Archive of Our Own

The thing about violence is that it creates its own kind of music. Gunshots are percussion. Footsteps running down concrete corridors become rhythm. Even the moment before it happens has a tempo to it: the sucked-in breath, the shift of weight, the desperate calculation of distance, the widening of eyes as realisation strikes. It’s all there if you learn how to read it like sheet music. Baekhyun always did like music.

By the time he and Jongdae reach the narrow street, the storm has eased to a soft drift of raindrops sliding from the awnings and gutters, the air thick with damp smoke and the distant hiss of tyres over wet pavement.

The lantern glows its usual azure blue. Baekhyun feels the tension leave his shoulders when he sees it, rolling them once like he’s shaking something off before it can follow him inside.

It isn’t a safe place, not really. Men like him don’t get safe places. But The Blue Lantern is close enough to something like it that his body has learned the difference the moment the door opens and the warm breath of the room spills out: tobacco, whiskey, the slight bite of brass polish, the murmur of voices layered over the low swing of the band.

“Evening,” Chanyeol says from behind the bar as they step inside. He’s polishing a glass with the kind of offhand movement that suggests he’s already noticed everything worth noticing. Chanyeol always notices who arrives first, who leaves alone, who’s carrying tension in their shoulders or blood on their knuckles. He pours drinks casually for men who would never trust each other outside these walls and remembers exactly who owes what when the night is over.

It’s why Baekhyun respects him.

“Still standing?” Baekhyun says, lifting a hand in greeting.

“Barely,” Chanyeol replies easily. “You?”

“Same.”

The band is playing a slow number that rolls gently through the room like distant thunder. Jongin flows across the centre of the floor, his body catching the tempo with that effortless grace Baekhyun has always found slightly unfair, the kind of dancer who doesn’t seem to follow the music so much as persuade it to follow him instead. At the piano, Kyungsoo plays though he watches Jongin from the corner of his eye the whole time.

Baekhyun heads to their usual spot at table four and drops into the chair like it’s been waiting for him all night. Jongdae sits across from him, removing his flat cap and setting it on the edge of the table. For a moment, Baekhyun doesn’t say anything, instead letting his gaze wander so he can properly clock the room. Call it old habit. Call it professional survival. It’s all the same to him.

Most of the faces tonight are familiar: a couple of small-time brokers who drift between the markets, a politician who pretends not to recognise anyone outside official receptions, two men from the shipping docks who argue loudly every time they drink together and then apologise to Junmyeon before they leave. The Blue Lantern attracts all kinds.

Then Baekhyun’s attention catches on a man sitting alone in the corner. Kim Minseok. The name surfaces immediately, the way certain names always do in the circles Baekhyun and Jongdae move through. Information travels fast when your business depends on knowing exactly who has power and who only thinks they do.

“Hey,” he says quietly to catch Jongdae’s attention, and when Jongdae glances at him, he indicates toward the corner.

Jongdae lifts an eyebrow and rechecks the buttons on his waistcoat, glancing subtly over for one beat. “Interesting crowd tonight.”

Minseok sits at table nine with his back to the wall, a glass resting loosely in one hand while he watches the room with quiet focus. He’ll no doubt have already catalogued every face worth remembering. For a moment, Baekhyun studies him, one professional noticing another. Different territory, different methods, but the same understanding of how Seoul works. Minseok’s suit is immaculately tailored, dark enough to disappear into the shadows but cut with the kind of accuracy that never comes cheap. He doesn’t look over, but Baekhyun suspects he’s already noticed them.

Junmyeon comes by their table a minute later and sets down their drinks. By this time, Baekhyun has mostly forgotten about Kim Minseok because here, at the club, the only thing you really need to worry about is the alcohol running out.

The whiskey catches the amber light from the lamps overhead, the liquid swaying slowly as Baekhyun lifts his glass immediately and takes a sip. It burns pleasantly, the warmth spreading through his chest with the quiet promise that the rest of the night might unfold without incident.

“Thanks,” he says to Junmyeon.

Across the room, Kyungsoo’s fingers move across the piano keys and his voice slides in like warm velvet.

“Some roads are chosen

Before the traveller admits he has been

Walking them all along.”

“New song?” Baekhyun asks.

“He’s trying something original tonight,” Junmyeon says.

“Huh.”

“Can I get you anything else?” Junmyeon asks.

“We’re good, I think,” Baekhyun tells him, nudging Jongdae’s foot under the table before lifting an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Jongdae says.

Junmyeon nods and moves on, heading over to table nine. Baekhyun is already feeling looser now, sliding further back in his chair and stretching one leg out as he watches Jongdae. There’s something up with him; Baekhyun can tell in the way Jongdae’s eyes flit from one thing to the next without settling. He’s usually more focused, but tonight — no, not just tonight, for a while now — he’s been off. And he hasn’t touched his drink.

“Something up with the alcohol tonight?” Baekhyun asks.

Jongdae blinks, as if surfacing from somewhere farther away than the other side of the table. “What?”

“You haven’t touched it.”

“Oh.” Jongdae finally lifts the glass, taking a small swallow that barely disturbs the level of whiskey inside.

The music swells gently around them and Jongin suddenly strides past their table, heading toward the cloakroom. Baekhyun catches the brief scent of Florida Water before it’s gone again.

“Just thinking,” Jongdae adds.

“I can see that.” Baekhyun studies him. They’ve known each other long enough that silence usually means something simple, like tiredness or boredom or the comfortable quiet that settles between two people who’ve been sharing the same rooms since they were kids.

But tonight, especially, the silence feels different.

For a moment, it looks like Jongdae is about to say something, but then he closes his mouth again and stares away.

