Chapter Text
The guards in this town are absurdly useless. It takes Mingi a good 5 minutes to pick a lock, but when he sneaks into the house, the street is still quiet and empty.
He stops for a second. He’s figured his target would be in the bedroom, sleeping peacefully, but now he hears a subtle rustling coming from the second floor, so he carefully sneaks up the stairs.
The door opens with a creak, Mingi’s fingers shiver, and a quivering blue mist gathers around them, ready to form into a weapon. Mingi frowns. The room seems empty.
He takes one step inside, moves to look around — and a second later feels the cold metal against his neck.
Mingi considers himself a professional. A true assassin, always on guard, always ready for any challenge life decides to throw at him. Life seems to be playing dirty today.
He shifts his eyes to the side, trying to see the person behind.
It gets easier when the person moves closer, peaks over Mingi’s shoulder, and stares into his face.
“You are not the house owner,” he whispers almost disappointedly.
“Neither are you,” Mingi answers.
The guy slowly gets the dagger away from Mingi and takes a step back, still holding the weapon ready. Both of them take some time to study each other.
The guy looks like the most stereotypical thief you could find. A shabby leather armor, a dozen belts with little bags, filled with potion bottles and stolen goods, and the face completely covered with a hood and a scarf. He’s holding a nice ebony dagger, and there’s no way he bought it with his own money.
“How did you get here?” Mingi asks in a whisper.
“Through the window. And how did you get here?”
“Through the door. Like a decent person.”
At this moment Mingi finds out two things: firstly, the guy likes silly jokes, and secondly, he’s stupid. Or at least absent-minded. Because he lets out a snort that’s way too loud for the given situation, and they instantly hear a creak of the bed and footsteps.
Less than a minute later a hunched figure appears in the doorway, the owner of the house lets out an angry cry, Mingi curses under his breath, raises his hand, weak blue light of the summoned bow illuminates the room and in a second the owner falls on the floor with an arrow in his chest. Mingi hears a quiet knock, and when he turns his head, the open window swings slowly, showing the signs of the skillful escape.
And so Mingi stands alone in the middle of the dark room, with only the dead body and the subtle smell of another person keeping him company.
He checks for the pulse, watches the arrow disappear into the air, and carefully leaves the house. The target is eliminated.
“Clean job in Winterhold.”
“As usual.”
Mingi is not bragging, only telling the truth. He’s been a part of the Dark Brotherhood for a bunch of years, and throughout this time hasn’t failed a single mission. Everything’s always been done clean and fast, and that’s earned Mingi respect and reputation.
He, however, conveniently forgets to mention the awkward encounter with the thief.
“Let’s hope you’ll do as good with your next contract.”
Jongho hands him a folded piece of paper, his face stretches into a sly grin, and with a wave of a hand, he leaves the room.
The client hasn’t been generous with the information this time.
His target is a Dark Elf, lives somewhere in the woods not far from Riften, probably on a farm or a sawmill, and nobody really knows where exactly he is, what he looks like, and whether he’s alone or surrounded by an army of hired guards.
Mingi is not a fan of gathering information. It requires walking around towns, sitting in taverns and shops, listening, eavesdropping, and, above all, talking. Talking to a lot of people, guards, vendors, and beggars. Pretending to be clueless, pretending to be someone’s friend or son, pretending to be interested in someone’s stupid incoherent stories. Mingi is not a fan of talking.
Riften is a godforsaken place. Dank and filthy. There is a bunch of useful crafty people and not a single soul whom Mingi would trust.
He puts on a hood, wraps himself in a cloak, and enters the tavern.
No one inside looks like they would know anything about a mysterious Dark Elf living somewhere in the forest. Mingi quietly asks the owner about it, but the man just shrugs and says that he hasn’t seen any Dark Elves around here in ages. Mingi sighs, gets himself a drink, and sits at the table in the corner. He takes a sip and gets ready to sit here for an hour just to earn a sore butt and exactly zero useful information.
“Give me my money back, you bastard!”
And here it goes, the famous Riften hospitality. Mingi keeps looking at his cup but shifts his eyes to the side to enjoy a usual tavern brawl.
“What do I have to do with your money?”
Oh. That’s interesting.
“I put my pouch on the table 5 minutes ago and now it’s gone! And you were the only one sneaking around here.”
“So you lost your coin purse and now you’re making it my problem?”
“Because you fucking stole it!”
“Maybe it fell on the floor, you blind idiot. Check under the table.”
The floor groans under the weight of a stout Orc. The second guy, the one who has presumably stolen the money, skips back but keeps a confident demeanor, swaying slightly from side to side as if anticipating the Orc to ask him for a dance and not beat him up. The tavern owner behind the counter starts to viciously scrab the cup with a wet cloth.
“I’ll crush your skull like a nut if you keep this shit up,” the Orc snarls.
“Oh really? How tempting.”
The voice, Mingi is now sure, belongs to that pesky thief from the house in Winterhold. Why does he keep appearing in the same place as Mingi and why does he feel the need to make his existence everyone’s problem, these are the questions only gods could answer. And Mingi is not a fan of bothering gods with such trivial things.
He shoots another look at the tavern owner, whose face is now whiter than the cloth in his hands, and then stands up swiftly, gets in between the Orc and the thief, and stills there, looking as unbothered as possible.
“No need to throw your threats around like this,” he says sternly. “You’re disturbing the peace of this quiet place.”
“And who the hell are you?” the Orc pushes him in the shoulder. Mingi takes it in stride.
“I’m someone who’d like to have a drink in silence.”
“Are you working together with that crook?”
“Sirs, really, let’s all calm down,” the owner chimes in. “I’m sure we’ll find your stuff.”
He eyes the thief suspiciously, but the latter only gives him a cloying smile. The Orc makes another threatening noise and reaches for his war axe.
“If you think that I—”
“Stop.”
The Orc’s tirade gets cut off by the sudden flash of bright warm light. Little flames appear in the air, dancing around the room in a swirl, licking the walls and getting dangerously close to the Orc’s terrified face.
Mingi’s standing in the middle of it all, tall and portentous, and his eyes are tinted with purple when he says in a steady quiet voice that rings through the tavern.
“I think you’d better leave this place.”
The Orc stares at him for a second with an open mouth, and then, slowly moving his feet, as if he doesn’t quite remember how to do it, heads to the exit. In a moment the fog and the stench of Riften swallow him, and the door, left open, swings lazily in the wind.
The stares that have been following the Orc now fall on Mingi. He blinks, the flames dissolve into the air, and, tightly drawing the cloak around him, he leaves the tavern too.
