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There’s nothing quite like a fire drill alarm on the dawn of a Monday morning.
The siren resounds, flashes of neon blue and white flooding the ambiance in dizzying frequency like evacuation signals. Legs that were previously sprawled atop the table are now firmly rooted to the ground, hunched frame swirling in robust office chairs now stout in alarm.
“It’s an emergency meeting,” says the girl next to him, a tablet of security data abandoned on the desk as she stands up. Lee Jihye’s eyes glance up to search his, as equally panic-stricken as he feels. “Must be about AETHER.”
Yoo Joonghyuk makes a click at the back of his tongue, shoving his office chair away before hopping past the desk and down the rapidly lit hallway.
The shorter figure brushes by his side, effortlessly catching up, and Yoo Joonghyuk internally sneers. Of course, Lee Jihye is the only other agent tied in rank with him when it comes to physical training.
“Whoever gets to the lab first calls dibs on the assignment?” Says the girl, breath steady despite following suit. They take a sharp turn down a flight of stairs, and even then, she shows no sign of exhilaration or fatigue. Must feel like a morning jog to her— as it is for Yoo Joonghyuk.
He scoffs, blows a hair strand out of his eye, and takes a lousy grip on the railing. He skips the stairs, scaling the planes with one swift toss of his lower body. A casual stunt for agents their rank, and especially agents of his calibre.
And he does it well, too. He lands like a cat— effortlessly, naturally, and steadily on all his feet.
From above, Yoo Joonghyuk catches a flash of nuisance glow in Lee Jihye’s eyes as she leaps down the stairs, three at a time.
“You said it first, so don’t sulk if you lose,” he tosses, before disappearing down the automated sliding door again. As expected, it takes him only approximately three strides to have Lee Jihye back by his side again.
“With all due respect, senior agent King,” breathes Lee Jihye, and Yoo Joonghyuk notices a slight heave in her chest as it rises and falls with each intake. So now she looks like a normal human with a functioning respiratory system. “I don’t plan on losing to an old man.”
Yoo Joonghyuk almost trips on his feet, uncharacteristic of him, steps stuttering from surprise at the insult. Lee Jihye is usually very courteous with him; which can only mean she used this trick to throw him off, because they both knew it would work. “You brat.”
And it did. Lee Jihye gets to the lab first, stamping her handprint down the scanner by the door like she’s just successfully won a game of tag. To an extent, it was. Cheater.
The older man only grumbles in displeasure as he watches the LED turn green in recognition, the door buzzing apart with a subtle whir. Lee Jihye walks in without sparing him as much as a snarky glance.
Yoo Joonghyuk scans his palm afterward, trudging past the door with a light pant under his breath. He does his walk of shame as he sees himself inside. The automated AI greets him; ‘Welcome, Agent King’.
From amongst the back of the crowd surrounding the lab desk, a ponytailed head turns upon hearing his name. Her lips contort into a melodramatic downturn, shrugging as if to challenge him.
Yoo Joonghyuk can only rub his forehead as he seizes the distance, now a part of said crowd. Fun’s over.
“So, what’s the fuss about?”
The head scientist twirls in her chair, turning to face the accumulated crowd. There’s a frown on her face that she wears more often than the curls in her hair, a pair of specs sitting on her nose bridge like it’s a permanent accessory. Perhaps it is.
“AETHER pinged the server.”
In her hand is a pen and a transparent tablet screen, situated on her lap above crossed legs. She stares down at it with a knot in her brows, the line on her face deepening as she finally looks up to meet the eyes of her audience.
“It’s a Black level crime. First one this year.”
Yoo Joonghyuk recognises the woman in front of him as agent Croft—too smart and serious for her age, head of the FBI’s intelligence department, and the lead proctor of the world’s first and most secretive clairvoyant technology: AETHER.
“Is everyone from the Black division here?” Says the woman, eyes scrutinising each and every inch of their faces, doing a headcount. The lack of benevolent intent in her eyes only makes her gaze deeper than it really should.
They graze to meet his, and stay on him for a second longer than they should. He narrows his eyes.
Something about the agent always makes Yoo Joonghyuk uneasy. It must be one of the many required qualities to be eligible for a position as daunting as this.
“Yes, ma’am. Everyone’s present.” Beside him, Lee Jihye promptly answers, chin held high with not an ounce of wavering in her tone.
Something about junior agents and their determination to appear as responsible as they could to Anna Croft amuses Yoo Joonghyuk. Like the woman hasn’t been at his job for a decade and wouldn’t see right through them.
“Good,” she says, her monotonous voice making it all the more disinterested— either that or the woman simply doesn’t give a damn— before turning around again. “You’d already know, but your division would not be assembled unless something is predicted to pose a global threat.”
Anna Croft doesn’t wait to hear the other’s acknowledgement, punching in a few keys on her transparent keyboard before a handful of data transcribes themselves onto the gigantic screen opposite them.
Yoo Joonghyuk internally marvels at the aesthetic display. Definitely some next-level, FBI shit— except it is.
As the nation’s top security facility, they never lack in technology, and are always utilising the latest. Visual elements are of no exception; with the head agent’s office desk being the same width as a studio bedroom, curved for easy accessibility and minimised to all light-sensitive interceptors as hardwares.
The monitor in front of him can almost serve as a full-sized movie screen, the contents in display also curved for convenient, angled viewing.
Data pops up in neon green letters, and one by one, filling up the wide space of the monitor. Pictures load in sonic speed with the press of a single key; and in no time at all, their assignment is displayed in front of them.
“Anybody recognise this man?”
Anna Croft announces to the team like she’s talking about the weather, leaning back in his chair; too unbothered to turn around again.
There’s a beat of silence as the rest of the squad exchanges wary glances, staying quiet out of disagreement. On the edge of his periphery, Yoo Joonghyuk notices Lee Jihye’s lip part, about to make an inquiry with a raised hand— how civil, as if they’re in class and asking a question— before Yoo Joonghyuk interrupts.
“I do.”
All eyes turn to him. Whether out of fascination or horrification, Yoo Joonghyuk responds with an indifferent glance. His heart accelerates only slightly when he meets eyes with the augmented image of the ‘assignment’ in question again.
First, let’s fill everyone up with a little bit of backstory.
To keep it brief; Yoo Joonghyuk is an agent at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. And he is no average feat at that. He is in the highest-ranked, most secretive division of the agents: the Black division.
Around him are his teammates, whom he seldom meets or interacts with outside of work—which he considers to be good, since the lesser the meeting, the lesser the workload. Afterall, they aren’t simple colleagues; they are top agents of the FBI. Meeting frequently can signify anything but good.
Granted, with the exception of Lee Jihye: the newest addition to the squad, in which he is advised to be taken under his wing.
