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The first shot was never meant to hit but Juhoon fired anyway.
The gun kicked back into his palm, familiarity, controlled. His wrist locked, elbow loose, breath already gone before the trigger finished breaking. The bullet kissed the concrete an inch from Martin’s boot, sparks skittering up like startled insects.
Martin laughed.
It was low and delighted, a total contrast to the kill zone. He didn’t even flinch, just pivoted on his heel, coat flaring as he drew. His pistol came up sloppy on purpose, one-handed, muzzle lazy until the last possible second.
A tease. Always a tease.
“Still rushing your first shot,” Martin said, tongue sharp as the edge of his grin. “You’ll scare the air away before you scare me.”
Juhoon didn’t answer. Instead, he slid backward, weight light on the balls of his feet, eyes locked and unblinking. Pretty eyes, people said, soft and almost kind. That was a total lie. They tracked recoil patterns, calculated distance, measured Martin’s breathing like a countdown. His second shot was cleaner. No warning. No wasted motion. Double-tap, center mass, adjusted mid-recoil when Martin twisted aside.
Martin felt the heat pass his ribs and clicked his tongue in mock disappointment.
Of course Juhoon would shoot like that.
Martin knew every bad habit which he had already burned out of him, every instinct he had sharpened until it cut clean. He recognized the grip immediately. High and tight on the Beretta 92FS, thumbs aligned with wrists locked just enough to tame the slide without fighting it. Smooth trigger pull. No flinch. No mercy. Martin had corrected that stance himself years ago, standing too close behind Juhoon, tapping his knuckles, murmuring again until the movement became muscle memory.
He had made him fast.
He had made him lethal.
And now that same precision was aiming straight at his heart.
Martin ducked, rolled, came up already firing back. Three shots in a staggered rhythm meant to herd, not kill. He liked controlling. He liked watching the prey panic before taking its life. He aimed for Juhoon’s exits, not his body, forcing him where Martin wanted him to go.
Juhoon didn’t panic.
He dropped to one knee, braced his forearm against his thigh, and fired through the smoke. He didn’t aim where Martin was, he aimed where Martin would be after the next taunt, the next reckless step forward. His shots were surgical, precise, meant to end things before pain could bloom.
Martin had always loved that about him.
“Cold as ever,” Martin called, reloading without looking, magazine slamming home with a metallic kiss. “Guess my lessons stuck.”
Juhoon rose smoothly, already adjusting his grip, finger resting easy against the trigger like it belonged there.
“This isn’t personal,” Juhoon said at last, voice flat and distant, as another bullet tore the air between them.
It never was.
But the way Martin smiled sharply, eyes bright with anticipation, it was clear neither of them planned to miss.
Martin moved before the shot.
Juhoon’s finger tightened, not yet, and Martin was already stepping left, boots scraping concrete as the bullet tore through the space his head had occupied a heartbeat earlier.
“Low right,” Martin called casually, breath steady as he fired back. “You always correct after recoil.”
Juhoon’s jaw clenched. He adjusted, shifted his stance a fraction tighter, the Beretta steady in his hands. He fired again, clean and fast.
Martin ducked.
“Center mass,” Martin went on, voice almost fond. “Two shots. You hold your breath on the second.”
Juhoon exhaled sharply and moved, shooting on the step this time. The muzzle flash lit his face for a split second, pretty and cold, untouched by doubt.
Martin laughed again, softer now. “There, that’s better. But you’re still leading with your eyes.”
A bullet clipped Martin’s sleeve, close enough to burn fabric, close enough to matter. He hissed through his teeth, more pleased than angry. Still, Juhoon didn’t answer. He just kept firing, faster now, sharper, breaking patterns, trying to outrun the man who had built him from scratch.
“You should’ve finished me when you had the chance,” Martin said suddenly.
Juhoon fired without pause. “You taught me not to hesitate.”
Another shot. Another miss by inches.
Martin leaned out from cover, gun leveled but unmoving, eyes locked on Juhoon instead of the sights. His smile was gone now, something quieter had replaced it.
“And yet,” he said, gently, “you did.”
And for the first time, Juhoon’s rhythm broke.
He stopped trying to be perfect. His stance loosened, feet no longer squared the way Martin had drilled into him for years. The Beretta dipped, then came back up at an angle Martin had never allowed.
Martin’s smile faltered.
Juhoon moved when he fired.
Not after, during.
He shot on the step, body turning with the recoil instead of fighting it, letting momentum carry him past the line of return fire. The bullets came irregular now. No clean pairs, no predictable cadence. One shot high, one low, the third fired from the hip as he slid behind cover.