Once outside, Mingi takes a deep breath and stretches his neck. Such theatrical gestures have never been an interest of his, but sometimes it’s easier to scare those drunk fools with a silly trick than to later sneak away from a fight that will inevitably pull in everyone in a room.
But word travels fast, so it’s better to leave the town soon. Mingi doubts he’ll find any information here, anyway.
He goes through the streets mindlessly when a loud voice calls him.
“Wait!”
Mingi stops. He turns slowly and watches the thief hopping up to him. The guy stops too, and for some time both of them stay silent, looking at each other.
“Thanks.”
Mingi nods. The guy tilts his head and keeps staring at him, as if waiting for something.
“You don’t have to keep this intimidating persona. It doesn’t suit you.”
Mingi can only let out an amused huff. The guy is… overwhelming. Something about him feels loud and bright, like a splash of water in the face. His face is not covered now, so Mingi can see the mess of blond hair, the pink cheeks, and the big mischievous eyes. He looks sweet and appealing, and if Mingi hasn’t had his luggage of painful past experience, he would probably fall for this pretty face, would feel the urge to befriend the guy, to smile back at him, to indulge in his weird bantering. Mingi does feel this urge, but steps on its throat and purses his lips.
“You’re welcome.”
The thief’s smile grows into something way too happy.
“Are you always going around and saving other people’s asses from random fights?”
“Just happened to be there,” Mingi shrugs. “You were scaring the tavern owner.”
The guy laughs at that but doesn't say anything. Mingi waits for a second, and then takes a step back and starts to turn around, but the other’s voice stops him.
“You’re looking for a Dark Elf.”
The assassin freezes.
“Don’t tense so much,” the guy giggles. “I heard you asking about it.”
And maybe that thief is not as useless as Mingi thinks. Maybe he just plays a role of a complete hot mess.
“Maybe I am looking for someone,” he says, turning back. “What’s about it?”
“I might know where to find him,” the guy gives him a smug grin. “And I might help you. If you help me too.”
Mingi sighs.
“What do you want?”
“That Elf has a nice necklace. A shiny golden chain with pretty gems. There are people who’d pay big money for that necklace.”
“I see,” Mingi sighs. “So I take out that guy and you snatch a piece of gold from his body.”
“Oh, very sweet of you to offer your help,” the thief says in a sing-song voice.
“I’m not offering you anything.”
“So you don’t want to find the Elf?”
“How do I know you won’t stab me the second I turn my back on you?” Mingi asks coldly.
“If I wanted to stab you, I’d do that long ago,” the guy laughs. “I don’t want your blood. I want money. I doubt your blood costs that much.”
Mingi could argue with that. There’re a lot of people who would like him dead. Not just rotting somewhere in the cave, no, they’d like to have his head on the wall, so that this testimony of his defeat is the first thing that greets them in the mornings and the last thing that wishes them good night before bedtime.
It would be better if the thief never finds out about that.
“Fine,” Mingi says with a heavy sigh. “Let’s make a deal. You help me find the Elf, and I help you not get killed in the process.”
“Pleasure to do business with you,” the thief reaches out his hand. Mingi hesitantly shakes it.
“Name’s Yunho, by the way.”
“Mingi,” the assassin says faster than he gets to think about it.
“I suggest we meet at dawn at the stable. See ya!” and with that, the thief waves his hand and goes away.
Once he’s left alone in the narrow alley, Mingi rubs his eyes and lets out a tired groan. That Yunho guy is weird and extremely confusing. His mere presence plays tricks with Mingi, muddles his thoughts, and fills his usually clear and sharp mind with fog. The thief’s eyes have this sparkle, this look that makes you drop your guard, that forces you into trust, and if Mingi knows anything about people — and he does — that is a concerning sign.
So it’s a surprise even to him when he finds himself standing next to the stable and watching the first rays of the morning sun crawling up the trees.
A cheerful voice drags him out of his thoughts.
“You actually came!” Yunho exclaims, skipping closer. For a thief, he’s way too quick to draw attention to himself.
“Where are we heading?” Mingi asks.
“West.”
They go west. Follow the river for some time, then Yunho leaves the main road and leads Mingi to a narrow path climbing up the mountains.
Yunho starts a lively conversation the moment they leave Riften and keeps it going at a constant rate, despite Mingi’s stubborn silence. The thief talks about everything and at the same time says nothing at all, an essential skill in his art.
“Why do you want to find that Elf?” he asks at some point, taking Mingi by surprise.
“Not your problem.”
“Not sure about that. We’re working together, at least for now, remember?” Yunho glances at Mingi over the shoulder. “We’re a team!”
“We’re not,” the assassin sighs. “You show me where the guy is, and then we part our ways.”
“You’re no fun,” the thief whines.
Then he suddenly stops and turns around. Mingi almost crashes into him.
“You're gonna kill the guy,” Yunho says matter-of-factly.
Mingi opens his mouth but immediately shuts it.
“You said something about taking him out yesterday,” Yunho continues. “And I don’t think you wanted to do that just to help me.”
Mingi sighs.
“I won’t get in your way while you’re robbing that Elf. That’s all that should matter to you,” he gets hesitantly pursed lips in response. “What, are you scared? Don’t wanna get in a fight?”
“Just not a fan of killing,” the thief muses.
“A strange thing to hear from a man of your occupation.”
“I’m not the one to give the life,” Yunho says quietly. “I won’t be the one to take it away.”
“You’re also not the one who gave the Elf his necklace. You don’t seem to have troubles with taking it.”
“That’s different.”
Mingi huffs but doesn’t get to express how absurd the thief sounds because Yunho silently turns back to the road and continues their journey.
The sun is already setting when Yunho finally stops.
“We’re here,” he whispers.
A quarter-hour ago they approached a little village, but the thief quickly turned to the side road, went around it so that no one would see them, and led them up the mountain. There they got through the bushes, and now Yunho crouches, sneaks a little further, and, peeking around a wide tree trunk, points at the little house hidden between the trees and a mountain slope. Mingi follows with his eyes.
“The Elf’s there.”
“And he’s not alone,” the assassin says.
There are two horses outside the house, grazing lazily, and several voices can be heard from the inside.
“We should wait until they go to bed and then sneak inside,” Yunho decides.
Mingi ponders this idea. His initial plan — well, his initial plan didn’t include a cheeky thief with obnoxious giggling. But he thought they’d find the Elf, then he’d let Yunho steal whatever he wanted to steal, and only after that, when he’s alone and composed, he’d deal with his task.
Because that’s how he prefers to work. Alone. When there’s no need to explain himself, he only has to find a compromise with his heart and his weapon.
But the thief has already scrambled through the bushes back and settled on a little glade that’s not seen from the house, and Mingi, with a deep sigh and an uneasy feeling, follows him.
