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BANG!
Han Seo’s eyes darted straight over to the revolver seated in his brother’s hands in disbelief as the reverberations of the shot echoed across the walls of the room. The acrid stench of burnt gunpowder silently crept up his senses, the metallic scent in the air so strong it lingered upon his tongue as an aftertaste.
That fucking bastard really went and did it now, huh?
He glanced over at Vincenzo on the side, the mobster's usual poker face of indifference marred by equal parts chaos and shock as his grip around the fallen lawyer’s shoulders tightened.
Iron mixed with trace amounts of copper — was that what the metallic taste on his tongue was from earlier? The blossoming gunshot on Hong Cha Young’s shoulder seeped into the fabric of her coat with every tick sounding his brother’s watch, a network of red stretching along the width of the beige fabric from the epicenter. His eyes dropped momentarily down to his own blood-soaked hands, the sight before him overriding the numbness of his senses to remind him of his own wound from earlier.
Five.
Four had missed, but what had defined Han Seok as a threat was never his skill nor his coordination. It was his psychopathy and his insanity — a complete lack of self control — that fed into his madness. Jang Han Seok may not have had a good shot, but his deranged stubbornness was what fueled his peril. And such, it was that in exchange for four bullets that had flown astray, one had managed to penetrate through the shoulder of Vincenzo’s own lady luck. It was a three versus one situation, after all — the odds were ever in his favor.
One left in a barrel of six.
Han Seo may have lived solely in Han Seok’s shadow for most of his life, moving along the motions of life as dictated by his brother’s terror regime, but there were certain things he had always been good at. Uniquely good at, to be precise. Innate talent was one thing, but skill imbued into muscle was another.
Counting. Han Seo had always been good at counting. Childish in a sense, but Han Seo had never lost count in his life. Not when it was the only thing that kept him anchored in the nightmares of his childhood whenever his brother acted out, and not when it was the only thing that years of therapy had taught him to do.
Count. Count the seconds, count the lashes, count the hits — count the bullets. Nothing could be created from emptiness. Everything came to an end eventually.
And Han Seo had counted five. Five shots had been fired. Five clicks of the trigger, five pulls of the hammer. Five rings as the casings fell onto the ground — five bullets that had been used up.
I just want to be proud of what my life has come to.
To leave behind a legacy? No, Han Seo scoffed, he wasn’t a hero . He desired neither recognition nor award. He was a much simpler person than that — he simply wanted to be able to choose. To choose his own destiny, to do what felt right to him. To follow his gut instinct, to speak up after all those years of having his lips sealed shut.
He glanced back over once more at Vincenzo, taking a moment to commit his friend's face to memory.
I hope we can meet again in another life, brother.
Han Seo lunged over at Han Seok, his hands fumbling to grapple for control over the gun. Nails digging deep and dragging along skin, he winced as his sibling retaliated by reflex, Han Seok’s eyes bulging at the audacity of his actions. Han-Seo wrestled the muzzle to point against himself, his teeth gritting as he forced a smile across his lips as he looked his sibling right in the eyes.
The eyes of a beast, no more and no less. Why had he given up all of his life for the monster before him? Blood should run thicker than water, but why was it that the man he shared blood with was the one who instilled such fear yet the man he had merely traded soju with was the one who inspired such courage? With his mind made up, the adrenaline of his decision surging throughout his body, the sight of his father’s other son had never been clearer. Crazed, psychopathic, beyond repair — standing before him was a man with no empathy and no remorse. A being who simply craved destruction with no beginning nor end.
“Let go .”
Han Seo found himself wondering what the man must have been thinking at the moment. Threats? Empty taunts? That if he didn’t move he would shoot?
“Good,” was the only word that Han Seo was able to formulate, a resigned chuckle following soon after.
Please do shoot.
Han Seok was not a good brother — in fact, he was quite literally the worst. But it didn’t matter, Han Seo could always depend on the man to act the way he expected him to.
So when he heard the pull of the hammer and the emptying of the barrel, all he could do was laugh. He may not have been the more competent one of the two, but he always did understand his brother better than his brother understood him.
And for once in his life, that understanding had handed him his first and final victory on a silver platter.
“Funny,” he thought to himself as the floor seeped the strength in his legs away,
“ I always thought dying would be a little more eventful. ”