Sometimes, there are pros to being the first member of the division (having the biggest office space, privilege to attend executive discussions, first at contact with the higher-ups), as there are cons (participation in training new recruits, and Yoo Joonghyuk’s least favourite: babysitting said recruits once they make it past the test and enlist.)
In the FBI, agents are divided into three divisions with colour codes: white, red, and black.
Agents in the White division deal with the lowest, most tedious levels of the crime— not low enough to be considered local police-level work, but nothing beyond what a great exhaustion of physical intimidation and a gunshot wouldn’t solve.
At least, to Yoo Joonghyuk’s experience, it’s what he recalls. As of now, he starkly remembers that there are currently three hundred and four agents in the White division.
(Why the specification in number, you may ask? Yoo Joonghyuk would reply begrudgingly, with a disdained look in his eyes, that he was requested by Anna Croft to train all of them.)
The next level, the Red division, deals with uglier crimes. They are as heinous as they are exasperating; Yoo Joonghyuk would compare it to being in your sophomore to junior year of university, where you have to give presentations every single day.
He personally thinks that the in-between years are always the toughest, with the most assignments and dirty work to be done. It turns out that, even in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the same rule applies.
Team Red agents are more skilled, with more advanced training provided and intensive focuses on their skillset deviations. Red Agents all have at least one strong forté that makes them useful to the team, competent with physique and superior strengths that secures an almost irreplaceable contribution to the assignment. Whether it be combat, intelligence, social, or weaponry; red agents are proficient in all, and affluent in at least one.
The gap of numbers between the White and Red division is offset by a whooping digit; with only thirty agents in the division.
The Black division, however, is the highest current rank there is within the operational agents of the Bureau. While the White Division deals with civil-level crimes; the Red handles national and governmental level ones.
And as for the Black, they are not to handle the assignments—the assignments are to handle them. Only a handful of people know of this division’s existence, and even fewer have encountered them.
Known as the FBI’s trump card, the most treasured of their resources, they are the last trick up the Bureau’s sleeve.
And smart players, who know how to play their cards, do not resort to their ending means often.
The Black agents are only summoned against cases beyond what the nation is capable of handling— international level crimes, when no other alternative solutions exist.
In this lab right now, next to Yoo Joonghyuk, are presumably the most gifted, exceptional individuals this country has to offer.
Black agents, like the Red, climb up the rankings from having been White agents. And although the ambition to be a part of such privilege rings true amongst hundreds; only a handful redeems themselves worthy while the rest die trying.
Yoo Joonghyuk is the first Red agent to successfully pass the Black trial, becoming the first member of the division in the Bureau’s history. It’s not something he boasts about daily, but he does take pride in his name— other junior agents spread his legacy in his stead.
(He only learns that the White agents idolise him when he is tasked to train them, and they’re more willing to cooperate than what would be deemed natural.)
To say he has gone through hell and back to stand where he does now would be an understatement—he has seen hell, paid weekly visits, had exchanged souls with the devil, and returned to his conscience stark naked with none left to spare.
An overdramatic statement, but looking back at the difficulty of the assignments, is it really?
In order to become a member of the Black division, each agent has to go through extensive trials to test their capabilities.
Yoo Joonghyuk remembers that calling the test a heavenly testament would be more practical than a trial. It was near impossible to pass, and is a gamble of their lives to redeem their ambition and resilience.
It takes endurance stronger than mortality to stand in this very lab with a black uniform.
And right now, he can count on one finger the said people who had successfully redeemed themselves, joining him in this room.
Yoo Joonghyuk casts a wandering gaze around. Next to him are familiar faces; colleagues he has gone through life and death with, but does not know each other’s family names. Some are about his generation, passing the trial only a handful of months after he has.
His gaze stops at the steel gaze of an otherwise beautiful face; Han Sooyoung, alias Flame, whom he has held hands with while flirting with death a few times on their joint missions as Red Agents. What an eye candy.
She is amongst one of the only few agents that he has shared first names with. They go way back. Han Sooyoung isn’t a particularly combat-intensive agent, with her field of strength laying more in weaponry. She is the assigned sniper of the team, with impeccable aim and the cleanest gunshots he’s ever seen laid on a person. No one knows how to reload and assemble a gun quicker than she does.
Han Sooyoung notices his gaze, and only slightly narrows hers. Yoo Joonghyuk’s brow quirks as a greeting.
Next to the male, a sight of ruffled caramel brown curls greet him. An agent with the kindest pair of eyes he’s ever seen, smile so warm whenever she encounters anybody— Yoo Sangah, alias Arachne, tall and well-built in physique, aligned shoulders and strong legs. But physique is not her strength.
Despite being enlisting in the same generation as Lee Jihye, Yoo Sangah passed the trial way quicker, having been a Black agent for almost two years since its commencement of five years ago. Although she is a credible contender in all required fields, her utmost strength lies in a quality that is as feeble as it is crucial to agent work: social.
Yoo Joonghyuk can very well say that he’s never met a person who’s as good with their words as Yoo Sangah, a top social engineer, bending and steering conversations at will. As such, she is the assigned negotiator of the team, and it is very rare that Yoo Sangah doesn’t successfully coerce the needed answers out of a person.
Yoo Joonghyuk can count on one hand the people that wound up preferring torture over a conversation with Yoo Sangah (same difference, in his opinion).
Although the gentleness in her face conceals the unspeakable deeds she’s done as an agent, Yoo Joonghyuk thinks Yoo Sangah is subsequently the most human— and inhuman one out of the bunch.
Under different circumstances where they’re allowed to be friends outside of work, Yoo Joonghyuk would very much fancy a friendship with Yoo Sangah— yet he also couldn’t imagine going on her bad side. After seeing what the woman is capable of behind that smile, holding a normal conversation is suddenly a much more jarring feat.
Coupled with Yoo Sangah’s kind face and lack of threatening element in the way she carries herself, it all offsets her cunningness even more— and that, in Yoo Joonghyuk’s opinion, is what makes a person truly mortifying. He has never seen anyone fail to talk while left alone in a room with her.
If being an agent doesn’t work out for her, Yoo Joonghyuk thinks that Yoo Sangah would still have a very bright future as a hypnotist— or, if she is lured by the black market during her failed attempts, a scammer.
The woman catches his gaze, and her eyes twinkle immediately. It almost stuns Yoo Joonghyuk how quickly she detects a person staring. How quaint.
Behind them are a bunch of more familiar faces, although none that Yoo Joonghyuk remembers having a notable impression of: Lee Gilyoung, alias Antinus, the one with really gentle features and majoring in linguistics, brown locks and some freckles on his face.
He looks kind and is shorter in build, but don’t let his looks fool you— he is a master in communications, as he speaks over ten European languages and ten more Asian ones. Some say he can even talk to animals; even insects.
Even aside from this very beneficial social skill, Lee Gilyoung is also known to be a fast and quick fighter, mastering all forms of daggers and close combat weaponries.