They sit together in silence, Mingi watching the house and Yunho quietly going through his pockets and bags.
“What has that guy done to you?” Yunho says suddenly.
Mingi really doesn’t like the way his new friend always finds a way to startle him. He keeps quiet.
“Why do you wanna kill him? Are you, like, seeking revenge or something?”
“Revenge is for people with too much free time,” Mingi says.
“Or for people who are looking for justice,” the assassin keeps his eyes glued to the house windows but he can still sense an intense gaze. “Yeah, you don’t look like that type.”
Yunho then leans closer and asks in a whisper:
“Are you one of those thugs that kill for booze and women?”
“Will it make you happy if I say yes?”
“Not really.”
“Then yes.”
Yunho sits straight, frowns at Mingi, and studies his face for a moment.
Mingi’s met a lot of people in his life, people who can read faces, who can sense your deepest secrets and fears through the skin, who can crawl right into your brain and take whatever they want from it. Some of them can even curve your trail of thoughts, make you forget what’s been important, and remember what’s never happened. Mingi sees one of those people every day whenever he catches a glimpse in the mirror or on the surface of the water.
He knows for sure that Yunho can’t do that. But somehow under this gaze the assassin once again feels himself falling into a weird state of daze.
“Are you…” Yunho starts with uncertainty. “Are you one of those? Those whom the desperate summon with some scary bloody ritual? And then you appear from the darkness and take your victim’s soul straight to the void?”
He says it in a whisper as if scared that someone — or something — will hear, and Mingi can’t help but smile. Is that really how they’re seen by the world?
Mingi doesn’t quite remember when he joined the Dark Brotherhood. He was young, scared, and could light the candles with his mind.
“How do you have that magic in you, little pup?” someone asked him back then.
Someone whom he didn’t know. Some stranger that came to his home and ruined it, turned it into a sore wound that never really healed. And then that stranger took him and gave him a new home. Or at least a place to sleep.
Mingi always thought that he should feel bad about it all, but he never managed to find any anger or hatred in his heart. He barely managed to find anything there. He just didn’t want to be scared again. And he wanted a purpose. The Brotherhood gave him just that.
Yunho changes his position slightly, and it drags Mingi out of his thoughts.
“We don’t set souls into the void,” he chuckles. “We can trap them in soul gems for some time, but any idiot with a good enough enchanted dagger can do that.”
The thief wiggles more and casts a concerned glance at his own dagger hidden in the sheath.
“So you don’t kill for booze and women,” he says slowly. “You kill for your gods.”
“Booze, gods, money. What’s the difference? You’re a thief, I’m an assassin. Both of us are not in a place to judge.”
Yunho looks into his eyes, Mingi looks back, and both of them find the same thing: that they’re similar and completely different, and that they gravitate towards each other in a weird way, driven by some interest, and yet, like magnets of the same polarity, they can’t get close enough to see the other properly.
“We’re not the same,” Yunho says quietly.
And maybe he’s right. Mingi doesn’t really care what this thief thinks of him. He just wants to be done with the job.
The lights go out in the house. Mingi and Yunho wait for half an hour and then decide to make their move.
They carefully sneak down the hill, somehow manage not to alert the horses, and quietly open the front door.
Yunho goes in first. Sneaking into places is his art, and he takes great pride in it. But he’s still way too carefree. The thief seems to believe that the second the candles were blown out, all the people in the house immediately went to bed and are now sleeping peacefully. Mingi finds this idea way too naive.
A loud exclamation seems to agree with him.
Several blue lights, summoned by Mingi’s quick gesture, fly up to the ceiling and illuminate five tall figures. Redguards. The assassin gazes around the room and soon finds the Dark Elf standing in the corner, leaning on the wall, with a long Daedric sword in his hand. Of fucking course.
For a second everyone in the room stays quiet, exchanging glances.
“Well, good evening, kind sirs.”
The mocking tone of the thief sets everyone in motion.
Two men jump onto Mingi with an angry scream. He rushes to the side, summons a dagger, sets a quick flame into one of Redguards’ faces, and a pained cry gives him enough time to make two swift stabs. The summoned dagger cuts through the necks, and the bodies fall down, writhing on the floor.
Two down.
Mingi casts a quick look to the side and sees Yunho performing some kind of a crazy dance around another man. The thief manages to fetch out a little bottle from his pocket, pour its contents on the dagger, and then in a fit of either brilliance or plain impudence throws the bottle under the man’s feet. The Redguard steps on it, loses balance, and Yunho quickly jumps behind him and cuts the back of his legs with a dagger. The wound is not deep, but the man huffs, falls on his knees. and then collapses on the floor unconscious. A sleeping potion, huh? Smart.
One of the men gets into a close-range fistfight with Mingi, and the latter almost manages to get him into a headlock when he hears a loud shriek. The assassin in a most honorable manner punches the man in the face, setting him hunched on the floor, and turns to the sound of the scream.
He’s met with the sight of Yunho’s flushed face and a sharp blade pressed to his neck.
Mingi startles, loses focus for a second, making the weapon in his hand disappear into the air. The Dark Elf’s holding the thief’s hands tight behind his back. He grins at Mingi. A streak of blood crawls down Yunho’s neck. A terrified whine escapes his lips.
Mingi gains control over himself and tries to think. Fast.
The lips of the Dark Elf stretch a little wider, the drop of blood on Yunho’s skin disappears under his shirt. Blue light curls between Mingi’s fingers, he raises his hand, and — a summoned knife penetrates the red eye of the Elf, and this redness flows down his face and chest. The Elf stumbles backward, falls on the floor, his face gets twisted in agony. He opens his mouth. Mingi thinks that a cry, a furious scream should come out of it, but instead, he hears an unhuman roar.
Suddenly the whole house trembles. The last two Redguards left alive and conscious rush to the door and disappear outside.
Yunho sobs, grabs his neck, looks at the mix of blood, the Elf’s and his own, casts a glance to the window, and then stares at Mingi with desperation.
“What was that?” he whispers. “What was that, Mingi?”
Mingi looks at the wide-open door.
“A dragon,” he breathes out.
Right before they leave the house, Mingi notices Yunho leaping to the corner of the room, quickly stooping down, snatching something from the Dark Elf’s neck and stuffing it into the pocket. Not enough of the thief’s blood was spilled today to make him forget about his precious golden prey.
They run outside just in time to see a huge shadow sweep across the sky and disappear into the distance.
“It’s flying toward the village,” Yunho realizes.
“Yes. And that means we go the opposite way.”
“But…”
He’s interrupted by the deafening roar, and for a second a bright cloud of fire cuts through the night and illuminates the roofs of the houses and the panicked figures of the villagers. They hear a child’s cry, but it gets cut off by the sound of the crashing wood.