The music fills the space for a few seconds, the melody drifting just off centre as if it has somewhere else it wants to be, before Baekhyun says, “You’re doing that thing again.”

“What thing?”

“The one where you act normal while very obviously not being normal.”

Jongdae huffs a quiet laugh. “Maybe I’m just tired.”

“Maybe.”

When he realises he’s not getting anything else out of Jongdae, Baekhyun leans back and rolls the whiskey glass slowly between his fingers. It’s a good night for the Lantern: warmth, easy rhythms, new songs; the kind of night where nobody feels the need to raise their voice. Which makes the memory of the warehouse seem even sharper by comparison.

Baekhyun thinks about how the man had run. He can still see it clearly: the sudden break in the conversation, the scrape of a chair tipping over as the guy bolted, the echo of his footsteps racing toward the door before Baekhyun drew his gun.

One shot.

The way the man had folded like a star collapsing in on itself.

There had been a handful of familiar faces in that room too, men who drift through the same circuits often enough that names become unnecessary — Lim somewhere off to the side, Park near the crates, Choi lingering between them — each of them watching in their own way, weighing what it meant and what it might cost.

And Jongdae, who had been standing near the doorway, his hands still, his eyes fixed on the body, face pulled tight in a way Baekhyun hadn’t quite recognised. The memory lingers now, quiet but persistent.

Baekhyun pulls his attention back to the present, only to find Jongdae staring at him again with that same careful, measuring look, like he wants to say something.

Setting his glass down, Baekhyun says, “All right. What’s going on with you?”

Jongdae hesitates, and it’s infuriating, really, because they’re friends. Long before the syndicate. Long before guns and warehouses and nights like the one they’ve just come from. They rarely keep things from each other. Keeping secrets gets you killed in their line of work; Jongdae knows that as well as Baekhyun does.

“Nothing,” Jongdae says after a long pause.

Baekhyun watches him for a few more seconds. Jongdae has never been particularly good at lying to him, and he isn’t now, either, but okay. Okay. He won’t push. Not now, anyway. The night is smooth and soft like silk and Baekhyun doesn’t particularly want to ruin it.

Lifting his glass again, he shrugs and lets the music settle into his bones as he takes another slow drink.

Whatever it is, he’ll find out soon enough.

***

The office sits above a row of shuttered shops, the kind of place that pretends to be temporary while quietly anchoring itself to the city’s spine. The stairwell smells of damp paper and old smoke, the bulb overhead blinking just enough to make the climb feel longer than it is. By the time Baekhyun pushes open the door at the top, the room inside has already settled into that particular kind of stillness that means everyone important has arrived early and no one trusts anyone else enough to say anything unnecessary.

A long table cuts through the centre of the space. Ledgers, glasses, a single ashtray already half-full. Two men sit on one side, another at the head, his fingers resting against the wood as if he’s feeling for something beneath it. The windows are shut despite the heat, the blinds drawn tight, the air held in place.

Baekhyun and Jongdae step in like they belong there. That’s the trick: own the place before it owns you. They’ve done this enough times now for it to be an unconscious decision.

“Gentlemen,” Baekhyun says easily, pulling out a chair and dropping into it with a loose kind of confidence that suggests he’s already decided how this conversation will end. And really, he already has.

One of the men nods. The one at the head of the table, Mr Jang, watches without expression. “You’re late, Mr Byun,” he says.

Baekhyun glances at the clock on the wall, then back at him, and then he grins. “Am I?”

Mr Jang doesn’t answer. He looks, briefly, at Jongdae, who is politely removing his flat cap like he always does in a new room. Jongdae does this thing that Baekhyun loves, where he moves so carefully and precisely and with just the right amount of wrongness that you feel like you’ve already been delicately cut with an invisible blade you haven’t felt yet. It’s subtle, but man, it pays off.

Mr Jang looks away and Baekhyun feels a flurry of pleasure.

Leaning back, Baekhyun stretches one arm along the back of Jongdae’s chair, claiming the space even though it doesn’t belong to him, making it look like the most natural thing in the world.

“Let’s not waste time,” he says. “You wanted to talk about the shipment.”

Mr Jang inclines his head, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “There was a problem.”

Baekhyun smiles. “I heard.”

A ledger is pushed across the table. The paper swishes against the wood, drawing attention without asking for it.

“Losses,” Mr Jang says.

Baekhyun doesn’t reach for the book immediately. He lets it sit there, glancing at it only after a beat that stretches just long enough to feel intentional.

“Accidents happen,” he says.

“Not on our routes.”

He feels the room tighten around him. Finally, he leans forward and flips the ledger open with one hand while the other rests loosely against the table. The numbers are clean. Far too clean. Someone has already rewritten them, and he hums under his breath as if the figures are music and he’s working out the rhythm.

“This is funny,” he says. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks less like an accident and more like someone testing boundaries they don’t understand.”

One of the men, Mr Yoon, fidgets in his chair. “Careful,” he says. “You’re speaking to Jang-nim—”

“I know exactly who I’m speaking to,” Baekhyun says, not looking up from the page. He keeps his tone light, even though the words aren’t.

Jongdae remains silent, which, really, is his strongest card. Silence makes people nervous. Nervous people make mistakes. Tonight, though, Baekhyun feels the absence of it a fraction too clearly, like a rhythm landing just slightly out of time, and he resists the urge to glance at Jongdae. That would break the flow too much.

“Jongdae,” Baekhyun says, still reading, “what did you see?”

It’s a simple, routine question, and as expected, Jongdae doesn’t reply immediately. The pause is small, but it lands like a dropped glass.

But the pause stretches.

And then it stretches more.