Outside of work circumstances, they’ve exchanged a couple words at best. Lee Gilyoung notices him staring, but only makes an effort to send him an indifferent gaze. Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t think the guy likes him very much. He doesn’t bother to muse about why. In their line of work, they don’t need to like each other to work well together.
The male next to Gilyoung is about the same height as Yoo Joonghyuk is, although being the same age as Lee Jihye and enlisted within the same year: Kim Namwoon, alias Demon, messy white hair and an angular face, a monster of mixed martial arts and hand-to-hand combat.
He’s heard rumours that due to his wealthy family background, Kim Namwoon was exposed to an abundance of privileged resources other agents weren’t able to access growing up; having received accolades in all forms of martial arts since prime adolescence. He’s gotten training from different parts of the world, and is well-accustomed to all forms of combat styles: be it taekwondo, karate, systema, judo, jujitsu, kung fu, and the list goes on.
Although a rookie agent by standard, Kim Namwoon has climbed from White to Red in just two years, and two more to be a Black. His ascent, although suspiciously fast, makes perfect sense the moment Yoo Joonghyuk meets the male. They shook hands once, and Yoo Joonghyuk could almost feel his palm snapping off his wrist. He had to ice it for the next two hours.
And next to him stands— of course—Lee Jihye, alias Admiral: the newest generation of the Black Agents, and his apprentice.
Although being in the same age range as Kim Namwoon, Lee Jihye isn’t up to comparison with the former with hand-to-hand combat; she doesn’t measure up by a far distance. But what the young female lacks, she makes up for in other areas.
Not only is he a fast learner in all aspects and exceptional in armed combat—almost comparable to Yoo Joonghyuk—Lee Jihye’s biggest strength lies in something neither of them can replace: intelligence.
She was handpicked by Anna Croft herself, and that’s what shocked the members upon her entry. Anna Croft seldom takes a liking to any Red agents, even the ones working under her own guidance in the intelligence department; much less rookies.
It only goes to show how outstanding Lee Jihye’s prowess is in the field of intelligence, for her to be worthy of a recommendation from Anna Croft. After all, a Black agent is certainly not to be underestimated.
Words from gossip among the Reds have it that Lee Jihye speaks numbers more fluently than she does words. Yoo Joonghyuk has heard about Lee Jihye’s legacy as much as he’s heard of Kim Namwoon’s: a gifted prodigy since a young age, in all fields of science and especially magnificent in mathematics.
This, later on in life, hones her toward an upbringing in the coding world. Now as an adult and with a computer science degree from MIT, there isn’t any software that Lee Jihye can’t develop; and of course, none that she couldn’t hack into.
Although she lacks field experience, Lee Jihye makes up for that with sharp wits, immense critical thinking and problem solving skills. She may be an amateur in comparison to the rest of the Black agents, but Lee Jihye has since proven her competence for her spot with her reliability and consistency during the last few missions. Hence, she is now the designated computer person of the team.
And alongside being Yoo Joonghyuk’s apprentice, she gains combat experience from the older to make up for her lack of field work, filling up all the criteria to further strengthen her skillset. Yoo Joonghyuk thinks that Lee Jihye is among the most dedicated, hardworking, and clever agents of the new generation he’s come across.
And as of current, counting himself, there are only six Black agents still operating in the Bureau.
Lee Jihye, Kim Namwoon and Lee Gilyoung are the more recent additions to the team, since the latest members occupying the position prior died during some missions gone astray.
It’s nothing to be woeful about, Yoo Joonghyuk likes to think. In a job like theirs, death is inevitably a factor that always looms at the back of their minds; an unspoken doom that no one mentions, yet everyone is aware of as the least preferred alternative.
Plenty of agents die, regardless of rank. To survive in the Bureau as a Black agent, you need luck and ambition as equally as you do skills.
Then, there is himself— Yoo Joonghyuk, the legendary agent, the first and oldest in the Black division. The agent who’s been operating for seven years, and has never once failed to execute a mission with flying colours.
Since his White days, Yoo Joonghyuk’s records have always been spotless: no strikes of behavioural misconduct, no strikes of lousy executions and unwanted consequences, no fatal injuries on the field.
Even as a trainee, Yoo Joonghyuk always ranked first in all aspects of the evaluation tests—combat, physique, weaponry, social, intelligence. That is, until the rest of the Black agents came along, with undeniable fortés that proves themselves competent to work alongside him.
With all that, yet, his strength lies in one thing no one in the history of the Bureau could compete with: agility.
As a well-trained agent specialising in armed combat, his agility further shapes him into the true exemplary agent; the pride and joy of the Bureau. He never loses in speed— well, at least not intentionally— allowing him to execute quick kills or implement elusive tactics to get his way.
What other agents accomplish in a minute, Yoo Joonghyuk finishes in mere seconds. When it’s a battle of speed, Yoo Joonghyuk is supersonic— like a shadow that fades as quickly as it appears, faster than the light itself.
This strengthens his reputation as the best assassin agent in the Bureau. He is only called upon for assignments when it’s a high-stakes assassination of famed individuals, in which the Bureau can’t afford leeways of loose ends.
And Yoo Joonghyuk, with the way he works, doesn’t leave room for any loose ends. He is also famed for never forming any unnecessary attachments, even during extended missions that require months of social engineering and being undercover.
All, except one.
Yoo Joonghyuk slowly blinks, watches as his vision blurs back into focus once he looks back up at the monitor screen. An eerily familiar face stares back at him.
“I was hoping you’d answer that,” says Anna Croft after a prolonged silence, dragging the image of the ‘assignment’ and expanding it. The face of a young male now fills up the entirety of the screen.
The head scientist meets his eyes with a hint of amusement, and Yoo Joonghyuk’s breath catches in his throat. “I’m glad you remember him. Doesn’t his name ring a bell?”
“How could I forget? I spent months targeting him,” he replies, passive in tone, yet heartbeat aggressive. The more he stares at the image of a male on the screen, the less he seems to recognise the subject.
Anna Croft smirks, taps the glass tablet in her hand once, before gesturing to the screen.
“Kim Dokja. Heir and now head to the most notorious criminal organisation in Korea, Underworld. They operate legally under the guise of an import company, titled Olympus Industries. Ring any bells?”
Yoo Sangah is the first to conjure a response, stroking her chin in fascination as her eyes narrow in on the male in the picture. “Underworld. Never thought we’d get to deal with them, as they never leave any loose ends for us to latch onto.”
“I always knew Olympus was shady,” Han Sooyoung comments, a hand on her waist. “My father does trade with them. Their contract terms are definitely not standardised.”
Anna Croft snorts. “There’s no need to worry. This isn’t a group mission.”
She makes a pinching motion in the air, and the picture of the male shrinks out. All the prior data now resumes filling up the screen. “It’s a solo mission.”
“I’ll take it,” says Lee Jihye, confident. Apparently, she is set on being awarded for her little victory earlier.
