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Wooyoung was destined to take out evil.
A kindly old woman with a glowing crystal ball in a circus tent had told him as much when he was just eight years old, so of course that could only be the gospel truth. Even now, fifteen years later and having vanquished exactly no evil, it was a truth that he firmly believed in.
He just wasn’t very sure how it was supposed to work considering he wasn’t a superhero, had never actually seen evil up close before, and had attended only two lessons of Jiu-Jitsu before getting bored of it. He vaguely suspected that he would at some point in his life get bitten by a radioactive spider or get exposed to dangerous space radiation, and that was when he would finally attain his destined superpowers to take out said evil.
In the meantime, Jung Wooyoung was simply living his best life as a regular student in his final year of university, where his current priorities were to resuscitate his plunging GPA, secure a job before graduation, and maybe find some radiation to expose himself to so that he could become a superhero and stop having to worry about life’s mundane problems – not necessarily in that order.
Of course, every hero-to-be had his naysayers.
“Please, that witch was a total sham. You’d probably scream and run away if you ever saw anyone who looked even remotely evil,” Jongho said lazily, ignoring Wooyoung’s scandalised glare with the ease of long experience. Beside him, San snickered into his noodles, and Wooyoung decided that he needed to find some new best friends pronto.
“I don’t care if you don’t believe me,” Wooyoung sniffed disdainfully, looking down his nose at San and Jongho, who were certainly destined to be nothing more than sidekicks. “Destiny moves at its own pace.”
“Sure, bro,” San said agreeably, and Wooyoung raised his arms to the sky with a groan of despair.
It wasn’t as if Wooyoung was stupid. Of course he didn’t want to face off with evil right at this very moment, when he hadn’t yet reached his full potential. He still had finals to study for and a degree to graduate from. The moment any villains entered his vicinity, he was out of there like a Jongho who had been offered a smooch on the cheek by an overly-enthusiastic San.
It wasn’t exactly an uncommon occurrence. Their city was chock-full of villains for some reason, and no matter how many were taken into custody by their resident heroes, more kept popping out of the woodwork like disgusting woodlice. One day, Wooyoung would take them all out, but that day was not today.
“Dude, is that building on fire?” he said suddenly, staring out of the window with shock at the orange blaze flickering across the road.
San took one look to his right and almost choked. “Villain!” he cried, pointing at the masked man standing ominously in the middle of the road with flames licking at his hands. All around them terrified civilians took up the cry, and a stream of people immediately formed, rushing towards the exits. Wooyoung decided that that looked like a very good idea to emulate and leaped to his feet as well.
There was more than one villain out and about, he realised with horror the moment they were out of the restaurant. A teleporter was flashing about almost too fast for Wooyoung’s eyes to follow, provoking some sort of giant, snarling hound while the flame-wielder appeared to be ignoring the fight in favour of indulging in wanton destruction.
The teleporter flickered so close that Wooyoung felt the rush of air from the villain’s appearance, the deadly flash of silver blades immediately reminding him that they were supposed to be hightailing it out of there. San was just ahead of him, barely visible in the thick crowd, and he reached behind him to grab Jongho’s hand.
Jongho might be a brat, but he was Wooyoung’s brat.
“Come on!” he cried, dragging Jongho forcibly through the crowd, thanking every deity in existence that he lived so close by they could cut across an alley and reach his apartment building in just three minutes. Hopefully San would have the same idea and meet them there.
Wooyoung was not, it had to be said, the fittest person in existence, and he was panting from the effort of shoving past other panicked civilians by the time they reached the alley. It wasn’t a dank, slimy one, just a nice stony path between two buildings, still lit by the afternoon sun at this time of day, and he felt safe enough to slow down. He let go of Jongho’s hand and sighed deeply, wiping at the sweat beading on his forehead as he turned around.
“That was a close one –” he started triumphantly, about to rub the magnificence of his quick thinking into Jongho’s face, except it wasn’t Jongho’s face staring back at him at all. In fact, he couldn’t even see the person’s face because they were wearing a mask, and the only people who wore masks around here were heroes and villains.
“Who are you?” Wooyoung shrieked, jumping backwards and raising his arms defensively in what he thought might be a karate pose. “Where’s Jongho?”
The person stared at him for a long moment. “I don’t know where this Jongho is. You’re the one who grabbed me the moment I appeared and pulled me along.” It was a distinctly male voice, low and annoyed, which Wooyoung thought was quite uncalled for. If at any moment this strange masked person had made it clear to Wooyoung that he was holding the wrong person’s hand, he would of course have let them go.
“Well, you could have said something,” he said defensively, and then he pointed out, “You do know that your mask is torn?” He tapped the side of his chin meaningfully, watching as the masked man mirrored his action, seeming vaguely surprised to feel a sliver of bare skin that had somehow managed to escape injury.