Baekhyun lifts his eyes and glances sideways. Jongdae is staring at the ledger but clearly not reading it, his attention sitting just out of focus like he’s looking through the numbers instead of at them.

“Jongdae,” Baekhyun repeats, softer now.

Blinking, Jongdae sits up a little straighter in his chair. “They moved early,” he says. “Before the scheduled handoff.”

Baekhyun watches him for a second longer than necessary. The answer is correct, but the timing isn’t. He closes the ledger.

“So,” he says, leaning back again and brushing the falter aside before anyone else notices it, “your problem isn’t the loss. It’s that someone decided to act without permission.”

Mr Jang steeples his fingers as if it somehow makes him more in control, which it doesn’t. “We expect reliability.”

“And you have it,” Baekhyun replies. “You just don’t like the way it looks tonight.”

Silence settles again, heavier this time.

The other man who hasn’t spoken since they arrived, Mr Lim, who Baekhyun recognises from the warehouse fiasco, leans forward. “The handler didn’t make it out.”

Baekhyun looks at him. “Ah, that was unfortunate. As you know, he ran,” he says. “And people who run generally don’t get very far.”

“And that doesn’t concern you?”

Baekhyun tilts his head, considering the question like it’s something mildly interesting rather than a challenge. “Should it?”

Mr Lim opens his mouth.

Jongdae speaks first. “It complicated things,” he says, his words coming out sharper than he probably meant. For a moment the room shifts toward him.

Baekhyun feels it immediately — the wrong direction — and he moves before the attention can settle. “It simplifies things. Loose ends are inefficient. We prefer clean lines.”

He lets that sit for a second, then smiles again, easy, disarming.

“You called this meeting because you’re worried,” he continues. “I’m telling you there’s nothing to worry about. The route is intact. The product is intact. The next shipment will arrive exactly where it’s supposed to.”

Mr Jang frowns. “And if it doesn’t?”

Baekhyun leans forward just enough to shift the balance of the table. “Then you can call another meeting,” he says, “and we’ll have this conversation again.”

For a moment, Mr Jang says nothing. Then, a smile touches his mouth. It isn’t friendly, but it’s enough. “Very well.” The tension redistributes the way it does when a room decides, collectively, not to push any further tonight.

Chairs scrape and glasses are lifted, and someone coughs awkwardly like they’ve been holding it in the whole time. The meeting dissolves without anyone admitting that it’s over.

Baekhyun stands and adjusts his shirt cuffs. A beat later, Jongdae rises too. They move toward the door together, the murmur of low voices starting up behind them as the next set of quiet negotiations begins.

“What was that?” Baekhyun says once they’re back in the stairwell.

Jongdae frowns. “What?”

“You missed the cue,” Baekhyun says, his voice low but steady. “You never miss it.”

Jongdae looks away, his attention sliding toward the narrow window at the turn of the stairs where a thin line of rain traces its way down the glass.

“I answered.”

“Yeah. Late.” Baekhyun drags his fingers through his hair. “Look, whatever’s going on with you, it’s fine. But if it starts complicating things with work, then it’s a problem—”

“I said I’m fine,” Jongdae says.

“Right. Sure.” Baekhyun throws him a withering look. “Just, try not to get us killed, okay?”

“Now you’re just being dramatic.”

“No, dramatic would be us getting slaughtered because you’re off your game.”

“Oh, shut up, will you.” Jongdae laughs, and it’s the same easy laugh Baekhyun’s heard a million times before, a little too loud, a little too kinetic, only this time it has an edge to it like Jongdae is trying too hard. Jongdae moves past him on the stairs without hesitation. “Anyway, I have to go.”

“Jesus, you’re abandoning me after that? Whatever happened to gangster solidarity?”

“Sorry,” is all Jongdae says, throwing a smile over his shoulder as they reach the ground floor. And then he pushes the door open and steps out into the night, and he’s gone, just like that. Gone.

Baekhyun lingers in the stairwell, hand clutching the railing, feeling the natural vibration of the building as the city moves around him in ways that never really stop.

Well.

He pushes off and heads out. Outside, the rain has started up again, the street glistening liquid gold under the low streetlamps, reflections breaking and reforming with every passing car. He pulls his coat tighter around his throat, his mind already running through the meeting, through the numbers, the faces, the moment where something slipped just enough for him to notice.

Jongdae.

What is his deal? In all the years, Baekhyun has never had to question him, but now he does. It’s like the ground he’s used to walking has suddenly tilted under his feet and he has no railing to cling to, no wingman at his side to provide backup.

And he doesn’t like it. Not one bit.

***

Baekhyun pauses on the steps just long enough to light a cigarette, cupping the flame in his hand as he glances sideways at Jongdae. Smoke curls upward and mixes with the damp night air while he flicks the match into the gutter, and he thinks about the transient nature of things, how something you thought you understood once can change into something new and unfamiliar without you even noticing the shift.

They stand there for a moment without speaking.

“You want to go in?” Baekhyun eventually says.

“Sure, why not?” Jongdae replies, and then, briefly, he stares off down the street like he’s looking at something only he can see.

“Okay.” Baekhyun leads them inside.

The club feels different when the regular music isn’t playing. The lantern still burns outside above the entryway, the same azure blue glow dripping over the wet pavement beyond, but Baekhyun notices the change the moment they step inside. The music belongs to someone else tonight.

A different man occupies the piano where Kyungsoo usually sits, older and heavier in the shoulders, his playing technically correct but lacking the quiet gravity Kyungsoo brings with him. The melody lifts and falls politely instead of settling into the bones of the room. No Jongin on the floor either. Without him, the space between the tables feels wider, the empty boards reflecting the lamplight like dark water.

Baekhyun stubs his cigarette out in one of the ashtrays atop the bar, catching Chanyeol’s eye as he does so.