Anna Croft waves a dismissive hand, before pointing at a line of text on the screen. “This isn’t for you, Admiral.”
The line reads, in bold and neon green—Mission Goal: Assassination.
All eyes in the room zeros in on Yoo Joonghyuk. His heart lurches. “It’s for the King.”
Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes scan the features of the male in the photo, and to a degree, he still looks like how he remembers him.
Kim Dokja. How could he possibly forget?
Soft, downturned, kind-looking eyes, always upholding a clear gaze. A tall nose, round at the tip, and finely lined lips; not too thick, not too thin. A small face, fair skin. Pretty smile.
However, since the last time Yoo Joonghyuk saw him, he can tell from the photo that Kim Dokja has since changed.
His eyes are no longer clear and gentle— there’s a hint of edge in them, hardened by the things they have seen, brows a bit more furrowed, gaze a bit more narrow, jaw a bit tighter, like he’s used to clenching it. Lips slightly downturned at the edges, permanently displeased. Short hair now traded in for a long, disheveled overgrown, emphasising an eerie frame to his once bright face.
He has changed, Yoo Joonghyuk thinks, oddly without malice. He’s grown up.
The Kim Dokja he met on his mission five years ago was a teenager and son of the Underworld head. The Kim Dokja in the photo now is a striking, fierce adult— and a criminal mastermind.
A pang of guilt strikes the centre of his chest, and for a moment, it leaves a dull ache in Yoo Joonghyuk’s heart. His gaze wavers just in the slightest once he connects the mission goal to the man in the picture.
“To what degree of clarity did AETHER foresee this? Him?” Lee Gilyoung, who has been quiet the whole time, finally speaks up. Although his voice is quiet in nature, there’s a hint of gravity in his words that always demands attention whenever he raises a question.
“AETHER is an advanced technology that only foresees heinous crimes,” Croft says, switching the assignment tab out for a home screen of the intelligence software.
The word AETHER flashes in green, bold, all-capital letters, flickering for effect. “Only a handful of organisations in this world have it, and it’s definitely the only one in Korea; here, in this lab.”
As if on command, the light in the room dims, only leaving trails of neon green built-in LEDs to illuminate the surfaces it outlines. The scientist’s desk is now fully accentuated in green lights.
“AETHER isn’t just this screen, or this keyboard. AETHER is this entire lab. You’re standing in the most advanced clairvoyance technology this world has to offer,” as she speaks, Anna Croft finally stands up, adjusts her glasses, and pulls out a pen from her lab coat.
She clicks it once, and a hologram image pops up in her palm. “And since its launch five years ago, there isn’t a crime AETHER hasn’t accurately predicted.”
The hologram illuminates a world map, with dots highlighted in strong neon green accentuating areas where crimes have occured as the artificial intelligence predicted.
“And with this technology, you, agents of the Black division, carry the duty of eliminating those crimes before they can happen.”
She resumes her briefing, clicking off the pen and throwing the hologram onto the screen. Upon delivery, the same image of the world map is now projected in expansion in front of them.
“This technology was built in collaboration with several countries, and is top secret. It is near impossible to replicate, and has been operating with no flaws. It is the reason the Black division was formed. Only capable people like you all are worthy of having such technology integrated into your assistance.”
The lights in the room come on again with one motion of Anna Croft’s hand, and the image on the screen switches to a profiled data of a familiar face.
Male. Older, in his late-forties. Hades, occupation: CEO. Affiliations: Underworld and HYBE Industries. The status next to his name reads: deceased.
Yoo Joonghyuk knows that face all too well.
“And five years ago, this man tried to replicate the technology. He attempted to import illegal parts of hardware to build his own version of AETHER; to use the technology of this artificial intelligence against us and the nation, to evade consequences of their crimes.”
“He’s… dead,” says Yoo Sangah, raising a brow at the screen. “What happened to him? Wasn’t he the old head of Underworld?”
“Under no means did he agree to terminate the shipment contract, so he was assassinated, and the contract was forsaken without his final signature.” Croft explains the record of the case like she’s discussing coffee preferences over breakfast.
“So, he’s the father of the guy you showed us, I presume?” Lee Jihye chimes in, hands crossed on her chest. She’s got her detective face on. “Same surname, distinctively similar features. The age gap also makes perfect sense.”
“He is, which is why the son is now the head,” Anna Croft replies plainly. Lee Jihye searches for more answers from the male by his side—Yoo Joonghyuk himself. “You said you recognised the son. Did you know the father?”
Yoo Joonghyuk can’t fight back the ghost of a smirk on his face when Lee Jihye asks, and so he folds his hands across his chest and curtly replies.
“Of course I do. I’m the one who killed him.”
There’s a pause of daunting silence as all eyes widen. Anna Croft, however, still looks indifferent as she continues to reiterate, “Yoo Joonghyuk’s Black trial was to carry out this assassination. He succeeded in three months.”
“And now, you want him to kill the son,” says Han Sooyoung, a bit unimpressed at the turn of things. “Wouldn’t that be a suicide mission? The son would recognise him, it’ll be harder for him to carry it out.”
“I agree, he’ll at least need a disguise.”
“Flame can do a clean snipe, if all else fails. Shouldn’t be too hard.” Says Lee Gilyoung, leaning against the wall.
“Or I can negotiate a way out. Violence isn’t always the answer!” It’s Yoo Sangah’s turn to speak, tone too bright for the nature of this grim conversation.
The head scientist just gives them all a pensive look. “Did you know what type of crime AETHER predicted him to commit?”
Silence from the team. No one wants to take a guess. Then, Lee Jihye raises, “Revenge?”
“Likely,” replies Anna Croft, sinking back into her chair and pulling up Kim Dokja’s data again.
In underlined, neon green letters, a line reads, Crime: Homicide, Plotted Eradication of Black Division Agents.
“He plans to not only seek revenge, but overthrow the Bureau once and for all. Starting from the very core of the organisation— you.” Anna Croft points the end of her pen at the individuals standing in front of her, and all of them gain a funny look on their faces.
“And he will start by wanting to settle scores with the person who killed his father first,” she turns to Yoo Joonghyuk, gaze growing burdened, “which is you. Which is why he’s taking this mission alone, and must succeed in one attempt without fail.”
There’s a loom of silence that engulfs the room when Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t respond. It’s not that he has any objections, but looking back at the displayed image of Kim Dokja, an odd force tightens around his heart. His chest feels heavy for reasons he doesn’t comprehend; reasons he’s long forsaken, since five years ago.
Just this once, he wants AETHER to be wrong. There is a possibility, isn’t there? A machine sometimes malfunctions and miscalculates. It has to.
Five years ago, Yoo Joonghyuk, a top secret FBI agent, spent three months targeting Kim Dokja and pretending to be his lover. Just so he could find an opening to meet Kim Dokja’s father.