Yunho rushes down the hill. Mingi catches his hand.
“Where the hell are you going?”
“They’re going to die!”
“Wanna join them?”
The thief turns around and angrily tries to tear his hand free.
“Let go of me!”
“Do you think they’re going to thank you?” Mingi hisses. “Some guards of the Elf escaped, they won’t hesitate to grab you by the neck and throw you in jail. If they even keep you alive.”
“There’s a dragon!”
“The dragon won’t be here for long,” Mingi tightens his grip, and Yunho whimpers from the pain. “What’s wrong with you? You’re not a fucking hero, you’re a thief. So do what thieves do. Run away when there are troubles.”
Another loud crash comes from the village, the dragon lands on one of the roofs with a groan, someone screams — everything sounds muffled for Mingi. Because the thief stares at him, looks him right in the eyes, and there is so much fear in his eyes, so much disgust and confusion, as if he can’t believe what Mingi’s saying. As if he only now realizes who Mingi is.
“Let go of me,” Yunho says, punctuating each word.
And that’s exactly what Mingi should do. He should snort at this absurdly strong sense of justice, remove his grip and let the guy go to the village and die under the dragon’s breath in the next 5 minutes. He’s not the thief’s boss or friend, he shouldn’t care if Yunho’s going to rot in jail or burn alive. His target is dead, and that means that his job here is done, and there’s nothing holding him from turning and leaving.
Yet he’s still here, unable to move.
The eyes in front of him are filled with anger, anger towards him, Mingi, and the assassin feels weird. He saw the anger and despise millions of times, but they were always coming from the same root: fear. Fear for your own life. He and his targets always played this game of tag, and Mingi was always the one to chase, and his target — the one to run away. And Mingi would always win, and the target would always get angry with him.
But right now, looking into this flushed face, listening to these stupid noble phrases coming from a not-so-noble man, Mingi feels weird.
He feels like he’s losing the game.
Because a thought, simple and terrifying, falls down on him.
He doesn’t want Yunho to die.
Mingi harshly pulls on Yunho’s arm, so that the thief nearly falls, takes a few involuntary steps closer, and his face is mere centimeters away from the assassin’s. Yunho opens his mouth to say something, probably something angry and annoyed, but Mingi quickly raises his hand — purple sparkles appear in the air, curve around his fingers like little snakes, and then they slither onto Yunho’s face, crawl into his eyes and mouth, go straight to his mind, and the thief’s features go slack, and his eyes become empty and submissive.
“We are leaving right now. We are going to a safe place,” Mingi says slowly and clearly.
He takes a few steps, going backward, holding Yunho’s hand and looking into his eyes. The thief follows him obediently. Then Mingi nods, turns, and rushes through the woods up the mountain, leaving the screams and the battle sounds behind.
Leading Yunho to his own home is another reckless thing in a chain of wrong decisions that Mingi’s made in the past few days.
He barely stays here, preferring taverns or dank rooms of the Brotherhood Sanctuary. And this little rusty cabin in the middle of nowhere is only a place to get a quick rest and lick his wounds. No one’s ever been here and no one even knows about it, except for Jongho, probably, because Jongho knows everything.
Who knew these walls would see a new face one day.
Yunho is lying on the bed, breathing unevenly, whining and startling from time to time. He barely managed to get to the house, and fell down the second they got inside. Mingi put all his hospitality into dragging the thief from the floor to the bed.
It’s hard to say who gets more tired, the one who risks playing with the other’s thoughts, or the one whose mind has been altered. So now Yunho’s unconscious and might stay this way for a few more hours, and Mingi is exhausted and has a pulsating headache.
He watches the thief's face closely.
Mingi never really looks into people’s faces. Not like that, at least. He’s used to pain and fear written all over another person’s features. But he’s not used to caring about it.
Yunho’s face, covered in small beads of sweat, twitches, he whines and slowly opens his eyes, blinking rapidly. Once he gets used to the light of a few candles, the thief’s gaze wanders around the room and finally focuses on Mingi. In his half-awake daze, he doesn’t catch the barely noticeable tint of relief in the assassin’s eyes.
“Where am I?” the thief grunts.
“North from Whiterun, I’d say,” Mingi answers slowly.
“Why… We were…” Yunho abruptly sits up. “The dragon! We sneaked into that Dark Elf’s house and then the dragon attacked the village and we…”
The thief follows the path of his memories and then stumbles upon some black mist, some dense fog that doesn’t let him see anything between the dragon and this hut. Mingi watches Yunho’s expression grow more and more confused.
“I don’t remember coming here,” the thief sounds lost. “How did we get here?”
“On foot,” Mingi shrugs.
“I don’t remember it at all… What—” Yunho looks into his eyes. “What did you do to me?”
“Saved your ass,” Mingi sighs. “A thank you would be nice.”
“Did you hypnotize me?”
“Hypnotize…” the assassin grimaces. “Let’s say I helped you to make the right decision.”
Silence falls down like an avalanche. The thief stares at Mingi, and he looks scared and offended somehow. Like a child who has just found out that their pet dog didn’t go on a fun adventure, but died, got stoned by a spiteful neighbor, and is now lying deep in the ground of the backyard, rotting and feeding worms.
He looks betrayed.
“I don’t like it,” Yunho whispers. “I don’t want you crawling into my head.”
Mingi huffs at that.
“You’re free to leave. Our little team project is done.”
“Promise that you won’t do this again,” Yunho says suddenly, looking right into Mingi’s eyes. “Promise that you won’t— make me do things.”
“We’ll never meet again,” Mingi thinks. “I can promise you the land of milk and honey, silly thief.”
“Pinky promise,” he chuckles.
Yunho stays at his place until the morning, when he gets up from the bed, mumbles some words of gratitude, more confused than genuine, and leaves the house, staggering a little. He really should stay for at least one more day, but Mingi doesn’t let himself insist on it.
The assassin fixes himself a quick breakfast and falls on the chair with a grunt. His hut reeks of the thief. Not that it smells like him — and not that Mingi’s already learned what he smells like — it’s just… Yunho’s presence doesn’t leave together with him, it stays here, floating in the air and worsening Mingi’s headache.
Mingi thinks of the mischievous hazel eyes.
They’re way too alive for his liking.
“I don’t want you crawling into my head” is what Yunho said.
“Get out of mine, then,” Mingi hisses through his teeth and falls into a restless sleep.