“Evening,” Chanyeol says.

“Evening.”

“Sorry, table four’s occupied,” Chanyeol says, “But two is open.”

“Two’s fine.” Even as he says it, Baekhyun scans the room, checking who’s in tonight and who isn’t. After a moment cataloguing the crowd and deciding there’s nothing to worry about, they head over and slide into opposite seats. It’s something they’ve done a hundred times by now at the club, only Jongdae is still distracted which makes everything feel different. “Oh, look, the King of England is sitting right over there,” Baekhyun says.

“Oh?”

“Okay, that’s it,” Baekhyun adds with a sigh. “This is honestly getting ridiculous. If you need to take some time off, just speak to the boss, will you?”

Jongdae frowns at him. “You know that isn’t how it works.”

“I know,” Baekhyun says. “I’m making a point.”

Rubbing his hand over his face, Jongdae shakes his head.

“I’ve known you since we were what, twelve?” Baekhyun continues. “You used to steal dumplings from the market and blame it on me when we were chased.”

“The trick to that isn’t being fast,” Jongdae says, with some of his old humour, “it’s just being faster than your friend.”

“Amazing. Anyway, my point is, we know how to get out of things. Can’t you just… get a little injured? Maybe if you broke a wrist or foot, the boss would give you some time off. You clearly need it.”

But Jongdae shakes his head. “Can’t. Need the money.”

Baekhyun lifts an eyebrow at him. “What, you saving for an actual exit strategy now?”

Jongdae stares at him for a long time, an intense look he usually only gets when something is genuinely puzzling him. There’s something deeper there too, like anguish, or maybe fear.

After a moment, Baekhyun feels uncomfortable, “What?”

Finally, Jongdae says, quietly, “There’s something I need to show you.”

“What is it?”

Jongdae shakes his head again. “You’ll see. Later.”

“Shit. Now I’m intrigued.”

They drink in silence after that. While Baekhyun wouldn’t say the club is bad tonight, it’s got a different edge to it when the regulars aren’t around. Sure, Chanyeol still occupies the bar with the knowing ease of a man who understands how everything works, and Junmyeon still runs drinks to the tables between studying the club’s ledger and tallying all the outgoings. But it’s not the same, especially not now that he knows Jongdae has something big enough that he felt the need to hide it up until now.

When they finally step back outside around 10 pm, the streets have thinned out, late-night chatter fading into quieter residential blocks where the lamps stand farther apart and the rain falls uninterrupted between the rooftops. As they walk, Baekhyun keeps a half-step behind Jongdae out of habit, scanning intersections automatically and noting the shadows and parked cars the way a man does after too many years of needing to notice them.

Jongdae barely speaks. And that, more than anything, keeps Baekhyun curious. Usually, Jongdae fills space with a natural ease and idle commentary — complaints about the weather, bad jokes about the syndicate, occasional speculation about whether Chanyeol waters down the whiskey when the bottle runs low.

Tonight, he walks like someone carrying something too fragile to take his attention from.

They turn into a narrow street where laundry hangs like flags between the buildings and the air smells of soap and steamed rice, the sort of place where ordinary people live quiet lives that have nothing to do with the districts Baekhyun usually moves through.

“This is your big secret?” he asks.

Jongdae doesn’t answer. Instead, he leads them into one of the buildings and up the stairs to the top floor, one hand steady on the rail as though his body knows the way even when his mind is somewhere else. Baekhyun follows, studying the set of his shoulders, the careful rhythm of his breathing, the tension that sits in his body like a wire inside him has been pulled too tight. Baekhyun has seen Jongdae walk into rooms where men twice his size carried knives under their coats and never once slow his stride, but this staircase seems to require a different kind of courage.

Stopping before one of the doors, Jongdae knocks, two short raps followed by one more after a beat. A signal knock.

Standing behind him, rain drying along the collar of his coat, Baekhyun begins arranging this information slowly in his mind.

Apartment. Late hour. Quiet neighbourhood. Secret knock.

This isn’t a stash.

The door opens, and warm light spills out, haloing an unfamiliar figure standing in the doorway.

And suddenly, Baekhyun realises he has absolutely no idea what Jongdae has brought him here to see.

***

For some reason, he expected something larger. He doesn’t quite know why. Maybe because secrets usually come wrapped in locked doors and long staircases, maybe because Jongdae had looked so serious when he finally said the words there’s something I need to show you.

The woman who peers out at them through the door is slight and pretty, her hair tied loosely back from her face. The tightness that had been living between Jongdae’s shoulders dissolves instantly the way rain slides off warm pavement.

“You’re late,” she says, though her voice carries more fondness than reproach.

“I know,” Jongdae replies, stepping inside and glancing back at Baekhyun with the wary expression of someone introducing two halves of a life that were never meant to meet. “This is Baekhyun.”

The woman bows, though she never takes her eyes off Baekhyun, her wariness telling him that she already knows exactly who he is. “Please come in and make yourself comfortable.”

The apartment is small but bright, the kind of space where every object clearly belongs to someone. A low table sits beside the window. A pair of tiny shoes rests beside the door. Baekhyun’s attention catches on those shoes immediately, the sight of them striking him with a strange force he can’t quite name.

This isn’t like the places he moves through. Boarding houses with thin walls and thinner patience, where money changes hands at the door and no one asks questions so long as you don’t give them a reason to. Rooms that never quite settle, where people come and go in quiet cycles and nothing lingers long enough to become part of you. He’s learned to keep his footprint light in spaces like that, to leave before anything starts to feel fixed. Here, though — here things have roots.

Before he can ask anything, a blur of movement charges down the hallway.

“Appa!”