Wrong, inefficient and dangerous.
Perfect.
Martin swore under his breath and barely twisted in time, a round shaving past his shoulder close enough to draw blood. He pressed his back to the wall, chest rising faster now, mind scrambling to rewrite instincts that had always been right.
“That’s not how I taught you,” Martin said, voice sharp for the first time.
Juhoon reloaded mid-stride, magazine clicking home without a glance. He didn’t slow. He didn’t brace. He fired again while moving sideways, wrist loose, letting the gun buck and settle on its own.
“You taught me control,” Juhoon said.
A shot shattered glass above Martin’s head.
“And now I've learned when to let it go.”
Another round punched into the wall beside Martin’s ear, close enough to make him flinch finally. Martin laughed, breathless and disbelieving, adrenaline buzzing hot under his skin.
“Look at you,” he murmured. “Breaking all my rules.”
Juhoon stepped into the smoke, gun raised not at center mass but at the space Martin would instinctively retreat into. His eyes were colder now.
Decisive.
“I’m not yours anymore,” Juhoon said and pulled the trigger.
The words echoed between them like a misfire.
I’m not yours anymore.
Martin’s expression didn’t change right away. Something in his eyes went sharp and quiet, same like how it used to right before he pulled the trigger on something that begged.
“Funny,” he said softly, “how you used to be.”
He lunged.
The space between them vanished in an instant, too close for clean shots, too close for patience. Martin fired as he moved, muzzle flashing white, the blast so near Juhoon felt the heat skim his cheek. Juhoon twisted on instinct, shoulder slamming into Martin’s chest, the impact throwing the shot wide. Plaster exploded behind them.
Juhoon fired back from the hip.
Not aimed but committed.
The bullet tore through Martin’s coat, grazed skin, burned like a brand. Martin snarled and crashed into Juhoon again, driving him back. Gunshots deafening now, concussive, every pull of the trigger rattling bone. They weren’t trading fire anymore. They were colliding through it.
Martin grabbed Juhoon’s wrist mid-recoil, forcing the barrel skyward. The gun went off. BANG!– the ceiling screamed as concrete rained down. Juhoon didn’t fight the grip. He stepped into it, closed the distance further, chest to chest, breath spilling hot and controlled against Martin’s jaw.
Martin felt it then, the difference.
Juhoon wasn’t reacting.
He was deciding.
Then Juhoon let go of the gun. It hit the floor between their boots with a sharp metallic crack. Martin’s eyes flicked down on reflex, muscle memory betraying him, and Juhoon drove his knee into Martin’s thigh, hard. Martin stumbled, caught himself, fired blindly as he fell back. The bullet punched into the wall inches from Juhoon’s head.
Juhoon dove forward, shoulder-first, knocking Martin sideways into a narrow corridor. The hallway compressed everything. Sound, movement, intent. Martin rolled and fired twice down the length of it, shots tearing through doorframes where Juhoon would’ve been if he had followed Martin’s rules.
Except he didn’t.
Juhoon slid instead, low and fast, firing upward as he moved. The shot shattered a light above Martin’s head, glass raining down like sparks. Martin cursed and reloaded on instinct, magazine slamming home even as Juhoon closed in again.
“Unpredictable now,” Martin said, breath ragged but thrilled. “You finally learned to lie.”
Juhoon fired mid-stride. The bullet hit Martin’s shoulder, not deep, but enough to spin him. Martin hit the wall hard, teeth clicking, gun slipping from his grip for half a second.
That half second almost killed him.
Juhoon was there immediately, gun raised, finger tightening–
And he didn’t fire.
Martin saw it, felt it, laughed through blood and breath.
“You still hesitate,” he said hoarsely.
Juhoon’s jaw flexed. He stepped closer instead, muzzle pressing into Martin’s chest, right over his heart. So close Martin could see the faint tremor in Juhoon’s lashes, could feel the steady, terrifying calm in his breathing.
BANG!
A gunshot thundered somewhere nearby, neither of theirs.
Sirens again, louder now.
Martin lifted his own gun slowly, pressing it against Juhoon’s ribs, mirroring him. Metal against flesh. Violence held in place by inches.
They stayed like that, with foreheads almost touching, guns pinned between bodies, breaths colliding. Not lovers, not friends, not enemies enough to finish it.
“Guess,” Martin murmured, voice low, stripped bare, “you really aren’t mine anymore.”
Juhoon didn’t look away.
“No," he said, steady as a sightline. “That’s why you’re still alive.”
Then they broke apart fast, vanishing in opposite directions as the sirens swallowed the night, leaving bullet holes, broken glass, and the echo of something that would never die clean.
End.