On the night where he stayed over after a meal, after spending days studying the floor plan of the house, Yoo Joonghyuk seized his chance—and succeeded at once.
He left without a trace, much less a goodbye or another look at his then boyfriend.
Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t like loose ends; he executes his missions like a clean, sharp assassination tool; with no other matters that could be traced back to him in the future.
Which means he was supposed to kill Kim Dokja as well.
He didn’t.
He remembers bright eyes and warm hands; soft skin, pliant and warm from sleep, a voice thick with drowsiness— yet tastes like honey when he kisses him good morning, clear eyes staring up at him, pupils blown with affection.
He remembers the way Kim Dokja would naturally loop his arms around his neck, telling him to come closer after each kiss, fingers in his locks, saying he likes Yoo Joonghyuk’s hair when it’s light, when Kim Dokja’s shampoo begins to smell like him, when Yoo Joonghyuk has a laugh that’s reserved only for him.
Since then, Yoo Joonghyuk changed shampoo brands without looking back, laughed less often, and stopped dying his hair.
His eyes find Kim Dokja’s stern ones in the image, and he wonders just how much of the boy he remembers is left in the man he’s destined to kill.
Yoo Joonghyuk’s heart aches. Perhaps this is karma. What a sick turn of events.
And yet, in the three months he spent undercover, Kim Dokja has managed to carve his way into the depths of Yoo Joonghyuk’s mind—and perhaps, heart.
It was the only time he leaves a mission done half-hearted, the only time he has difficulty reporting back the results of his execution.
It was the only time he felt anything closest to affection.
Five years ago, Yoo Joonghyuk was set out to kill the head of the biggest criminal organisation in Korea. Then, he was obligated to also kill the heir; a boy with a big smile and an even bigger heart, whom he mistakenly fell for.
He didn’t. Now, five years later, the boy he spared has risen to become the successor of the criminal organisation he seeks to eradicate— yet now he is worse than ever, with a plan to eradicate him before he has the chance.
He should have killed Kim Dokja five years ago, but he didn’t. Now, he has to.
In front of him, Anna Croft finishes her sentence to the rest of the division.
“Because if he doesn’t, he dies.”
And that is how Yoo Jonghyuk finds himself here, sent on a solo suicide mision by the very people he spent more than half of his life serving. He’s aware that this has always been on the table, with an occupation as risky as his. However, hearing the Bureau seal his fate by entrapping him into such a sickly assignment still makes his guts churn in fury.
But who is he to blame? If not himself for being too soft-hearted before, and not going all the way with the wiser move? Is it really the Bureau’s fault that he is here, now, or are they just simply asking him to clean up his own, long overdue mess?
And by here, he means: situated precariously between two bookshelves— that are somehow placed with a gap just enough for a human being to cramp between— in the study leading to the master bedroom. A place he had once frequented, long before, doing the exact same thing he is sent to do now. The only thing that’s changed is the colour of the doorknob, and the target.
The walls are still lined with the same golden carvings, the paint wearing off to a shade of rusted brass. The antiques on the shelves are still the same, save for a few additions of new rows mounted to the wall where an array of animal busts once used to hang.
Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t find the sight surprising. After all, Kim Dokja had always loved reading.
As a guard walks past the area, he shrivels back, blending into the shadows of the shelves where the moonlight fails to reach.
Yoo Joonghyuk has mastered the art of stealth; he levels his breathing to subtle flares of his nostrils, enough to keep his chest completely still, shifts all the weight to his back learned against the side of the shelf. If one doesn’t stop by to take a second look, one would never notice that anything was ever present in the shadows of the study at all.
The guard doesn’t notice, and closes the door behind him with a grand creak. Yoo Joonghyuk slips out of the dark like a phantom, traces the path to the master bedroom from memory, all the while picking on the details of what’s changed since the last time he was in this room.
Considering that it was subsequently the last time he saw Kim Dokja, Yoo Joonghyuk can’t help but reminisce.
The look on the male’s face was horror-stricken. Yoo Joonghyuk is not much of a sentimental type; he doesn’t get soft-hearted, much less feel something as taxing as guilt.
Yet, at that moment, with Kim Dokja’s wide, trembling eyes staring into his own, tears falling like shattered glass, Yoo Joonghyuk had never seen anyone look more betrayed.
Ironically, that says a lot considering his line of work— still, he felt the closest alternative to guilt someone like him could experience. When he left that night, he didn’t look back; afraid of the look on Kim Dokja’s face shattering his resolve. To this day, he still doesn’t know if he appreciates or regrets it.
Knowing that he might see the same face, one door apart from his, places an indistinguishable feeling in the crevice of Yoo Joonghyuk’s chest. Now that the door to the master bedroom is right in front of him, Yoo Joonghyuk hesitates on intruding.
[King, status report. Disclose signal and current position.]
From his built-in earpiece comes the toneless, almost robotic voice of his mentee, Lee Jihye. This snaps Yoo Joonghyuk out of his episode of lamence, pressing his back against the door with the pistol in hand raised to ninety degrees sharp.
[In position, ready for ambush. Target negative. Requesting permission of entry.]
[Performing satellite infrared thermography scan.]
And Yoo Joonghyuk waits, breaths still, not a single strand of hair moving out of place as he holds his position. Just a heartbeat later, Lee Jihye responds, with competence.
[Target positive. Position confirmed. Permission granted.]
That’s the cue for Yoo Joonghyuk to take the stage.
He bashes his entire body weight onto the door, breaking the knob with one swift clank of his pistol.
The door cracks open wide with a groaning slam against the adjacent wall. Yoo Joonghyuk moves to stand in the middle of the frame, right hand positioned on the pistol perfectly aimed ahead, the other rested on a string of grenade belts strapped to his waist.
This is his battle position.
But once the clatter dissipates, and Yoo Joonghyuk’s vision adjusts to the new lighting of the room, his eyes tremble at the sight before him.
Ever since he’s been made aware of this mission, Yoo Joonghyuk spent a lot of time thinking; visualising, expecting how this would exactly go down. He expected to come face to face with Kim Dokja again, after five years, in a grand showdown of fury, betrayal, hurt, and if he dares get ahead of himself— heartbroken.
He anticipated a ballistic Kim Dokja, with a gun immediately aimed against his temple, brows and nose scrunched up with fury, yelling at him a string of unintelligible profanities. He anticipated a broken, devastated Kim Dokja, tears streaming down his face, voice hoarse in a cracked plea of why’s, exactly like how Yoo Joonghyuk left him.
What he didn’t anticipate, however, is this.
The hand holding the pistol slightly wavers.
Pictured in front of him is— instead of what Yoo Joonghyuk expected to be the master bedroom— a space completely void of decorations and furniture.
Save for the tall, ornate glass windows to one side; where silvers of moonlight paints the darkened interior of the emptiness with crisscrosses of its reflections, everything else is completely barren.