The child barrels straight into Jongdae’s legs with the reckless certainty of someone who has never once considered the possibility of danger. Jongdae bends automatically, lifting her with both arms and settling her against his hip while she laughs and grabs at the brim of his flat cap.

Baekhyun leans back against the wall, watching the scene unfold in silence.

The kid can’t be more than two or three, maybe four if he’s guessing badly. She studies him for a long moment with the grave intensity children sometimes have, the kind that feels like a small animal deciding whether you belong in its territory.

Jongdae clears his throat. “This is Baekhyun. I told you about him.”

Baekhyun raises a hand in greeting. “Hello.”

The girl tilts her head. “Bun bun.”

Jongdae laughs and for a moment he sounds like the twelve-year-old Baekhyun first met, back when the world seemed open with possibilities and opportunities and safety and innocence.

“Baekhyun,” Jongdae says patiently. “Say it with me, Baek. Hyun.”

“Bun bun!” the kid yells, pulling another snort from Jongdae.

Well, shit. Things just got a thousand times more complicated than Baekhyun could’ve guessed. It would’ve been easier if this were what he first thought it was — Jongdae getting ready to disappear, setting something aside for later, a clean line out of a life that doesn’t usually allow them. Part of him wishes it were only that.

Jongdae sets the child down and Baekhyun, not sure what to do, drops to his knees before her and offers the closest thing to a friendly smile that he knows. “You’re really small.”

The girl giggles.

Hm, so she can take criticism. Baekhyun likes her already. He glances up to find Jongdae staring at him with something close to anticipation. Whatever he’s expecting, it’s probably not for Baekhyun to sweep the girl up into his arms and rise to his feet.

“Hey, do you want to play a new game?” he asks her.

The child stares at him with the biggest eyes he’s ever seen. She smells like strawberries and too much energy.

With a smirk, Baekhyun makes a finger gun motion, aiming at Jongdae. “Bang bang.”

The girl shrieks with delight and curls her tiny fingers into a crooked imitation of a pistol, her small thumb jerking upward with great seriousness. “Bang bang!”

On cue, Jongdae feigns being shot and dramatically keels over, dropping to the floor and rolling around for a moment. “I can’t believe that’s the first thing you teach her,” he says out of the corner of his mouth.

Baekhyun shrugs. “You didn’t tell me about your secret family. Call this payback.”

Jongdae looks like he wants to insult him, but instead he gives one final death throe and then stills on the floor.

“Appa!” the girl squeals, struggling until Baekhyun sets her down.

As Jongdae starts to rise, the girl makes the finger pistol again and yells, “Bang bang!”

“Oh Jesus, you’ve broken her,” Jongdae says, pretending to fall again.

Baekhyun finds himself laughing despite himself. Then the child turns a keen eye on him, raises her hand and says, “Bang bang bun bun.”

Well, shit. Dutifully, Baekhyun drops to his knees, clutching his chest dramatically, still laughing, though the laughter has an edge to it.

Bang bang.

Out in the districts where they work, the words belong to something else entirely. They live in narrow alleys and empty warehouses and the quiet breath someone takes just before pulling a trigger. Baekhyun has heard that sound often enough to recognise the way it tears the air apart, the way bodies crumple afterwards, the way silence settles once it’s done.

Here, the words mean nothing at all.

The woman returns and ushers the little girl down the hallway, leaving him and Jongdae alone at last.

“Have a seat.” Jongdae indicates toward the threadbare sofa.

Everything in the room is worn, yet it’s cosy. Cosy in ways Baekhyun isn’t used to: toys all over the floor, a laundry rack drying a collection of socks and shirts and one dress, a few photographs set in frames on the surfaces, too many cushions on the sofa. Moving one aside, Baekhyun sits down and stares up at Jongdae from under his eyebrows.

“So…”

“I was planning to tell you anyway,” Jongdae says, removing his hat and setting it aside.

“What, when she turns twenty? Seriously. How long has it been?”

“Couple of years.”

“Jesus.”

“I’m sorry.” Something in Jongdae’s expression loosens, the hard vigilance Baekhyun has known since they were teenagers easing just enough to reveal the person who might have existed if the world had been kinder.

And the worst part is, Baekhyun understands. Deep down, he gets why Jongdae didn’t say anything sooner. If the roles were reversed, Baekhyun might never have said anything at all. Not when there’s so much to protect. A child who believes bang bang is a joke. A life that has nothing to do with the districts where men disappear in the middle of the night. He looks briefly back toward the door and that little pair of shoes.

“Why now, though?” he asks. “What made you change your mind?”

“Well, you’ve been bugging me…” Jongdae smiles, though the smile doesn’t touch his eyes.

Baekhyun huffs.

“Also,” Jongdae adds, coming over to the sofa and sitting down beside him. “A package arrived here a couple of days ago.”

“What kind of package?”

Jongdae doesn’t answer immediately. He leans forward, resting his forearms on his knees, his hands loosely clasped like he’s holding something invisible between them.

“There was no name on it,” he says. “No return address. Just a box.”

Baekhyun says, “And?”

“It was a red ribbon, tied into a bow. Like it was meant for her.” Jongdae’s face darkens, and the earlier stiffness returns across the back of his shoulders. “It was left inside the apartment while we were out.”

Oh. Fuck. Suddenly, the room, the windows, the door, don’t feel as cosy as they did. Automatically, Baekhyun finds his eyes wandering over everything, checking for anything that looks out of place. He rises smoothly and strides to the door, opens it, checks outside where the hallway is quiet and empty, then closes it again.

“You get the locks changed already?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“And what about your woman?”

“She’s scared,” Jongdae says. “But we can’t afford to move. I just… I don’t have the funds.”

