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Oh for fuck’s sake, shut up!
Jonghyun yelled internally, and in an instant, his mind was filled with the annoying fake staccato laugh of his darned soulmate.
It was bad enough that he couldn’t differentiate between the colors of the wires—with him being color blind because he still hasn’t met his soulmate physically—but this? Hearing his soulmate ramble on and on about things he didn’t care about was too much.
Jonghyun didn’t need to know the difference between a fucking humidifier and a diffuser. He’s in the middle of a fucking heist for Pete’s sake.
Well, I’m sorry. It’s just hard to decide which item I should buy later when I only have an hour left before the mall closes.
Jonghyun rolled his eyes and held the thicker wire in his hand. Taking a deep breath, he cut the wire into two. He could hear the loud pounding of his pulse in his ears as he waited for the result.
Would they get caught in a minute?
Would they be able to get out of here without any injuries?
Or worse, would one of them die?
Those were the questions that always came to mind whenever they did these heists.
And yet, Jonghyun couldn’t stop.
He loved the thrill. The feeling of adrenaline rushing over him with every passing dangerous second.
And maybe that’s why even though he just got paroled from prison not more than a week ago, he was back in the team again.
Stealing a golden egg.
A golden egg??? Do you mean the Fabergé egg?!
Shut up, Jonghyun said in his mind as he heard Aron, the brain and the one in charge of the surveillance, order Ren to start his ballerina moves and take the egg from the vault.
“Hurry up, Ren-ah, I don’t think your beau would like it if he catches you on the job again,” Jonghyun reminded, packing up his things in the security room. He heard Aron chuckle and mumble: ‘Well, at least if Baekho catches him, he wouldn’t be thrown in jail like you.’.
“The perks of having a high-ranking detective as your soulmate,” Jonghyun dryly muttered. He was expecting his soulmate to retort with the usual smart-ass (and dumb) reply, but all Jonghyun got was silence.
Dead and weird silence.
Is everything okay? Jonghyun couldn’t help but ask, a bit worried. This was the first time in ten years that his soulmate had failed to reply (most of the time he had to tell him to shut up). Heck, he didn't even stop babbling when Jonghyun was being interrogated by the police the first time.
This felt utterly weird.
Hey? You there? Jonghyun asked again, when he still didn’t feel his soulmate’s presence in his mind. He’s getting really worried. Sure, his soulmate was a pain in the ass because he talked nonstop about the most trivial things, which became a hindrance to his life—but he was his pain in the ass, and even if Jonghyun had to suffer the rest of his life listening to his soulmate talking nonstop—it’s fine. He’d rather have that than this dead silence. He closed his eyes and was about to shut off all the noises to start telepathically checking his soulmate’s state when he heard Aron curse over his headset.
“We got company, guys,” Aron blurted out over their headsets. “He’s on his way towards the vault.”
“Great,” Jonghyun grunted. His soulmate wasn’t answering him and now they have someone on their trail. He tugged on his backpack and put his cap on. Glancing at his reflection on the glass wall, he fixed his cap and made sure his face couldn’t be seen. “I’ll deal with him. What does he look like?”
“Tall, regal, and handsome?” Aron supplied.
“I’m asking about our unwanted company, Hyung, not your ideal type.”
“You asked me to describe him!” Aron fumed defensively, before taking a deep breath and mumbling curses at his smart-ass teammate. “He’s getting close. Get out of the security room, JR, you need to stop him now, seeing uri Ren is still not done pirouetting his way to the vents.”
“Fine,” Jonghyun muttered. At least Ren was done retrieving that darned golden egg. He partially opened the door of the security room and saw no one in sight. “Is my surroundings clear?”
“Yup, turn left once you reach the end of the hall. You should see a tall guy in a dealer uniform.”
“A dealer?” Jonghyun asked, confused. Managers weren’t even allowed on this floor, let alone a croupier. “Are you sure he's just a dealer? Maybe he’s an undercover agent working for Han, or worse, one of our rivals—”
“Just a croupier,” Aron cut off, slightly pissed at Jonghyun’s lack of trust. “I do my job, you know, and based on me doing my job perfectly,” Jonghyun rolled his eyes as Aron went on and on about how he shouldn’t question him again. “. . . Hwang Minhyun, twenty-six years old. Came from a normal family, graduated Seoul University as BA HRIM, and had been working for Hannagio for three years now . . .”
Jonghyun zoned out Aron’s yapping and sighed. Getting out of the security room, he stealthily walked his way to the hallway while his thoughts flew to his soulmate who still remained silent.
It was a weird feeling of eerie silence that he thought he would enjoy, well, not all the time, but at least once in a while. But all Jonghyun felt was emptiness.
A lonely and slightly heartbreaking emptiness.