Everything, except for a throne situated at the furthest end of the room opposite Yoo Joonghyuk; and a silhouette way too familiar for his recognition laying atop it.
There sits Kim Dokja, the silhouette of his figure barely distinguishable from the shadows of the night. And yet, Yoo Joonghyuk recognises him with frightening accuracy. He drapes himself horizontally across the throne, legs dangling and swaying to one side, head drooping off the other, with a glass of wine poised in one hand.
The moon shifts between the misty night clouds, pouring another muted beacon of light past the tall windows. This time, it illuminates the throne in its entirety, and the silhouette of Kim Dokja’s figure reappears before him, painted in daunting silver.
Yoo Joonghyuk holds his breath.
There he is, the Kim Dokja—the man he used to be in love with, the man whose life he ruined. The man whose life is now dedicated to taking his.
Slender, porcelain legs dragged over one side of the throne gives way to a slim bodice leisurely lounging. One hand lays dormant on his chest, the other subtly swirling the crimson liquid in his glass. His head is thrown back against the curved fixture of the armrest, hair fluffed back by gravity, spilling in strands from his forehead. His face is readily cocked to the side, eyes already trained to him with an expectant look that twinkles once their gazes meet. There’s mischief hidden in the lazy tug of Kim Dokja’s lips as he smirks.
Additionally, Yoo Joonghyuk might’ve forgotten to add that all this is presented to him under the attire (or lack thereof) of a skimpy, scandalous silk grey robe.
As if on cue, the man pushes himself up into a proper seating position, leaning against the armrest with legs stretched out straight. While the movement causes the slit of his robe to pull back, Yoo Joonghyuk catches a burst of colourful ink on Kim Dokja’s left thigh; a tattoo of a plant— purple rosemary— entwined with a pistol, coincidentally identical to the one he’s holding.
Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t dare move, his agent instincts yelling in his guts that this could be some sort of contraption meant to trap him— that any moment his guard is lowered by the man in front of him, could be his entourage to death’s door.
Regardless, the image of Kim Dokja paints for a rather peculiarly stunning sight.
The man in question notices him staring, and only flashes him a lopsided grin, raising his wine glass in a toast. To what, Yoo Joonghyuk would rather not know. “At last.”
Kim Dokja gulps down the rest of his wine. Yoo Joonghyuk’s jaw tightens. “You were expecting me.”
“Of course I was,” comes the relaxed reply. He repositions himself, now seated like a normal person on the throne, hands rested on the armrest, one leg crossed over the other. The tattoo is still present in Yoo Joonghyuk’s field of vision. “More than just expecting. I was waiting.”
Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t answer. His posture doesn’t change. The grip on the grenade belt tightens.
“Five years,” Kim Dokja starts, leaning in with a hand supporting his chin, propped on his knees. “And you’re still as uptight as ever. I thought you would’ve changed.”
“Kim Dokja,” says Yoo Joonghyuk, cocking his gun. The clink bounces off the walls in echoes, penetrating the breakable silence. “Stop speaking like that.”
An unpredictable smile marrs Kim Dokja’s face upon having his name called. It irks Yoo Joonghyuk that Kim Dokja can still smile during such a situation. “Like what?”
“Like you knew me well.”
“But I did know you well, Joonghyuk-ah,” Kim Dokja makes sure to put extra emphasis on the casualty of his nickname. A vein bursts at the side of Yoo Joonghyuk’s head. “I did more than know you. I loved you. We were lovers.”
“To you,” interjects Yoo Joonghyuk, taking a step closer. “To me, you were a means to an end.”
Kim Dokja doesn’t give him the reaction he anticipated. He simply clicks his tongue, as if he’s expected to hear such things and is already bored with its verbalisation.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Before Yoo Joonghyuk can even begin to fathom the meaning behind Kim Dokja’s words, his steps triggered a silent snare from all the walls in the room. Then, in the blink of an eye, beams of lasers begin to manifest in dizzying frequency, zigzagging across the space between them until all he sees is a blinding array of red lines.
Of course there is a laser alarm system. He is trained to bypass such common systems, but something about this one tells him that it isn’t of the traditional type where he can easily override.
Kim Dokja gives him a look like he’s read his mind, and as if to demonstrate his suspicion, chucks the empty wine glass across the room with as much force as he can plunge it.
The glass leaps into the maze of lasers, and upon coming no contact with the first red beam, immediately catches on fire and burns to charred crisps. Not even a single shard makes it out to drop to the ground as evidence. Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes tremble.
The smile on Kim Dokja’s face turns triumphant. Yoo Joonghyuk realises just now that he just walked into a tiger’s den; a trap all set up and put into place, long in the making, just to catch him.
He wonders how long Kim Dokja has schemed for his return—plotted for whatever means to get him to be right here, in this room, across from him, like how he wanted.
Yoo Joonghyuk simply takes a step back. “You know why I’m here.”
“Of course I do. Agents like you will only be dispatched for a predicted crime of this level,” Kim Dokja waves his hand dismissively in the air. “It’s so much effort just to see you again, Joonghyuk-ah. Why can’t you normally visit me, and we go on a normal date like a normal couple? Are you just into extreme circumstances?”
“We are not,” Yoo Joonghyuk’s teeth grits, “a couple.”
“Right. Were. Sorry, seeing you again resurfaces all of these old habits. They die hard.”
Yoo Joonghyuk does not have the time nor patience to humour him like this. “Get to the point.”
A sweet, dulcet chuckle reverberates through the room. A sound too bright for the darkness it is shrouded within. If Yoo Joonghyuk tries, he can vividly remember how it was the last time he’s heard it—muffed against his chest, hands lingering around his neck, Kim Dokja’s entire body shaking in laughter on his lap.
The agent rapidly blinks. Now is not the time to mull over matters of the past.
“Oh, you thought I lured you here so that you have a chance at negotiation?” Kim Dokja leans in, eyes narrowing in amusement. “If you want to do the Bureau’s bidding and ask me to halt the production of AETHER, save that pretty mouth of yours.”
Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyebrows shoot up, hurriedly sending Lee Jihye a telepathic message through the communication device in his ear.
[AETHER has already been built.]
“It’s been built.”
“Where? In this building?” He inquires, growing restless now that half of his mission goals are defeated.
Kim Dokja, to his dismay, shrugs with a pout. “Maybe. Wanna look for it together? I’ll give you a tour.”
“Kim Dokja,” seethes Yoo Joonghyuk through gritted teeth, straightening his hold on the gun to reinforce his message.
The response that came was unexpected. “Shoot, I dare you. See if the bullet goes through.”
At his words, Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes shift to the red beams once again. They are strung together tightly, with not even enough space to fit a person’s hand through. However, a bullet’s diameter would definitely travel pass, if he shoots from the right angle.
It takes Yoo Joonghyuk only two seconds to find one. Without hesitance, he fires, the recoil making his arm strain in reflex.