“Yeah, that’s how they keep us on the hook.” Baekhyun drags a hand down over his face, feeling a new weight settle into place inside him. In their line of work, loyalty follows money. It always has.

But there are rare exceptions.

And Jongdae is one of them.

A line has been drawn here, and someone, somewhere, thinks they can reach into this soft, untouched space and use it to move the pieces on the board. Baekhyun’s gaze drifts toward the narrow hall where the woman and child disappeared; further back, he can still hear the kid laughing.

Small shoes.

Strawberry scent.

No, not this. They don’t get to touch this.

“All right,” he finally says, his voice quiet and steady. “Then we fix it.”

“How?”

Only now does Baekhyun smile. “The way we always do.”

***

The den lies below street level, beneath a tea house that pretends not to know what happens under its floorboards. From the outside, there’s nothing to mark it beyond a narrow stairwell tucked between stacked crates and a door at the end. Baekhyun takes the steps first with a steady and unhurried pace. Behind him, Jongdae follows close enough that he can feel the shift in his movements, the slight recalibration that always happens when they step into a room where attention matters. The air changes halfway down, warmer, thicker, smoke-laced.

By the time they reach the bottom, sound rises to meet them: tiles clicking against wood, low voices mumbling, glasses clinking, the soft slap of cards being laid down with quiet confidence. From somewhere near the back, a gramophone turns slow and steady, the needle riding a worn groove as Bix Beiderbecke’s Singin’ the Blues slips through the room. Smoke hangs low beneath the ceiling, caught in the weak glow of electric bulbs strung along exposed beams. The light pools over a cluster of tables where men lean in close, sleeves rolled and eyes sharp.

A game of hwatu is in full swing near the far wall, red and black cards flashing between fingers quick enough to blur, while another table hosts a slower, heavier round of baduk, stones placed with deliberate care as if each one carries weight beyond the board. Somewhere near the back, a man pours soju from an unmarked glass bottle, the scent cutting through the tobacco just enough to linger.

Baekhyun licks his lips and pauses in the doorway, gaze moving across the room. Faces. Positions. Hands. Who glances up.

“Evening,” he says, like he’s just stepped into a place he owns.

A few heads turn. A few don’t.

That’s fine.

Beside him, Jongdae adjusts his cuffs with a deliberate casualness. Whatever slipped in the apartment, he’s pulling it back into place now, piece by piece.

Good.

They move in together and head toward the central table, where a man sits with a narrow face and a habit of licking his thumb before touching his cards. He glances up, recognition crossing his features before he schools it into something more neutral.

“Didn’t expect to see you tonight,” he says.

Baekhyun smiles, easy as anything. “We get bored.”

The man snorts. “That so?”

Jongdae reaches for a chair without asking, turning it slightly before sitting, the angle giving him a clear line of sight to the door, the back hallway, the stairs they just came down. Baekhyun takes the opposite side, leaning one hip against the edge of the table rather than sitting, his posture loose, his presence anything but.

“What’s the game?” Baekhyun asks, nodding toward the cards.

“Hwatu,” the man replies. “You playing?”

“Not tonight.”

“Shame.” The man flicks a card down. “You’ve got a good hand for it.”

Baekhyun’s smile changes just a little. “I’ve got a good hand for a lot of things.” The cornet line wavers somewhere behind them from the speaker, stretching thin as the room tightens.

A couple of others at the table chuckle under their breath, but the man doesn’t. “You boys need something?” he asks.

Jongdae, who has been silent up until now, taps out a gentle beat with his fingers on the table. “We’re looking for something.”

The man doesn’t look up, though Baekhyun notices how his fingers slow on the cards. “Oh?”

“A package,” Baekhyun says. “Small. Delivered where it shouldn’t be.”

“Doesn’t sound like my business,” the man says.

“No?” Tilting his head to one side, Baekhyun considers him. “That’s odd. It sounds exactly like your business to me. You are the mover of things, are you not?”

The man’s lip curls at the corners, and he tightens his grip on the cards just enough to crease. “Lots of things move through here. You’ll have to be more specific.”

Leaning forward, Jongdae stares at him, hard, the light catching the sharp line of his jaw, his lips curved into a humourless smile. “A red ribbon,” he says. “New. Tied into a bow.”

Around the table, the rhythm of the game falters. A card hesitates midair before it’s placed. Someone at the next table glances over, then looks away immediately. Baekhyun clocks all of it, filing each reaction away without breaking the easy line of his posture.

“It was left inside,” Jongdae adds, softer now, “while the place was empty.”

The man snorts softly. “You’re asking the wrong questions.”

“Are we?” Baekhyun says.

“I deal in moving things of importance, not petty warnings.”

“Petty…” Jongdae echoes.

“Careful,” Baekhyun says to the man. He lets the silence stretch just enough for it to become uncomfortable, and then reaches out to pluck a card off the table without asking, turning it over between his fingers as if he’s actually considering the game. A crane. Red sun. He sets it back down in front of the man. “You’re nervous,” he says.

“I assure you, I’m not.”

“Your hand says otherwise.”

A muscle in the man’s jaw jumps. “You came here to play games, or—”

Before he can finish, Baekhyun moves. His grip around the man’s wrist is firm and unyielding, the kind of hold that doesn’t look like much until you try to pull away. Chairs scrape against the floorboards. Someone coughs. The hwatu table falls entirely silent now, every eye carefully not looking directly at them.

“We came here,” Baekhyun says, still smiling, “because someone decided to reach into something that doesn’t belong to them. That makes it our business, and when something becomes our business, we like to understand how it got that way.”

Jongdae is silent and watchful, but this time his quietness sits differently, more anchored and deliberate than ever.

