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The beeping machines surround the black haired man’s body, unconscious and breathing soundly. The hospital bed makes the rest of him look so, so small. Except his shoulders.
His wide shoulders are a key trait of him. The gang have studied Sniper Velvet’s wide, strong, firm shoulders that compliment his small waist and his leg muscles. They have studied each part of Seokjin until his very silhouette, perturbed by the ripples of water. They have him down to a T.
And yet, and yet.
They cannot catch him. Despite the dead corpses who died trying, despite the countless maps drawn on bland walls and plans rehearsed and executed, nobody can catch the soft-eyed, firm-handed sniper.
This time, though. It was close. The young boy stands in the middle of the room, black oversized clothes on his body. He’s unprofessional-looking, although he’s headed to the headquarters, to announce the injury of Velvet. He should be polished in a suit, tight and suffocating around his neck. Right now, he’s just Jeon Jungkook, college student and part-time photographer, playing games as a hobby and living with his boyfriend, Kim Seokjin.
Right now, he’s not agent Astrum. He’s not out to kill Velvet.
The bandaged shoulder twitches a little, and Jungkook groans, running his fingers through his brown hair. The older is fast asleep, but it’s obvious he’s still in pain.
It was a close one. Jungkook just wanted to graze his shoulder.
His aim was too sharp, not even on purpose. It’s infuriating seeing his boyfriend in this pale hospital bed, limp and drained. Like a swallow with hurt wings. A beautiful but sad little thing.
Jungkook fiddles with his phone in his pocket, staring, unblinking, as the cheerful ‘nurse’ grabs the extra needle of morphine.
“Are you upping it enough?” He mutters, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
The young nurse smiles under his mask, Jungkook can tell from the crinkled eyes.
“Enough to knock him out for a couple of hours, he’ll be sleeping soundly. Not enough to kill lover boy, though.” The mischievous smirk is evident. Jungkook rolls his eyes. What a comedian, this man.
“Thank you, agent Hope.” The slight blush coats his pale, squishy cheeks, and he tugs his bucket hat down, hearing Hope’s slight chuckle as he hits Seokjin with another dose of morphine.
The young agent can’t handle showing emotions very well, but Seokjin has slowly taught him, helped him out of his shell when it came to vulnerability. If he was awake, he would be proud of Jungkook, right now.
Well, if he was awake, he wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with Jungkook, anyway.
The thought invades him, and he shudders thinking of it. The guilt eats him alive like he’s raw meat, easily swallowing him up in these silly little emotions. If Seokjin knew...if Seokjin knew.
If Seokjin knew his very arch-nemesis kissed him good morning and good night, praised his cooking and helped cook, arms firmly wrapped around his waist...If Seokjin knew that the countless scars that bloom over his body, carefully covered in black so as his boyfriend doesn’t see, are caused by Jungkook himself…
If Seokjin knew, Jungkook wouldn’t know what to do with himself and his mixed, traitorous feelings. He would have reached a dead end.
So to keep the maze going, for however long that is, he has to keep pretending, hiding behind the persona he created, running away from his lover’s questions and chasing the other, simultaneously.
He often ponders this, however. These feelings that rope him in, consume him like a candle. Is it all pretend? Is it the persona he created? He knows he feels something for Seokjin, but is it love?
The confusion is sparring.
Seokjin moans a little in his sleep, courtesy of pain, but stays knocked out otherwise. Agent Hope tilts his glasses down on his nose, awfully focused on his phone. It must be that damn game he downloaded the other day. Jungkook rolls his eyes.
He is in desperate need of fresh air. This room is stuffy of his sins.
“I’m going to buy coffee from the vending machine, want anything?” He mutters, back to his colleague as he goes to open the bland, white door.
He hears rummaging, and turns around to the sight of Hope searching his pockets. “Ah, wait,” the older says, tongue cutely peeking from his lips. The little wad of change that plopped on Jungkook’s hand surprised him.
“What? I have my wallet, though?”