The bullet, as expected, flies through the net of laser beams; but as if a transparent barrier has also been set within its parameters, the bullet bounces back—just slightly, but enough in its rebound to hit a laser beam. It is then set alight instantaneously.
The surprise must’ve been too apparent on his face, because Kim Dokja’s entitled reply comes almost immediately. “What, shocked that your Bureau isn’t the only one with the most advanced technologies in the world?”
Yoo Joonghyuk remains quiet for a moment, brows setting low in a contemplative stare. “There are other ways to kill you.”
Kim Dokja fakes a melodramatic shudder. “You wound me.”
“Tell me where AETHER is.”
To his surprise, this time, Kim Dokja cooperates, raising an index finger and wiggling it at him. “Sure, but on one condition.”
Yoo Joonghyuk knows before he even says it: that this is going to be some bullshit. Alas, what other choices does he have?
“State your ground.”
Kim Dokja leans back on his throne, smile too satisfied and wicked for Yoo Joonghyuk’s comfort. “Drop your gun, and come give me a kiss.”
Yoo Joonghyuk’s brows quirk. When he called bullshit, he did expect something along these lines, but nothing to this extent.
He is just about to question the plausibility (and also, the absurdity) of this request, but Kim Dokja clears his doubts for him by doing some form of hand gesture, and half of the laser beams begin to dissipate. “Now drop your gun and hands up, handsome.”
Yoo Joonghyuk exhales exasperatedly, eyes narrowing at Kim Dokja one last time before putting his pistol back into its holster by his hips. He throws his hands up over his head, signalling his concession to defeat.
Their eyes meet one more time, and Kim Dokja’s nose scrunches in a delighted giggle. One more wave, and all the laser beams disappear. “Come closer.”
Yoo Joonghyuk does as told. When he takes a few more steps, he realises that he is in the vicinity of where the beams would be now should they resurface again. Trying to pull a petty stunt now would get him set alight and burned to crisps before the bullet can even leave the barrel.
He wonders who’s faster: Kim Dokja’s reflex to re-activate the barrier, or Yoo Joonghyuk’s agility to shoot.
Just as he thinks of trying to put that to the test, a singular red beam appears across the room, halting him in his tracks. It sits opposite the tip of his nose, a hair’s width away from igniting his flesh. Yoo Joonghyuk stops breathing. It’s as if Kim Dokja was able to read his train of thoughts.
“I wouldn’t try it if I were you,” Kim Dokja’s voice is barely above a husky whisper, shaking his head lightly before the red beam dissipates again. “At least let me see your face up close one more time.”
Yoo Joonghyuk clicks his tongue in annoyance at the back of his throat, yet says nothing to rebut as he continues approaching Kim Dokja in earnest.
He stops once he is in front of the throne, right by the end of Kim Dokja’s feet. Their gazes never strayed from each other, and they continue to stay locked even as Kim Dokja leans up to trace a finger along his jawline. His jaw clenches upon contact.
But the look of Kim Dokja’s eyes softens. This time, when he smiles, all the creases on his face disappear, the entirety of his visage lightened up in a genuine glow. The genuinity in that smile throws Yoo Joonghyuk aback.
“Look at you,” laments Kim Dokja, tone distant like he’s melancholic, reminiscing about the five years they spent apart. “I’ve missed you.”
Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t know the appropriate response to such an explicit show of intimacy; should he tell him to quit fussing around, or should he play along, saying he also feels the same?
He also isn’t even sure if the latter would be half as much of a lie as he hopes it would. In the end, he settles for the best alternative response: silence.
Kim Dokja’s eyes search his face just as his hands roam up to stroke his cheek. Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t trust him to not lean into touch— because in truth, he does think about it sometimes— and simply lets his eyelashes flutter to a brief close.
There’s a voice that’s almost inaudible; barely above a whisper when Kim Dokja mutters, as if to himself more than it is to Yoo Joonghyuk, “I never thought I’d see you again.”
“You should be angry at me,” Yoo Joonghyuk finally decides to play into this exchange of nostalgia, lowering his hands just to rest them on the armrest. Kim Dokja doesn’t look alarmed or panicked for his life even in the slightest, although Yoo Joonghyuk deduces that he knows perfectly clearly what he came here to do.
In that instant, Yoo Joonghyuk distantly mulls. He wonders just how much trust Kim Dokja has in him, for him to be this relaxed in the face of potential death. How much does this man trust him to not betray him a second time, despite their past and the time of years that’s bled between them?
“I was,” responds Kim Dokja, his other hand pulling Yoo Joonghyuk down by the collar. The agent now hovers on top of the throne, his upper half leaned in above Kim Dokja’s body. “But five years went by. I’ve had time to sort out what happened. I realised that we both just had different priorities.”
“And yet, you went and did this.”
Yoo Joonghyuk’s blunt reply makes Kim Dokja’s chest shake in a silent chuckle. He looks at him like he’s saying ‘still uptight as ever, you haven’t changed at all’.
“I did what I had to do,” is all Kim Dokja offers, a hand stroking his nape while the other runs through his hair.
Yoo Joonghyuk knows it’s an arsed reply, but something within him hopes that his answer truly was the case. “Did you really have to?”
Kim Dokja replies to his question with another one of his own. His thumb brushes by Yoo Joonghyuk’s lips— cherry red, heart-shaped. They instinctively part for him. “How else did you think I’d get to see you again?”
A tiny exhale elicits from the agent. He knows that this may as well be the criminal mastermind’s manipulation tactic; pulling strings right off of their past entanglement, saying exactly the right words, touching exactly the right places to make Yoo Joonghyuk crack from the inside out.
He knows the possibility of that being true, and yet, Yoo Joonghyuk continues to humour him. “You staged all that just to see me again?”
“Would you so easily believe me if I said so?” He sounds quieter when he replies, eyes growing burdened; sad. His thumb caresses the corner of Yoo Joonghyuk’s lip. There’s a faint trace of an almost-healed bruise there from his previous mission. Kim Dokja must have noticed.
“I’d believe you if you prove it,” Yoo Joonghyuk’s response is equally quiet, just a whisper audible for the two of them. He wonders if Lee Jihye, who’s listening in from the earpiece, is able to detect his sincerity.
“You know what I’m here for.”
In truth, a part of Yoo Joonghyuk wants to believe Kim Dokja. He hopes, however irrational, that a slim chance where Kim Dokja wasn’t lying, could be truthful.
“Always so quick to the chase, Joonghyuk-ah,” Kim Dokja sighs with a half-smile, looping his arms around Yoo Joonghyuk’s neck and pulling him closer until a knee is propped between his bare thighs. “We have a deal, remember?”
Right. The kiss.
Yoo Joonghyuk hesitates just for a moment as he searches Kim Dokja’s eyes again for any hint of mischief or chagrin. Two wide, glass orbs just stare up at him in anticipation.