Life goes on. Mingi gets a new contract, travels across the country, finds some unfortunate Khajiit who made a mistake of stealing the wrong thing, or a wealthy old lady, too tired and priggish to even try and fight back, or a callow drunk Nord who barely notices the difference between his ale induced euphoria and death. Dozens of stories flash between Mingi’s eyes, and he remembers none of them. Only small details stick to his mind, hide there in the darkest corners, and then come back to haunt them in his dreams. Someone’s cry of agony, someone’s plea, someone’s tearful eyes, and always the same skillful hands that pick the locks and steal and sell but still have the audacity to want to protect the innocent.
“Just one night,” Mingi says, handing the coins to the innkeeper. “I’ll leave at dawn.”
“Sure,” the woman smiles, mostly at the coins rather than at him. “I’ll show you to your room.”
They go upstairs and find a small door at the end of the corridor.
“Let me know if you need anything,” she says and disappears.
The door closes, and Mingi falls down on the bed with a tired huff. The appeal of the journey only lasts that long, and the pretty scenery of the colorful fall woods occupying the mind is soon replaced by the rumbling stomach and blisters on the feet.
What he needs right now is some good sleep.
Mingi closes his eyes and starts to drift off, but hears a quiet queek. He sits up.
There’s a man at his door, eyeing him up and down.
The man.
The man whose mischievous eyes are shining with prideful joy. These are the eyes of a problem child who’s just played a mean prank on his neighbors.
Oh, you must be fucking kidding.
“Fancy running into you here,” Yunho says, closing the door behind him.
“In my room,” Mingi retorts. “What are the odds?”
The thief chuckles and puts a heavy bottle of ale on a little table.
“Thought you might get lonely here. I brought you something to drink and to ease your mind.”
He sits down on an old chair, and the chair expresses its discontent with a loud creak. Mingi quietly watches the thief and then slowly raises his hand and casts a small fireball.
He’s not a fire mage. He can summon weapons from thin air and can play with the minds of the living creatures, but the natural elements never quite obeyed him. He did, however, spend a lot of years next to Jongho and learned one or two tricks, useless in an actual fight, but impressive enough to scare away thieves with a swell head.
Yunho noticeably tenses at the sight of magic but keeps the same lively voice.
“I think the candle is quite enough, but if you insist on bringing more light—”
“What do you want?”
The thief clears his throat and reaches for the bottle. He does his best to appear careless.
“I want to have a drink and rest in this lovely place.”
Mingi’s fingers shiver, the fire in his palm disappears with a hiss, and the candles on the shelves light up.
“Don’t play dumb with me. What are you doing here?”
“Sitting,” Yunho crosses his legs. “Having a chat. Though I’d like it to be more… friendly.”
The thief’s tone is childish and mocking, and the only reason Mingi hasn’t killed him yet is because he doesn’t want to bother the innkeeper with the unnecessary cleaning.
There might be another reason, it’s hidden in the teasing sparkles of the hazel eyes, but the assassin is not ready to go there yet.
“I give you a choice,” he says slowly. “You can either leave this room immediately or I can grab you by the neck, take you outside, and then we’ll talk like people usually talk with unwanted intruders.”
Yunho pours some ale into a cup, takes it, and then says in a quiet propitiatory tone:
“Look, I—” he talks carefully. “I might be a little short on money. And I might have seen you entering the inn and renting a room. So I thought it would be better than sleeping on the street. That’s why I sneaked here. I promise I don’t want to murder you in your sleep or anything. But if my company pains you so much I’ll leave, of course.”
“Better to sleep in the same room with an assassin who can control your mind upon his mere wish than to spend some hours in the fresh air?” Mingi asks mockingly.
Yunho bites his lips and stares into the cup.
“You… You promised that you won’t do that.”
“And you believe me?” Mingi laughs.
Yunho looks up and takes a long look into Mingi’s eyes.
“I trust you. Don’t know why.”
And that’s the worst decision you can make. To trust the member of the Brotherhood is to sign your own death sentence. Because they’re selfish and merciless. At least that’s what Mingi’s been told his entire life. He’s selfish and merciless, he repeats to himself.
“You shouldn’t trust everyone you meet on the road.”
“What’s your decision, chef?” Yunho asks, and he seems to be back to his usual teasing tone. “Am I sleeping in the comfort of the warm room, or am I spending the night under the cold fall rain?”
Mingi sighs. That’s some silly game that the thief is playing, and Mingi is not used to playing a game where both players should stay alive by the end of it. He decides that it might be worth a try.
"Don’t have money for a room but have enough for the booze?"
“Oh,” Yunho takes a sip. “I might have borrowed this bottle from a sweet sleepy man downstairs. He’s had enough anyway.”
“You’re so noble, it’s astonishing” Mingi jokes.
“That I am,” Yunho agrees, pours some liquid into the second cup, and hands it to Mingi. The latter still hesitates before taking it.
“That’s not a poison, don’t worry,” the thief says easily and then fishes a little dark bottle out of one of his pockets. “That’s poison. They smell completely different.”
Mingi takes a big gulp and feels the pleasant warmth spreading down his body. He sits comfortably on the bed.
“Well, if you decided to be rude and interrupt my evening, at least entertain me now.”
Yunho laughs at that and starts to do one thing that he does even better than stealing or disturbing someone’s peace — talking.
The thief tells him a dozen of stories, about places and people, creatures and weapons, about someone’s happiness and someone’s misery. Mingi listens to him, sips on the liquid fire, and thinks that he could’ve had stories like these too. If he cared a bit more.
Yunho shows him an ancient amulet at some point.
“Thought you may know something about this stuff. Is it worth anything?”
The amulet reeks of dark magic.
“You can sell it for a loaf of bread to a local huckster, or you can get into big troubles over it with some witch coven and probably get killed and sacrificed to the gods. Your choice.”
“Sweet,” Yunho laughs. “I don’t know much about magical stuff, just thought it looked expensive. Took it from one huge house in Solitude. Some old lady lives there. Ugly and nasty, and screams at children, that old crone. She’s practically blind and deaf, I’m sure she won’t even notice.”
Mingi thinks of his last target and chuckles quietly. That lady got what she deserved, it seems. He wonders if one of those children performed the ritual.
Yunho continues with his tales, his speech getting more and more illegible with each cup, and the assassin has to hush him several times not to wake up other guests. It’s way past midnight.
Mingi watches the broad gestures, listens to the ever-changing pitch of the voice, notices the way the thief scrunches his nose and cackles at his own silly jokes, and tries to identify the feeling that’s found its way into his chest, sneaked in together with the ale, and is now sitting there, in his guts, moving around from time to time like a parasite.
Comfort is its name.
Mingi’s not sure if he ever had that. Being content with another person’s presence sounds surreal to him.
He has people in his life, of course. He has the Brotherhood. He has Jongho. But they’re not really friends. Colleges, more like. Brothers and Sisters. Those who’ve been met with the same miserable fate.