“I want an iced tea. Also, didn’t you see?” Hope cocks up a perfectly arched eyebrow, phone long forgotten in his hand as he waves it around. “You were busy chasing the ambulance and I was, well, right behind you. But Mercury picked up your wallet when you fell chasing your lover boy.”
This sentence, these words Hope mutters, they make shivers travel down Jungkook’s spine. Like a cold bucket thrown on Jungkook, over and over until he’s sure his veins are iced with hypothermia.
Mercury picked his wallet right behind his fall. Mercury saw Jungkook and Hope follow the ambulance.
Mercury saw Seokjin in the ambulance. He knows.
He knows.
Jungkook feels sick. The young agent’s eyes widened. Seokjin is a secret. Seokjin is supposed to be his own project that he’s working on, Seokjin is supposed to be his secret. Only Hope knows. Hell, Hope wasn’t supposed to know. It was an accident. It was an accident and Seokjin was supposed to stay hidden and--
And. Knowing Mercury, he’s not too far away. He’ll want answers. He’ll want to hear it directly from the source. Jungkook takes a deep breath, smooths down his big black shirt and leaves a starstruck Hope to look after Seokjin.
He opens the door and steps into the hospital hallway.
It’s funny, because Jungkook doesn’t even have to look. It’s enough to stare straight at the cracked wall facing him, to feel the scary, terrifying yet quiet presence of the man that is leaning on the wall, a few feet away on Jungkook’s left. He doesn’t even glance. Just the corner of his eye is enough to see the man’s straight posture. A perfect straight spine, despite being tilted against the wall. Perfectly brushed, shiny, onyx-like hair. An italian suit, neat and somber, tight and elegant on his lithe body.
A silver snake on his finger.
If he met Mercury’s eyes, Jungkook would feel like his body was on fire. Literally.
“Well, if it isn’t Agent Astrum. Funny seeing you here,” The silky voice whispers, a tone of firmness and mockery transcending the air. Jungkook tries to stay composed, still staring straight ahead. “Isn’t that right?”
“Agen-”
“ Tsk, tsk. I’m the one speaking here. Be a good boy and listen, since it seems we have yet to uncover what you’re hiding.”
Jungkook inhales sharply, as quiet as he could. But Mercury picks it up, and his smirk grows bigger from the corner of the younger boy’s eyes.
“I should’ve known. You lied to the big boss. In fact,” Mercury tilts his head, exhaling a little. ‘’I was surprised he actually let you off so easily. He didn’t hesitate to comply with your order, he stopped all men from tracking you down. He left you to your own devices. What evidence did you have that was so convincing to him, big boy?”
Jungkook feels like a lamb trapped, a lost thing waiting to get swallowed up. So he acts impulsively, schooling his features into a cool, stable face. He turns to look straight at Mercury’s sharp, dark eyes.
“Nothing that has to do with you. Boss is being lenient with me, so what? It isn’t of any concern to you what I require for my mission. He layed off all trackings of my private life and it did wonders for our progress. Surely, you wouldn’t be jealous of that?”
The older, sharper man grits his teeth, eyes flashing. In his mind, Jungkook’s yelling tiny victories. He continues, “Would you, Agent Mercury? I recall it was quite tough for you, up until a few years ago.”
It was a low blow, and Jungkook knew it. Everybody silently agreed to never talk about it, about how Boss followed Agent Mercury’s every move, even inside the hideout. Any slight mistake, he was punished for. Any misplaced word, he was chewed out.
Any romantic link, and they were killed.
A curse is heard under Mercury’s breath, and the quick movement of a gun being pointed at Jungkook simply makes his eye twitch.
“Bratty and disrespectful? What an agent you are, Astrum. It’s very fucking ridiculous, if you ask me. You were assigned this sensitive case and yet, out of nowhere, you’re following Velvet into an ambulance? Do you want your cover blown?”
A surge of anger traverses Jungkook’s body, hot in his veins and cold in his hands. He’s tired of being so dismissed all the time. He changes the subject instead.
“Does Boss know you’ve been following me on your own accord? Or is he the one that sent you in secret?“
Mercury doesn’t even try to hide it. It seems like his mood swing passed just as fast as it came, features strangely relaxing. The gun is slowly lowered.
