Work Text:
It takes a 5-person crew to pull off what they do.
Jinu's head is knocked back at the end of Abby's sucker punch, the sharp crack of bone splitting echoing down the alleyway. He's held back by Mystery and Baby, arms locked behind himself as he takes blow after blow.
It's late evening, after most office workers would wrap up their bar nights and begin to head home. The street light flickering across Jinu's bloodied and bruised face, flashing his injuries for drunks and homeless alike.
Romance is huddled in his tattered sleeping bag, wearing a dark greasy wig and fake beard, playing the sound track of Jinu's pain over and over again. He is an apathetic bystander, a beggar dressed in borrowed clothes.
As Abby draws back his fist, he drops his other hand to his belt to take out a switchblade. He starts to bring it down and freezes at hearing a scream.
Romance switches off the track.
He, Baby, and Mystery drop Jinu and run off to the other end of the alleyway. Their victim heaving great gasping breaths as a stranger comes on over to help him up.
They're a foreigner, jackpot.
The woman looks no older than college-aged, a little tipsy, and asking in simple Korean if he's alright. Jinu asks in broken English if she could call him an uber, that he needs the hospital.
One comes in under three minutes. Mystery is drives them to a curb of a public hospital. All while Jinu begs for money because he'd already been mugged and the hospital bills need paying.
The tourist is too kind—they usually are, and soon he pockets $50 USD. And whatever cards she had on her phone was copied onto a jail-broken scanning device hidden on Jinu's person.
There's variants to this scam, of course. Broken vases and insurance. Swiped credit cards. Online romance scams—Jinu may not like his line of work as a debt-slave, but he only had so many skills to use as a starving theatrical artist.
This one just required renting a car and slapping a fake ride-share sign on the back window. And praying that they wouldn't be pulled over by cops for driving without a license.
The tourist doesn't follow him into the hospital, and Mystery takes her to the nearest public train station. She'll probably be fine. South Korea is one of the safer countries for tourists like her.
He ditches his blood-red syrupy top, stuffing it in a plastic bag. Baby picks him up on a scooter and he holds onto his boyfriend's waist tightly. They slice through the evening night with mild abandon.
They meet the others at Abby's place, a rinky dink half-basement unit with a just-good enough set up and wifi for Romance to make use of the credit cards swiped.
They've got pizza and combi kimchi out to snack on when the cards are accessed and—"Fuck, she's over balance!"
The five of them groan.
"How much can we get off of it?" Mystery asks, tone sounding bored.
"Maybe $100, or $200? She gonna call her bank tonight?"
"Nope. She was real outta it in the car."
Jinu leans his head back, skull thunking against a paint-cracked wall. All that work for nothing.
"Hey." Baby kisses his neck, causing him to splutter. "They can't all be winners."
The other three start spitballing more quick cash ideas to meet the day's quota:
"Try milking that dude from Ohio some more. He wants to see ass yeah?"
"Where even is Ohio?"
"Canada I think. Doesn't matter. He loves Mystery's pale ass."
"Fine. We putting anything in there?"
"We're out of lube." Mystery deadpans.
"Can we even get $50 for her phone?" Jinu mutters to him, turning to nuzzle his nose with a soft huff. Baby kisses his jaw next. "We could try hitting up Hongdae, night's still young."
"Nah. You still smell like flour and grime." Baby wrinkles his nose. "Let's take a bath, yea?"
"Together?" Jinu rolls his eyes. "You're such a perv."
"It's for water conservation purposes." The teal-haired man slips out of his arms, and starts to stretch. "Can't fit more than 2 people in that bath tub anyway."
"Not an excuse to suck my dick huh?" He tosses aside the stolen phone, and tunes out the other three.
"Absolutely not." They both know he's lying.