The thief is different. He was lying, of course, there are plenty of places where you can spend the night with little to no hassle. And it seems that he really wants nothing from Mingi, apart from a free room and some ears ready to listen. And that puzzles the assassin. Yunho came to him by choice. Mingi’s never been someone’s choice.
“I’m out of the stories,” Yunho mumbles suddenly, drowning the end of the sentence in the last drops of the ale. “Not you talk and I listen.”
“I don’t have much to talk about.”
“Now that’s the biggest lie I’ve ever heard,” Yunho stands up, stretches, and then flops down on the bed with a loud huff. “You’re the assassin from the Dark Brotherhood! People tell the tales of you to scare naughty children before bed. Your whole life must be one big dark story.”
“You’re not a naughty child, though. Why would you want dark stories before bed?”
Mingi watches how Yunho sits comfortably on the bed, leans on the wall, and hugs his knees.
“I always thought,” the thief starts quietly, “That assassins are scary and mysterious. I never really saw them as people, more like some demons of death, reeking of magic and misery by the mile. I never thought about their lives and stories. They seem to just appear out of nowhere, take someone’s life, and then fade away back into nothingness. So I always felt like there is no Brotherhood, only the trace of its silent work.”
“Isn’t it true about everyone, though? People appear in your life and then fade away, and you never hear from them again, so they only keep existing for you if they happened to leave you some happy memories or some ugly scars.”
Yunho leans forward a little and frowns. It takes him some time to focus, his gaze wanders across Mingi’s face, climbing the walls by mistake from time to time, and finally stops at the eyes.
“You’re not scary and mysterious,” he says seriously. “I think you're just… lost.”
“You’d better keep this to yourself,” Mingi chuckles.
Now that the steady stream of stories has come to an end, Mingi remembers how exhausted he is. His head’s getting heavier with each breath, so he lies down and closes his eyes. The room is quiet for a minute.
Mingi starts to drift off, but for the second time this night, a noise rudely grabs him out of sleep. A voice, this time. A question.
“Why do you do this?” Yunho asks so quietly that his words would dissolve into the air if Mingi hasn’t held his breath. “Why have you decided to kill for a living?”
Mingi sighs heavily.
“What even is this question?’ he says in the same quiet voice. “Why have you decided to steal for a living?”
“Didn’t have a choice.”
“Same for me.”
“I don’t know how people get into your Brotherhood, but don’t you have like an exam or something? I thought you have to prove yourself worthy. People don’t just happen to become a part of it, do they?”
“It’s hard to say. Everyone has their own story.”
”What is yours?”
Mingi purses his lips. He always thought that he didn’t like talking about the past. Because that’s what people usually do when someone asks them about the past — they avert their eyes, keep a dramatic pause, and then, in a melancholic tone, say that they don’t want to talk about it. But now that Mingi thinks about it, no one has ever asked him about his story, and that’s the only reason why he feels so hesitant now. Because tales only exist if they have a listener, so his tale doesn’t fully exist yet, only now going through a painful birth.
“The Brotherhood is my family,” he says quietly. “You can’t just leave your family.”
“What happened to your— well. Initial family?”
“They—” Mingi stumbles on his words. “They did something. Something bad enough for someone to get really mad at them. To make someone perform the ritual that people are afraid to even think of.”
He feels the piercing eyes on him.
“So the Brotherhood— And you went with them? After that?”
“Are you going to teach me about morals again?”
“I just want to understand.”
“Why?”
Mingi opens his eyes and looks at Yunho. The thief seems lost, scared, enraged. He looked like that in the woods next to the village that was being destroyed by the dragon, too. He looks at him the way people look at a child that did something horrible and they’re trying to find any excuse for this just not to give up on their ideas of kindness and purity.
“I don’t know, Yunho. I have no idea. I was a child. Became an orphan. I didn’t have a lot of paths before me. The world is endless, and it’s fun when you’re happy and adventurous and willing to explore it, but it becomes a burden if you’re lost, cold and lonely.”
“But— Why would you choose to go with the people who made you lost, cold and lonely in the first place?”
Mingi turns his eyes to the ceiling and looks at the old moldy boards.
“You said that we were different. Back then. And I thought that you were wrong. But now I see that you were right. I don’t like asking myself stuff like this. I don’t want to analyze every step I take. I’m sure there are plenty of people who are willing to judge me, I’ll leave it to them. And for my future steps, I have the Brotherhood. They tell me what to do. My job is to just keep on walking.”
“So you’re just doing what you’re told.”
“I’m doing my best.”
The assassin is tired, from his journey and from this conversation that leads nowhere. The thief asks questions that he shouldn’t ask, and Mingi gives him answers that he didn’t know he had.
“You’re loyal,” Yunho says quietly. “Like a dog. They could kick you and you’d still lick their feet.”
Mingi hears the bedsheet rustling, and then feels an uncomfortable weight on him. Yunho puts his foot on his stomach and pushes down. The assassin winces from the pain.
These words stick to Mingi’s mind, envelop his brain like a thick slime. He feels like he’s going to be sick.
“I’m tired. I’m going to sleep. Feel free to settle on the floor,” he says and covers his face with an arm.
“Not very welcoming of you.”
The weight disappears from his stomach, the old bed creaks with relief, and Mingi can hear how the thief goes to the chair, settles there, resting his head on the wall, and immediately goes slack and starts to snuffle quietly.
An uneasy silence covers the room. Mingi thinks that it’s amusing how fast the thief managed to fall asleep. A sign of a clear mind and light soul. He also thinks about the quiet sound of breathing. It shouldn't feel like that.
Mingi closes his eyes and hopes that he’ll wake up to a dagger in his throat or at least to an empty purse. It would make things easier.
The morning greets Mingi with a loud knock on the door.
He sits up abruptly, looks around rubbing his eyes — the room is stuffy and empty — and waddles to the door.
“Good morning. You wanted to leave at dawn. The sun’s rising already,” the innkeeper says, and her loud firm voice shudders Mingi’s drowsy mind.
“Yeah, thank you,” the assassin says hoarsely.
The woman nods and turns to leave, but he stops her.
“Excuse me, did the— the guy who was here, did he leave already?”
He gets a confused frown as an answer.
“What guy are you talking about? Other guests are still sleeping, but their rooms are downstairs. No one has left the inn since last night.”
“O—of course,” Mingi stutters. “Sorry, I’m— still sleepy, I guess. I’ll come down in a minute.”
“I’ve cooked you breakfast.”
The door closes and Mingi falls down on the bed and buries his face in his hands. He then stands up and checks the pockets of his coat. Everything is in the right place.
Maybe better this way.
It takes him one more day to get to the Sanctuary. The familiar dark rooms of it calm him down. They’re not the comfiest, but they’re familiar and that’s enough for his tired mind.