“I was following you,” He nods in confirmation. “Maybe Boss trusted you, and wrongfully so, but I never did. I knew you were up to something when you asked for a compromise. Heh, only you could dare to ask for something like that, from someone as ruthless as him.” The pocket of his slick suit gets rustled as he searches for something. Jungkook proceeds to return his stare to the wall, as to not drip his fear into the older agent’s senses. He swears that man can smell fear like a shark can smell blood.
Mercury pops a chocolate candy in his mouth, and looks irritatingly graceful while doing so.
“I have to say, i’m quite impressed by your ability to hide that boy. Initially, i wasn’t going to follow you to your bustdown with your men, but my gut had told me that something as violent as this wouldn’t be happening in broad daylight.”
Another chocolate gets unwrapped. The doe-eyed boy fucking hates that sound.
He’s about to speak, opens his mouth, but the words get clogged in his throat when a single index finger stands up straight, a couple of metres away from him.
It makes the words go right down into his oesophagus. His lips get sealed shut automatically.
“ Ah-ah. You don’t get to speak. You’ve run your mouth enough of nonsense already. I’ll dissect your situation perfectly. Aren’t I generous, Astrum? You’ll know where you went wrong. You’ll know when exactly did I find out your behavior wasn’t so innocent.”
Jungkook gulps at these words. That cruel man is observant. Did he really connect the dots? Those sleepless nights of checking and double-checking around their apartment, security cameras hidden, phone location protected, loyal men in the area…
Were they all in vain?
If Mercury knows, Jungkook can kiss his project goodbye and destroy his dream of rising to the ranks of the gang. He might be the Boss’ right hand, but to secure a place in the old man’s will (and possibly have a chance at being the heir), the young boy had mapped the plan since years ago, zigzagging between possible ideas and scenarios, carefully stitched onto notes and discussed in his brain for hours at end during the dead of the night. Plans that could save him. Plans that could destroy the opposing organization. Plans that could give him a shot at a normal life.
Plans that will all go to shit now, with Mercury documenting his every move.
Velvet--No, Seokjin-- is a door away, unconscious in a hospital bed. Mercury could easily walk in, see Seokjin’s phone, hack in it.. He could send Jungkook to hell with one phone call.
But instead, Mercury is taking his time in disassembling Jungkook and his actions, calmly so. The sweat buds at his temple thinking of it. Instead, he’s popping chocolate bonbons in his mouth, almost leaning against the wall, eyes curious, calculating as they inspect Jungkook like a scanner.
Jungkook is smart. He should act smart. Mouth shut, he should simply listen to the powerful man beside him, he should analyze just how much Mercury knows exactly . No flinching. No facial reactions. Nada. Focus.
He should. But that glint, that fierce shine in the black-haired man’s dark eyes pours a flow of lava into his veins. An inhumane anger.
If Mercury notices, he doesn’t say anything. The manicured, clean tips of his fingers gently brush off invisible dust off his shoulders. A deep, bored sigh overtakes him. He licks his lips, opens his mouth. Jungkook takes control of his face muscles again, just in case.
“Let me break it down to you then, Astrum. You’ve decided to remain silent, huh? A good choice. Well, then. Shall we?”
With a curt nod, Jungkook gives him permission. Ironic bastard, he thinks.
“A bust down on Velvet in broad daylight. As I said, unheard of.” He plays with the silver snake curled around his finger, looking pensive. “Since I had been tracking you for a while, I figured your location would be blocked. Your men are not easy, you know?” Jungkook’s jaw lightly clenches at that. The dead bodies piled in Hope’s garage flash in his mind.
“The point is, since you weren’t gathering weapons of such, I had figured some bad apples in your group had gotten greedy. Ever the naive boy you are, Astrum. Not even a background check, really? Shame. Being under Boss’ care, wouldn’t you have learned some things from him? Any poor man met with a slightly open door will bust it down and act upon his greediness.”
“How dare you? You have absolutely no business insulting my men. May I remind you of your place, Mercury? May I remind you that you’re but an underdog leader under the boss?” Jungkook grits out.