“Damn, this is my last spare mask,” the man said, sounding more annoyed than ever, and then he promptly tugged it off to inspect the rip more closely, seeming not to notice or care that it left his dark hair sticking up at every angle possible in a manner that Wooyoung found strangely endearing. He looked surprisingly young, nothing like the dark, sinister presence that Wooyoung automatically imagined behind every villain’s mask.
“Aren’t you supposed to be keeping your identity a secret?” he asked helpfully, just in case it had slipped the man’s mind.
The man looked up at him with a raised brow. “And what are you going to do? Draw a picture of me for the heroes?” he scoffed before returning his attention to his mask, seeming excessively concerned over such a small scrap of cloth.
Wooyoung blinked, stunned motionless by the sight of the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen, the exact shade of darkening storm clouds hanging over the horizon, and it took him a ridiculously long time to understand exactly what the man had said and what it implied.
“A picture for…the heroes?” he repeated, and then he screeched, “You’re a villain? You’re evil?”
The man looked up at Wooyoung again, and this time there was a frown on his face instead of the cool exasperation that he had been wearing the whole time. “Well, I wouldn’t say that I think of myself as evil,” he started, before stopping short because Wooyoung had just slapped his hand over his mouth and let out a loud, theatrical gasp, his eyes almost popping out of his head as he stared at the villain.
The evil villain.
“What?” said evil villain demanded, beginning to look annoyed again.
“I just understood my true destiny,” Wooyoung whispered, sounding awestruck as he lowered his hand from his mouth, still staring at the beautiful man in front of him like he was an angel descended to Earth. “When I was eight, a wise woman at the circus once told me that it was my destiny to take out evil.”
The villain raised both brows this time, looking immensely sceptical. “She was probably a charlatan,” he said disgustedly. “You can’t seriously believe that whatever some fortune-teller cheat told you when you were a kid is actually going to come true?”
“But it’s coming true right now,” Wooyoung insisted with unshakable conviction, leaping forward to grab the other man by the shoulders. “You’re totally evil and I’m totally going to take you out – on a date!”
The villain looked too stunned to protest as Wooyoung shook him with enthusiasm, the knives hanging from his belt rattling in their sheaths.
“You don’t even know me,” he managed at last, sounding almost intimidated as he stood stiffly in Wooyoung’s grasp.
“But I want to,” Wooyoung said with absolute seriousness, looking right into those lovely grey eyes with every ounce of sincerity he could manage. “Don’t you get it? The world wants us to be together. The world put your hand in mine for a reason. You don’t have to hide behind your mask when you’re with me.”
For just a fraction of a second the villain seemed to soften, his mouth parting in quiet surprise. His eyes locked on Wooyoung’s with something close to confusion, and then he appeared to regain his senses in an instant, shoving Wooyoung away and leaping backwards like he had touched a porcupine.
“You’re completely insane. Stark raving mad. Totally out of your mind. I’m not going on a date with you,” he sputtered.
Wooyoung caught himself in the middle of his stumble, his beaming smile vanishing like it had been slapped right off his face. “You’re not even going to give me a chance?” he asked in a small, hurt voice, as pitiful as a child who had just been told that Santa was a lie. All the vitality seemed to have sapped from him and he looked utterly crushed, miserable and pathetic, his shoulders hunching where he stood.
The villain opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it again, all the while looking like he was in immense physical pain. “Fine,” he snapped, the word bursting out of him in an explosive breath, and his teeth were very clearly gritted when he said, “You can take me out on a date, but I don’t care what you think your destiny is. You’re not allowed to call me evil. Call me evil one more time, just once, and you can give up on even thinking about a second date.”
The life flowed back into Wooyoung like a flower blooming before the sun, his smile flashing back onto his face in an instant. “I definitely won’t,” he promised, bouncing forward eagerly back to the other man’s side. “The wise woman said that I would take evil out, but she never said anything about you staying evil!”
The villain let out a long sigh and ran a hand through his already-ruffled hair, mumbling something to himself that sounded a lot like, “What on earth am I going to tell Seonghwa?” He looked strangely exhausted for someone who hadn’t been doing anything for the last few minutes, drained in a way that even battle fatigue couldn’t compare to.
“Just…call me Yeosang,” he said at last, and Wooyoung decided then and there that he had never heard a prettier name in his entire life.
It was starting to look like getting superpowers might not be on his agenda after all, but there was no doubt that Jung Wooyoung was still destined to have the most amazing life ever.
6 months later…
Seonghwa couldn’t help staring as Wooyoung wandered around their top-secret evil lair like he was at a candy store, sticking his fingers excitedly into various villainous appliances that Mingi had to hurriedly pull him away from. Yeosang was smiling contently, apparently unworried that his boyfriend might be in danger of losing a finger or three.
“Well, it could be worse,” Seonghwa decided. “You could have started dating a superhero.”
Wooyoung took them all out the next day – to his favourite ice cream joint. And they all had a wonderful time.