The man swallows. “You’re barking up the wrong tree.”

“Then point us to the right one,” Jongdae says.

“I don’t know.”

Tightening his grip, Baekhyun says, “You do.”

“I don’t,” the man insists, but for the briefest moment his eyes flick toward the back of the room where a narrow door disappears behind a thick, velvet hanging curtain.

There it is.

Baekhyun releases him and the man snaps his hand back, rubbing at his wrist as if he can erase the pressure.

“See?” Baekhyun says, straightening. He smooths his palms down the front of his waistcoat and pretends to flick a spec of dust away. “That wasn’t so difficult.”

Jongdae rises at the same time. “Who’s back there?”

The man hesitates. Then he says, “Lim’s running a table tonight. Came in late. Brought two others with him.”

Lim, Baekhyun mouths at Jongdae. From the warehouse and the meeting. Huh.

“Appreciate it,” he says to the man.

They head toward the back of the room, pushing the curtain aside as the low murmur of conversation picks up again behind them.

As they move, Baekhyun leans just enough toward Jongdae that his voice doesn’t carry. “You with me now?” he asks.

Jongdae’s mouth curves, soft but real this time. “Always.”

“Good. Because I have a feeling things are about to get unfriendly.”

***

The air beyond the curtain is warmer and closer, the noise of the main room folding in on itself until it becomes something distant and muffled. Jongdae falls into step with him without a word. At the end of the narrow hall, another room opens out, smaller than the main floor, with a single table at its centre where cards lie scattered between empty glasses, and a stack of coins glints dully in the low light. Three men sit around the table. Two more stand off to one side, their conversation cutting off the moment Baekhyun and Jongdae step through.

And there is Mr Lim. He sits with his back to them, one elbow resting on the table, a cigarette burning slow between his fingers. While he doesn’t look up immediately, his back stiffens the smallest bit, which tells Baekhyun he’s aware of the change in atmosphere.

Good.

Baekhyun doesn’t stop walking until he’s close enough that Lim has no choice but to acknowledge him. Then he reaches out, plucks the cigarette neatly from Lim’s hand, and stubs it out in the ashtray before leaning back.

“Careless,” he says lightly. “You’ll burn the place down.”

Across the room, Jongdae has already moved to the other side of the table, not blocking the exit exactly but standing in a way that makes the idea of leaving feel… less appealing.

Lim looks up. “Didn’t expect you.”

Tilting his head thoughtfully, Baekhyun says, “No. People rarely do.”

Lim glances between them. “We just had a meeting.”

“And now we’re having another.” Baekhyun pulls out a chair and turns it before sitting down with his arms resting across the back. “Lucky you.”

The two guys standing near the wall shuffle their feet a little, but they don’t step closer. Not yet.

“Give us a minute,” Baekhyun says to the two other guys sitting near Lim. He can tell they’re not heavies, just run-of-the-mill gamblers by the way they hold themselves. Silently, they both rise and head out, the curtain swishing with a soft whisper as they leave.

Lim turns to Baekhyun. “If this is about the shipment—”

“It isn’t,” Jongdae interrupts, quick and clean as a blade.

Lim falters, and Baekhyun takes the opportunity to lean forward, his attention fixed entirely on Lim but the easy smile stripped of anything warm. “We’re here about a package. No name. No return address.”

Lim acts easy, shrugging.

“A ribbon,” Baekhyun continues. “Tied into a bow. The kind of thing that’d be perfect for a little girl. Is this ringing any bells?”

A little unsteadily, Lim retrieves another cigarette from his pack of Lucky Strikes and attempts to light it, but the match fails. “I don’t know anything about any red ribbon,” he says.

Baekhyun tilts his head, catching Jongdae’s eyes briefly. “Interesting.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t say it was red.”

Lim opens his mouth, then closes it again.

From the corner of his eye, Baekhyun sees Jongdae take a small step closer to the two men near the wall, tightening the space. It’s barely perceptible, but he always recognises the way Jongdae moves when he’s winding up for action.

Lim scoffs, a brittle sound. “I’m just doing my job.”

“Aren’t we all,” Baekhyun says, and then he moves before the thought has fully formed, his hand shooting out and knocking the stack of coins, sending them scattering across the surface with a sudden clatter that cuts through the room like a gunshot.

The two men at the wall push off in the same breath, one reaching inside his coat while the other comes straight in, shoulders squared, weight already committed.

Jongdae meets them, and the beautiful thing about him — the thing Baekhyun likes the most — is that he never rushes. He steps forward into their space like he’s been waiting for this exact moment, his hand snapping out to catch the first man’s wrist before the coat can even open properly. The motion happens cleanly, the man’s arm twisting hard across his own body as Jongdae drives him down into the edge of the table with a dull, heavy crack that rattles the glasses. Blood flecks the polished wood and the man’s lips.

The second man comes in swinging, and Jongdae pivots just enough to let the blow glance past his shoulder. He catches the man’s sleeve and drags him forward while he lifts his knee, folding the man at the centre before Jongdae turns with the momentum and sends him crashing sideways into the wall hard enough to knock the breath clean out of him.

The first man tries to recover, but Jongdae doesn’t give him the chance. He drives his palm into the back of the man’s head and slams it back down against the table once, “Not,” twice, “My,” three times, “Family,” the wood jumping under the impact before the man goes slack and still. All the while, Jongdae stares at Lim.

“Unpleasant, isn’t it?” Baekhyun says, leaning in so that he’s speaking directly into Lim’s ear. “Terrible business, really.”