“Your men are nothing but insolents !” Mercury spits out. His eyes narrow at Jungkook. “You gathered a couple of disgusting bastards for protection in exchange for extra cash. You chose cheap men from the start. Did you even bother training them? Threatening them? Or does your poor, cry baby heart refuse to do so? And you expect to be the successor, too? Tsh.”
All poison thrown aside, Jungkook notes the lack of addressing his low blow, once again. Childishly, he thinks of it as a first win.
“That’s exactly why your men rebelled,” Mercury continues, “And decided to hunt down Velvet. Behind a warehouse, near a police station too... smart. They wanted you gone. So much so for ‘loyal men’, huh? Good job, Agent Astrum. Really.” Mercury smiles sarcastically. Jungkook can almost feel the venom dripping down his tongue.
“Whatever you’re gonna say-”
“You’ll hear it. You have to face the consequences.” the older agent says, cutting him off firmly.
And then, the strangest, most sweat-inducing thing happens.
Mercury’s face breaks out into the scariest smirk, eyes directed towards his rolex. As if he’s mocking Jungkook. No, as if he’s mocking Astrum, from agent to agent. As if he’s about to uncover the most vulnerable, soul-annihilating secret.
Jungkook has a feeling he knows what it is. And he doesn’t like that. At all.
He, honest to god, wants to die.
“Agent Astrum and Agent Hope at the scene. Who would’ve thought? You were supposedly going solo? Heh--Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Velvet is injured, cornered to a brick wall with his mask almost torn off. The men you trusted beat him up and are about to kill him. Agent Astrum, oh , the man of the hour. The trusted soul of the Velvet project. You finally have Velvet cornered. That deadly sniper you’ve been chasing for years now. So what if your men betrayed you? You could kill him on the spot. You could take the credit, send all these men to hell. Bury their angry pleas under the ground, laid to rest by the blood on your hands. You could’ve. Agent Hope was there to back you up, wasn’t he?”
Frozen. Jungkook is absolutely frozen. He knew that Mercury was aware of some form of the truth, that Jungkook’s meticulous lying will have caught up to him somehow and that he’ll have to shut another mouth. Hope was a foolish accident that he had managed to get under control, but this?
This is--
This is fatal.
“Even my men were sweet enough to suggest we go help you finish off that devil. But I refused. No, of course I refused. I had to watch the wonderful show. Astrum, you were at a close distance to shoot. About 10 feet away from Velvet. An unmoving, injured Velvet at that. You’ve shot perfect aim hundreds of feet away, this should’ve been a piece of cake for you.”
“Shut up.”
“An FN-P90. Funny little amateur tool. You probably snatched it off of one of your poor men’s arm, am i right? It’s a mere little toy for you, Astrum. You trained with such since you were an adolescent. Coupled with the perfect aim, close distance, and unmoving target, a shot dead to the heart would have sufficed. “
“ Stop. ”
“Why didn’t you shoot, Astrum? Huh? Answer me.”
“Fucking hell, fuck-fucking stop! ” Jungkook doesn’t want to think, doesn’t want to know. Because if he thinks, if he truly sits in the corner of his mind where the clock froze and time stood still to surrender in front of Seokjin’s smile, he would be left with the unsaid words and the nagging feelings that waited for the right opportunity to show up and light the lightbulb for him.
And he can’t admit that, no matter what. He just can’t.
“Look at me,” The gun is pressed straight to the middle of his forehead, and the tone sounds different. The slight tilt makes the sweat momentarily stop dripping down the younger agent’s temples, and he looks up, finally. “Look at me, Jungkook.” The tone is firm.
Mercury is scary. He’s scary, but patient. Cruel, but caring. Angry, brutal but soft. In the way a clawing cat is, when a feather is brushed along their belly. They curl.
“Jimin?”
“Jungkook. Won’t you tell me why? Why didn’t you shoot?”
Astrum opens his mouth, but no sounds come out. He closes it then, his resolve broken. How embarrassing.
