She said as soon as she'd caught up. “I’m clearly her favourite assassin.”
“In your dreams. She buys me ice cream after I finish my missions.”
“We have a secret handshake.”
“We have secret nicknames.”
“Ok fine, let’s just agree that we’re both her favourite.”
Tzuyu eyed her suspiciously as they finally entered the boss’s office. He screamed when he saw them, slamming a red button for more security.
“Fine.” Tzuyu shot him without hesitation. “But only because I don’t want us arguing over this on our second date.”
Dahyun’s heart may have fluttered a little at that, but she was supposed to be a ruthless killer, so she kept her cool.
“I didn’t realise you were as keen as I was about this dating thing.”
“Why not?” Tzuyu shrugged. “There’s not a lot of people who could have framed me so cleanly. You’re interesting and mostly competent, so I think we’re going to have fun together.”
Dahyun’s smile grew three sizes, but there was one part of Tzuyu’s confession that she couldn’t ignore.
“Mostly competent huh? We’ve got five minutes until the extraction arrives, and a shit ton of security guards heading our way. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Whoever kills the most pays for the second date?” Tzuyu aimed carefully at the glass office doors, a smirk on her face and a sparkle in her eye.
Dahyun’s smirk was just as confident, as she cocked her gun so that it was ready to fire.
“You’re on.”