Something lurches in his chest from that look, and Yoo Joonghyuk is almost convinced that this man might as well be the same man he fell in love with, five years ago.
With that look, it’s as if Kim Dokja hasn’t changed at all. As if Yoo Joonghyuk isn’t an agent sent to take his life, and Kim Dokja isn’t Korea’s current most notorious criminal mastermind, plotting to overthrow the national security starting with his demise.
As if it’s just them, cuddled up against each other reading Jane Austen on a rainy afternoon, Kim Dokja’s back against his chest, head tucked underneath his chin. No additional extensions to their identities: just Dokja and Joonghyuk.
So, Yoo Joonghyuk leans in.
The moment their lips connect, something ignites in sparks inside his chest. Kim Dokja sighs almost immediately into the kiss— as if he’s been holding his breath awaiting, as if this is all that he’s ever wanted, hands tightening around Yoo Joonghyuk’s neck and pulling him closer.
The moment their lips connect, they begin telling stories in unspoken languages; stories otherwise untold through other means, in a language known only to both their bodies.
The moment their lips connect; in that very fragile, dulcet moment, only then do they remember how much they knew each other, how well their lips knew one another’s, and how they only knew to speak of tender kisses and delicate whispers unheard to the rest of man.
Kim Dokja begins recounting the voids and gaps Yoo Joonghyuk’s left dilapidated in his absence, and Yoo Joonghyuk diligently fills them all in, overflowing them to the brim with every breath he steals from Kim Dokja. He smells fervently of rosemary.
He tugs on the latter’s lower lips with a gentle gnaw, and Kim Dokja instinctively parts for him with a sigh. Yoo Joonghyuk is beginning to really second guess how much of this still falls under the ‘feigned act of manipulation’ umbrella.
Kim Dokja continues to pull him closer to deepen the kiss, and suddenly Yoo Joonghyuk’s hands are on his waist. They trace their ways through the thin grey robe, the smooth fabric parting under his touch like a mist, skin softer than fine silk, malleating under his palm like dough.
As his tongue traverses in its exploit between Kim Dokja’s parted lips, Yoo Joonghyuk’s calloused fingers are mapping their ways between his parted legs. He gives the porcelain thigh an ample squeeze, and a delicious moan rings out from just below his ear, sweet as it vibrates around his tongue. Kim Dokja also tastes like rosemary.
Yoo Joonghyuk almost forgets that he’s on the most important mission of his life right now; forgets that the man he’s been sourly aching for for years is incidentally the same man that he is tasked to kill— or be killed by. Forgets that the Kim Dokja now is no more of the Kim Dokja that existed in his distant, happy memories from years ago; memories that he did not deserve to retain.
His hands travel back to curl around his ass, and that’s when he feels it.
A holster and a gun, so cleverly hidden within the robe; right underneath where Kim Dokja is seated, cushioned between the throne and his ass cheeks. What a sly way to hide a gun.
Just as Yoo Joonghyuk’s senses return to him, his reflexes have worked it out far quicker than his consciousness has; his hands are already pulling the gun out from Kim Dokja’s holster and clicking it against his temple before his lips can retreat from the kiss.
However, by the time he pulls back, a wide pair of glinting eyes already await.
Yoo Joonghyuk feels a cold sensation of cylindrical metal pressed against the back of his head from where Kim Dokja’s hands are looped around his neck.
It takes him a second that his gun is also gone. Another to realise that as soon as they parted from the kiss, they pulled the other’s guns on each other, at the same time.
“I wouldn’t move if I were you,” whispers Kim Dokja, still seductive as ever against his lips.
“I fulfilled my part of the bargain,” says Yoo Joonghyuk, expression grim once again. “Tell me where AETHER is.”
And that’s when a sick smile appears on Kim Dokja’s face. For a moment, Yoo Joonghyuk’s stomach churns.
“You’re looking right at it.”
Yoo Joonghyuk’s heart drops to the floor.
From inside his head comes the voice of Lee Jihye, mortified and in utter disbelief.
[I call bullshit, there’s no way they can have the technological means to install such an advanced system into a living being, when most parts of the world can’t even—]
“You killed my father to stop the signing of the hardware shipment contract, no?”
“…”
“Well, I got you what you wanted. No hardwares involved this time around.” Kim Dokja continues to smile at him like this is all just a funny joke, and he’s just delivered the punchline.
Yoo Joonghyuk, on the other hand, is struggling to grasp reality.
Although Kim Dokja might not be a completely serious man, he would also never joke about something like this.
Which only leaves one other possibility. And Yoo Joonghyuk has no other choice but to test it.
He cocks the gun with a clank against Kim Dokja’s temple, their faces a mere centimetre apart, forehead to forehead. “If AETHER is really inside you, then you should know whether or not I would shoot.”
The smile on Kim Dokja’s face turns wry, just a little bit. He nuzzles his nose against Yoo Joonghyuk like they were in the middle of an intimate, romantic exchange. “Of course I do. Every choice you’d make and everything you’d say before you even walked through that door—I saw it all.”
“Then answer me,” his voice booms in volume, lips pulled back in a frustrated snarl. “Will I shoot or not?”
A clank against the back of his head. Two can play this game, it seems like. “That’s a question I should ask you, instead. Let’s see which is faster, my finger or yours.”
The challenge in his tone brings a ghost of a smile to Yoo Joonghyuk’s lips. He’s suddenly reminded of how he fell for Kim Dokja’s wits before he fell for anything— or anyone else. “So, this is how it ends for us.”
“Quite poetic, is it not?”
Yoo Joonghyuk’s face lights up with a full smile. In the dimmed moonlight, Kim Dokja’s eyes glisten. Just as he is about to reply, the former cuts in.
“Stop prolonging this. Just shoot me already, you bastard.”
Even as he says this, the smile is still ever present on Kim Dokja’s face.
A single tear flows down his right cheek just as one falls from Yoo Joonghyuk to mirror his. He hasn’t realised how or when he started crying. “Like you wouldn’t shoot me first?”
A dry chuckle. “I really do love you, you know.”
Yoo Joonghyuk momentarily pauses, hesitantly searching Kim Dokja’s eyes for any traces of mischief. If he’s been plotting this all along to get his guard down, now would be the golden time to strike.
He waits three whole seconds for Kim Dokja to start doing something suspicious.
Nothing.
So Yoo Joonghyuk takes this as the most appropriate time to come clean, eyes lowering as well, forehead nuzzled gently against Kim Dokja’s.
“Me too.”
For the next moment, their lips lock in a kiss more sorrowful than it is fulfilling, when a raucous bang! shatters the milieu of the room.
At the other side of the mission site, Lee Jihye sits in a cramped undercover van, with a hand clasped as tightly as the chokehold of death over her mouth. She drops the earpiece from her ear as hot tears begin to spill for her eyes.
There was only one gunshot.