With an anticlimactic sigh, Mercury--or rather, Jimin-- clicks the safety on the gun and pulls it away, smoothly tucking it into the gun holder underneath his jacket. Jungkook heaves in relief and pushes his head against the wall, exhausted.
“That’s enough of an answer to me. What the hell, Jungkook?”
“What the- What do you mean, what the hell?!” Jungkook splutters, ears fuming. “I literally had a heart attack thinking you decided to go all upper agent on me and snitch on my ass to the godddamn boss! Are you crazy? You weren’t even supposed to know, Jimin.”
“I had to. You’re so fucking lucky it was me that traced back to you, and not someone else. Or worse, that the boss sent me. Otherwise you would’ve been killed on the spot, Astrum. I can’t hide shit from him, he has me on a leash. Besides, you needed a strong pressure to crack under. I needed to get to the root of this.”
Jungkook grins sarcastically, and slow claps. “Bravo. You managed to make me spill some unspillable shit. What do you need it for? Blackmail?”
“No, Jungkook.” Jimin sighs, and slaps a hand to his face. Like this, spontaneous, eyebrows smoothed and lips pursed, he looks younger. Less like a vicious, trained agent and more like the young man he is. “Because what you did, or what you’re doing is so dangerous. I can’t even begin to describe it to you. Especially that boss is giving you leniency. Do you even understand why? He had never done this with previous right-hands. He’s testing you. He’s pushing his and the whole organization’s boundaries to see what you would do with the tools and the means given to you. Doesn’t mean he trusts you.”
“Jimin-”
“We’re working under the government’s dark wings. If you do one wrong move, it’ll shift the plans of the biggest higher-ups . The boss isn’t your friend, Jungkook. He’s waiting for you to slip, to let out a secret, to expose something so he could torture you.” Mercury insists, red-cheeked out of frustration. He needs to drill it into the younger agent’s head.
“And what does that have to do with Velv-I mean, Seokjin? Hm?”
“You’re softening. Look at you. Just look at you, Astrum. One confrontation, a cocked gun that had, by the way, no bullets in it and some verbal pressure. You cracked like fine china. It’s muddling with your head. Your heart is-”
“‘S also for blackmail.” Jungkook blurts out, realization dawning on him, then he starts laughing. Jimin stares at him blankly. “You care, but not enough. You’re trying to stop me so a certain someone doesn’t get tangled along with my troubles. You even went as far as to record this conversation for blackmail, but you realized a second too late that you can’t use it. Because it’ll involve him too, in this mess. You’re such a hypocrite, Mercury.” Jungkook whispers smugly, smirk drawn on his face and eyes sharp, calculating. Nothing escapes him, even when he’s nervous or on the verge of losing his mind.
“These are absurd accusations, Astrum.” Jimin says lowly, gulping. Again with the blank stare, but Jungkook can see right through him. “It doesn’t matter. Point is, this is dangerous, and so foolish. What are you gonna do now? Go back to your shared apartment? Pretend like you didn’t witness it? Get called to pick him up and fuss over him, knowing you were just in there an hour ago, staring at the bandaged wound you gave him? Huh? How long will you keep this double life going, Jungkook?”
“Listen,” Jungkook grits out, fists tight. “Whatever I’m doing, whatever risks i’m taking or dumb shit i’m stumbling upon, its reason is quite similar to the one you have there.” He insists by pointing his finger back to the hospital room behind him. Jimin looks away.
“Now go see Hope. He’s inside. I told him I'm going to get some coffee.”
Jimin passes by him without another word, but the anger is simmering underneath his eyes that catch the corner of his.
However, before twisting the knob, he mutters a “Don’t spend his money,” and throws something behind him, then he proceeds to enter.
Jungkook looks down at the shiny object on the ground. Huh, he narrows his eyes. It’s my wallet. He bought it back.
As he paces in front of the vending machine, searching for some change, the lean man stops dead in his tracks.
There’s money missing. Like a whole bunch. No wonder his wallet felt lighter. Fucking hell.
Park Jimin , he thinks, thudding his head on the vending machine. You bastard.