“Hard journey?” Jongho’s voice is stern and monotone as always.
“Yeah,” Mingi heavily lowers on a chair. “Couldn’t really sleep in the inn.”
“Maybe take some days off? Go home, get some rest,” Jongho pushes the bowl of fruits closer to him. “You look horrible.”
“Luckily I don’t have to look at myself,” Mingi grabs one of the apples. “No, I’d rather take the next contract.”
He feels distracted, he’s been catching himself slipping into a weird mental state, thinking about things and people and the person. He needs something to occupy his mind. Jongho only shrugs at him.
“Fair enough. Go to Markarth, then. Find a shop right at the entrance to the city. A man works there. Talk to him.”
“Talk?” Mingi curves his eyebrow.
“That’s a client, not a target,” Jongho chuckles.
“Easy to confuse between the two. Ok, I’ll head there tomorrow.”
Jongho lands on the second chair. They chat about jobs and places, spells and the upcoming winter. Mingi relishes these little mindless talks.
He relishes the contracts, too.
Yunho said they kill for their gods. And maybe it’s true for some of them. But for Mingi, the contracts are just quests. A certain thing that he has to do next.
No thoughts, no hesitation, only the journey and the well-aimed shot at the end of the road.
Mingi enters the barely lit shop.
“We’re closed,” a deep heavy voice tells him from the corner.
Mingi quietly closes the door behind him and stands in the middle of the hall.
“You deaf or something? We’re close, come back tomorrow,” a tall broad man emerges from the dark.
The assassin silently looks at him. He doesn’t get to talk to the clients a lot, usually getting the name of the target right away, so he tries to bask in those rare moments when he gets to play the role of a big scary assassin without having to kill anyone yet. Mingi convinces himself that a hood covering his face and a dark long cloak serve some practical purpose and are not purely for dramatic effect.
The man looks him up and down and then straightens his posture unnaturally.
“Are you…” he clears his throat and comes closer. “You’re from the… well.”
Mingi watches him closely and keeps silent.
“You came here fast enough. I wasn’t sure if it’s going to work, to be fair,” the man now runs his mouth, fidgeting with the things on the desk. “You have quite— an old-fashioned way of—”
“The name,” Mingi cuts him off.
“Yeah, of course. You’re here for the name,” the man fishes out a crumpled piece of paper. “I wrote everything down. There’s not much though. I don’t know where the guy is. Don’t think anyone knows for sure, he doesn’t seem to stay in one place for too long.”
He hands the paper over.
“The guy’s a thief,” the man continues in a hurry. “A Nord, I believe. Some people saw him in Solitude, but it was over a week ago.”
Mingi opens the paper, reads the lopsided letters, and takes a deep shuddered breath.
“There’s not much information about him. Tall, blond, and sly. I sent some bandits his way, but they came back empty-handed,” the man leans over the counter and continues in a poisonous whisper. “And I don’t want empty-handed. I need this guy’s head. Not brought to me, necessarily. I just don’t want him to have it if you know what I mean.”
Mingi tries to steady his trembling fingers. The man’s voice is dripping with anger.
“Jeong Yunho is his name. At least that’s what people know him by.”
◆
Mingi carefully sneaks through a cave. A local farmer had some problems with a troll, and the assassin agreed to help him in exchange for some gold and a couple of potions.
It’s been five days since he got the name of his next target.
A loud roar shakes the cave, bouncing off the walls in a deafening echo. The troll lazily gets on his legs, sniffs the air, catches the streak of a human smell, and rushes to its source.
Mingi went to Solitude, the legs brought him there almost reflexively. There he wandered around the city, bumping into people and tripping over steps.
With a small gesture, a half-transparent bow appears in his hands.
He had to ask people, search for information, seek the trace of his victim. That’s how his work was supposed to go.
Mingi draws the bow and aims right into the third eye of the creature.
He did none of that. He tried to convince himself that it was the lack of information. That his target was too hard to find. Sneaky bastard he is, that Jeong Yunho.
The troll falls onto the ground with a loud crash.
He could wait for one more day. And one more. He could wait until he finally wraps his head around the fact that he cannot kill the thief.
The farmer thanks him full-heartedly and treats Mingi to a well-deserved hot meal.
“We were begging the guards to do something for the whole month,” the old man grumbles. “But you know how they are. Won’t lift a finger unless their chef gives them a smack on the head. I wish there were more people like you. Kind hearts are rare in these harsh lands. Take more of these sweet rolls. My wife baked them.”
“Yeah… Thank you,” Mingi says quietly and stuffs his face with pastry. The sweetness fills his mouth, spreads further, and mixes with the nasty feeling in his chest.
Another way of running away from the contract is returning home. Mingi spends a couple of days lying on the bed and staring into the ceiling. Unsurprisingly, the ceiling holds no answers. But it reminds him of the old moldy ceilings in taverns. Small cramped room with dull lighting and only one bed. Not suitable for long heart-to-heart talks in the middle of the night.
His quiet morning tea is interrupted by a careful knock on the door.
At first, Mingi brushes it off, mistaking the unexpected sound for an off-beat song of the rain. But the knock repeats.
Mingi tenses, the mist curves around his fingers, and he slowly gets to the door and opens it just enough to see the face of the unwanted visitor.
He quickly relaxes and steps to the side to let in a shivering figure of Jongho.
“There’s too much water,” his guest mumbles, taking off his wet cloak. “I feel like an Argonian.”
“The kettle just boiled,” Mingi closes the door, and the cold wind that’s managed to sneak inside settles in and mixes with the hot smell of herbs and dust.
Jongho lands on the chair by the table and upon his graceful gesture, the candles scattered around the room light up.
“I thought the darkness was supposed to be our friend,” Mingi says.
“I thought we were supposed to complete our contracts.”
Jongho always gets right to the point, cutting off any roads to escape a conversation.
“There’s no information,” Mingi answers uncertainty. “A Nord thief. Do you know how many Nord thieves there are in Skyrim?”
“Then find the information.”
“I’m working on it.”
“No, you’re not. You skip through the woods, do odd jobs and sit here. That’s not gathering the information.”
“How— how do you know that?”
“It’s part of my job. Knowing things,” Jongho leans his elbow on the table. “So tell me. What’s the problem with your contract?”
Mingi purses his lips and keeps silent.
“Do you know the guy?”
“I don’t know him,” Mingi thinks. “I don’t know him at all. I understand nothing about him, and it drives me crazy. He’s a weird thing, a worm sitting inside my brain and eating my mind out.”
“You look like you’re going to throw up,” Jongho huffs. “I don’t need that. I need an answer, Mingi.”
Mingi wishes he had one.