Behind Jongdae, the second man pushes off the wall with a desperate surge, and Baekhyun catches the glint of something metallic in his hand. Jongdae catches it mid-swing. Their arms lock for a second, tension pulling tight between them, and then Jongdae steps in and turns the wrist with a brutal jerk that forces the man’s hand open. The blade clatters to the floor. Jongdae doesn’t pay it any attention, though; he steps in close and drives his elbow into the man’s throat.

The sound that follows is small and wet and final.

For a moment, the room goes still and quiet. Lim looks about ready to bolt, which is a really, really stupid idea.

“Easy,” Baekhyun tells him.

Slowly, Lim settles back down in his chair. “I told you, I didn’t—”

Baekhyun grabs his hand in a flash and drags it closer, singling out his pinkie finger. “Let’s try this again. How did you find out where he lives?”

But Lim just shakes his head.

The first finger breaks with a clean, bright crack, and Lim screams.

“You have nine more, and I’ve got all night,” Baekhyun says.

“All right!” Lim wails, trying to pull his hand back, finding nothing but cold resistance. “All right! I — I had him followed after the warehouse.”

“Why?”

Lim gulps in huge lungfuls of air that sound wet and dragging. Must be all that pain. “It was just a warning. He doesn’t move like the others.” Lim carefully avoids Jongdae’s eyes and speaks to Baekhyun instead. “I wanted to know what he was hiding. That’s all, I swear. I’d never really hurt a woman and a kid.”

Slowly, Baekhyun releases Lim’s hand. “There. That wasn’t so hard.” He pats Lim on the back as he rises from his chair. “Could’ve been a lot worse, eh?”

Shaking and cradling his hand to his chest, Lim glares up at him from under his eyebrows, but he nods.

Stepping smoothly over the man sprawled on the floor, Jongdae comes around the table and retrieves a handkerchief from his pocket. They turn to leave.

“Next time,” Baekhyun says, pausing in the doorway. “Why don’t you try coming after me instead? That’d be fun.”

Once back up at street level, Baekhyun blows out a huge breath and rakes his fingers through his hair. He glances sideways at Jongdae.

“You’ve got a little blood on you.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“What? You do.”

“You don’t have to enjoy it all so much,” Jongdae tells him, wiping the blood off his hands as they start down the street.

“What else do I have to look forward to?” Baekhyun counters, but he’s grinning now, full of adrenaline, and for a moment it feels like old times, before Jongdae’s secret and all the complications that’ve come with it.

Jongdae glances at him. “Do you want to come back for a bit?”

Baekhyun considers this. He could head back to one of the boarding houses he rotates through, pay cash, take a room that smells of someone else’s smoke and aftershave, and leave again before anyone has the chance to remember his face. It’s easy, it’s clean — it’s the way he’s always done it.

Instead, his mind catches on a different image. Small shoes beside a door. Photographs in frames on the surfaces. A child laughing like the world hasn’t taught her anything sharp yet.

For a moment, the pull of it sits there, quiet and unfamiliar.

Then he rolls his shoulders like he’s shaking something loose. “Sure,” he says at last, easy again, like the decision doesn’t matter either way. “Why not?”

***

They arrive at The Blue Lantern two nights later, just shy of midnight. Baekhyun breathes in the familiar scent of whiskey and Havana smoke, and a sense of equilibrium that he hasn’t felt in a while settles over him.

Inside, the room moves easy, chatter low and friendly, familiar faces going about their business. He immediately notices that Kyungsoo is back at the piano, his fingers moving over the keys while the melody drifts and settles over the patrons like smoke. On the floor, Jongin dances, rhythm gathering around him as he turns, smooth as silk, and grins to himself. They both look happy, and that makes Baekhyun happy because everything is where it should be, and in Baekhyun’s world, that matters.

Glancing sideways at Jongdae, he says, “Feels good tonight.”

“Yeah,” Jongdae loosens his cuffs. “It really does.” The last few weeks have taken a toll on him, Baekhyun can see, but he’s steadier and more focused again which makes their job a hell of a lot easier, and it also makes the downtime all the sweeter.

They take their usual spot at table four and wait until Junmyeon runs their drinks over. Baekhyun glances across to where Kim Minseok sits alone at table nine, shadowed beneath the clean line of his hat, a glass resting in his fingers while his attention moves through the room.

Only this time, Minseok openly notices him noticing, and their gazes meet for a second.

Then, to Baekhyun’s surprise, Minseok lifts his glass and tilts it in his direction the smallest bit.

Without thinking about it, he returns the gesture.

Minseok’s attention slips away again, as though nothing has passed between them at all.

Behind the bar, Chanyeol watches this unfold. He nods at them in greeting before turning back to the young drummer Sehun who’s perched on one of the stools, leaning loose against the counter with his sticks in his hands, tapping out a soft, idle rhythm. Beside him, Yixing murmurs something low which makes Chanyeol laugh and Sehun smirk.

Baekhyun eases back in the chair, slipping his leather gloves off and setting them neatly on the table beside Jongdae’s flat cap. The whiskey creates a pool of warmth in his chest as he takes a swig. Outside this room, the city is full of sharp corners and broken promises, men who ask too many questions and places where the air still remembers what happened there. Inside the Lantern, things move differently.

Jongdae is watching Jongin on the dance floor now, the last of the tension working its way out of him as the rhythm of the room does what it always does — smoothing edges, settling things that don’t quite fit anywhere else. The lantern outside burns steadily above the door, casting its mellow blue light over the street while the night eases into early morning.

The city will keep moving.

Problems will keep appearing.

That’s just how their world works.

But some things sit outside of that, held carefully in places like this, in rooms where the air is warm and free from expectation, where the music knows how to carry what people don’t say.

Baekhyun understands that clearer than ever now, and if anyone forgets it, they’ll be reminded.

One way or another.