It made him regret all those times that he yelled at his soulmate, and couldn’t help but wonder that if, maybe, he was a little gentler on him, maybe his soulmate wouldn’t just leave him like this.
Wait, could soulmates actually leave each other, willingly?
Jonghyun knew that was impossible, unless . . .
His soulmate died.
“Fuck,” Jonghyun cursed as realization hit him. There’s no other reason that he couldn’t feel his soulmate unless he died. And seeing how he hadn’t heard nor felt his presence in his mind for the last three minutes—
“Oy! Do your job!!!!” Aron barked in the headset, reminding Jonghyun that he was still in the middle of a heist.
“My soulmate is dead and you want me to fucking do my job?!” Jonghyun barked back, hands clenched tightly into fists. Panic and fear gnawed on him as tears started welling up in his eyes. He could hear the loud pounding of his heart as his mind screamed two gut-wrenching words over and over again.
Soulmate. Dead. Soulmate. Dead.
It was like a blaring error sign, hitting him straight on the face like a ten-ton truck. “My stupid talkative soulmate is fucking dead—”
“I—” Jonghyun heard a voice mumble in front of him. He should have found it weird how the voice sounded so familiar, and even though he only heard one syllable, not even loud enough for a normal human to hear—it was drawing him in like a dying fish to water. But with his mind all over the place, Jonghyun could only focus on the matter on hand—his dead soulmate. Without realizing it, he was already glaring at the intruder, ready to fight him for disturbing his mourning.
But then, he didn’t need to.
Hell, he couldn’t even move. Jonghyun felt everything stop—the loud chattering in the casino, Aron yelling and Ren singing those annoying Lady Gaga songs in the headset all turned into a low buzz—and all Jonghyun could see was a man in a fucking casino dealer uniform staring straight at him, as different colors slowly bloomed on his body.
“I—I’m not dead,” the man, or Jonghyun should say, his soulmate, said, staring at him with his fox-like eyes bulging as if he just saw the sun for the first time.
And it’s understandable. Jonghyun could relate why his soulmate was staring at him like that. Because he, too, was feeling the same thing. Completely speechless as he watched colors—ones that he never saw in his entire life—bloomed on his soulmate.
It was beautiful, the way different colors worked their way on him and painted him in a breathtaking way, giving him this sight—one that Jonghyun couldn’t explain with words.
His soulmate was beautiful.
Breathtaking and utterly beautiful.
It was then when he learned why people were so hopelessly in love as soon as they met their soulmates. At first, Jonghyun thought Ren was just being overdramatic when he told him how it felt when he met Detective Kang—it annoyed Jonghyun even, because after all, that was the reason why he ended up in jail the first time.
But now? He knew that Ren was right. He understood why Ren—the crazy acrobat in their team—ended up frozen in the spot and just stared dumbly at his oh-so-called macho soulmate.
The feeling that he was feeling right now was beyond indescribable. It felt like his breath got taken from his chest while his heart beat loudly that he could hear it in his ears. Yet, everything was clear—to clear that Jonghyun could see the way his soulmate’s lashes slowly flutter, or the way his cheeks flushed with a beautiful color that Jonghyun had yet to know the name of.
He didn’t even notice how or when he moved, nor when he had reached out to caress his soulmate’s face. All Jonghyun knew was that he was getting pulled in, and that he needed to touch as he stared at the most beautiful eyes that he had ever seen in his life.
“Oh come on! We don’t have time for this again!” Aron groaned in the line as Jonghyun heard Ren whooping and congratulating him for finally meeting his soulmate.
“Can’t help it,” Jonghyun murmured, caressing his soulmate’s cheek. His heart did somersaults when the man smiled at him, so bright and dazzling that it put the sun, moon, and stars all to shame. “Isn’t he just beautiful?”
“Yes, he is,” Ren cooed as Aron grumbled curses, telling him that he needed to leave the building before the security team found him out.
Jonghyun bit his lip, pondering on what he should do. He couldn’t just leave his soulmate here and—
“I’ll go with you,” his soulmate muttered with a blush. Jonghyun couldn’t help but be more enamored by him.
“Follow my lead then,” He reached for his soulmate’s hand and immediately pulled him behind him as they made their way towards the emergency exit. He heard Aron grunt a ‘finally’ before telling him that he’ll be on standby by the alley to pick them up. And as they made their way towards the stairs, Jonghyun remembered something that he should have asked since the beginning.
“Uh, what’s your name?” Jonghyun asked, taking a quick look at his soulmate running behind him.
“Minhyun,” his soulmate gave him a bright and shy smile. “Hwang Minhyun.”
Jonghyun chuckled. He should have known better. Tugging Minhyun’s hand in his, he gave it a soft squeeze and smiled. “Nice to finally meet you, my talkative pain-in-the-ass soulmate.”