Jongho sighs heavily.
“A week. I give you a week. If you don’t get at least a little closer to your target by then, your Brothers and Sisters will—”
“Listen,” Mingi interrupts him, almost barks, and it scares him. “I’m not killing the guy. I- I can’t. You’re welcome to do the job. Probably better if it’s you, I trust you. But if you do— When you do… Don’t tell me. I know you suck at this, but please… Lie to me.”
Jongho studies his face for a long minute. Mingi keeps his gaze glued to the table. He doesn’t dare to look back. He knows he won’t find any sympathy there. He doesn’t have any sympathy in his own heart, how can he ask for it from the others? But even like this, catching only some fragments, some uncertain glimpse of the other’s heavy gaze, Mingi can feel the confusion and the pity. They lay heavy on him, like stuffed air in a cave, and he subconsciously slacks down, slouches, and starts picking the side of the table.
“As you wish,” Jongho says finally, stands up with a sigh, and leaves Mingi alone, scared and suffocated.
The promised week passes way too fast. Mingi spends it mostly hunting, and the angry roars of saber cats and the hot blood of deers ease his mind a little. He feels safe and content in the woods, away from the world, from his obligations and obsessive thoughts.
He quickly gives up on the idea to get rid of his emotions entirely, so he tries to at least find an explanation for them.
Hazel-eyes thief’s been occupying his thoughts for a long time now, and it doesn’t make any sense. They’re not exactly friends, acquaintances at best. The thief tried to get to know him, but at the same time, he stayed uncomfortably impersonal. Mingi feels like he’s not a human to Yunho, more like a walking fairytale from a scary children’s book.
So he shouldn’t care, there’s no reason for him to care, Mingi tells his heart and mind, and they answer with the sound of Yunho’s quiet breathing and the sight of his eyes when he looks at Mingi with fear and disgust.
“I’m just not used to it,” he quietly tells the bare trees. “I don’t usually talk to people so nonchalantly. I don’t like talking about myself and I’m not interested in listening to people talking about themselves. So that guy got me by surprise. That’s why it unsettled me so much.”
The trees nod with their creaking branches.
The trees understand him and give him a safe place where he can hide and lie to himself.
But fate works in strange ways.
The river Mingi’s been following takes a sudden turn, and after going North for half a mile he notices a distant light of a bonfire. It’s better to sneak by, but the landscape here isn’t generous with any type of cover. There’s nothing but a few bare trees around. The assassin still goes deeper into the forest and follows the river from a distance, trying to make as little noise as possible. Having reached the place where the bonfire can be seen properly, Mingi hides behind a wide oak trunk and takes a closer look.
There’s only one person fussing around the fire. Mingi notices a raincoat spread out on the ground and a distant smell of nearly cooked fish. Must be a hunter preparing himself a quick dinner before the night under the stars.
After feeding his curiosity, the assassin gets ready to continue with his journey unnoticed, but a man by the river goes around the fire to add more wood, the light from the flame highlights his face — and even from here, when the guy is dozens of meters away and there is thick darkness between them, Mingi can feel the teasing sparkles.
The assassin lets out a frustrated groan and hits his head against the tree. The old oak shows its sympathy with a dull hum.
He almost tricked himself. Almost stuffed those thoughts and emotions down the throat.
Almost is the keyword.
His quiet breakdown isn’t left unnoticed. Yunho — because of course it would be Yunho, of course Mingi would run into him in the middle of nowhere — startles, turns around, burns the forest with a concerned look, and then his face lights up with a smile.
“Mingi!” he exclaims and waves his hand. As if Mingi wouldn’t notice him.
With a sigh, the assassin gives himself up to his stupid fate and slowly comes down to the river.
“Come over, warm yourself up by the fire,” the thief says in a voice that would make the best tavern owners jealous.
One of the logs breaks with a soft crack and Yunho turns his back to his guest to attend to his bonfire.
Mingi’s heart clenches at the sight of this stupid fucking trust.
“We keep on meeting in random places,” Yunho says lively, checking on the fish. “Like the gods want us to become friends.”
“The gods’ intentions might not be as kind as you expect.”
Little sparks fly up as Yunho moves the logs in the fireplace with a stick. For a second Mingi thinks that the thief is pondering his words, but then Yunho continues carelessly.
“I missed you. You’re fun.”
“Yeah, I—” Mingi stumbles. “I missed you too.”
Yunho looks at him over the shoulder and giggles.
“You look scared of your own words. A scaredy-cat.”
“Maybe I am,” Mingi answers honestly.
Yunho is honest. A weird trait for a thief. Mingi feels like he’s being infected with this honesty, like Yunho breathes it out with every phrase and it spreads through the air like a disease, and the best healers of the land will never find a cure for it.
Mingi always considered honesty a weakness. Yunho isn’t weak, that’s the problem. He just allows himself to be vulnerable. Mingi never knew there’s so much strength in vulnerability.
“What are you doing out here?” Yunho asks.
“I don’t know. I think I’m lost.”
The thief laughs blissfully.
“Ask your beloved Brotherhood then. I’m sure they’ll tell you what to do.”
Mingi bites his lips. Hearing about the Brotherhood from Yunho breaks the little illusion that he made up for himself, where these two worlds never meet.
“And why are you here alone at night?” Mingi asks. “The forest is not the safest place.”
“I have a dagger and a few loud songs up my sleeve, I am scared of nothing,” Yunho says cheerfully, getting up and turning his back to the fire. “Plus, I’m not alone now.”
Mingi looks around before he realizes what Yunho means.
“You’ll protect me, right?” the thief continues jokingly, stepping closer. “From the dark scary shadows.”
“I’m your dark scary shadow,” Mingi thinks and immediately holds his breath because Yunho leans forward, gets into his personal space, and stares right into his face, burning the skin with the hot breath.
It would be so easy to kill the thief right now when he’s close and unaware, lost in a confusing labyrinth of Mingi’s eyes. He’s open and unarmed. For a second the assassin suspects some kind of a trick, so he quickly climbs down Yunho’s figure with his gaze, checks his hands, and finds nothing there. So he goes back up, stumbles on the belts and pockets, crawls up the neck, tickling the outline of the veins, stops on the lips for a second, and finally gets back to the eyes.
Mingi catches a muted flash of warm light out of the corner of his eye. Yunho’s breathing lightly and his lips turn into a gentle smile.
There is quiet rustling coming from the forest.
The thief’s eyes are wistful and half-closed, and his cheeks are tinted with blush. He looks interested. Expectant. Mingi feels his skin tickle with the sensation of nearby magic.
Some decisions must be made in a matter of seconds.
He leans forward, so that their noses are almost touching, and breathes out right into Yunho’s lips:
“Run.”