Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Listen to "Come Hell or High Water" by Imminence for this chapter.

CHAPTER 26

"Villain Versus Villain"

December, 2009. 

“You hear what I just said, boy?”

     Though his eyes were closed, he knew exactly whose voice he was hearing. 

     It reached him as if through water, like his body were physically on Earth, but his soul was somewhere else. He was under the surface of an ocean planet in a galaxy far, far away. He was swimming above the pulsing choreography of coral reefs that glowed in colours the human eye had no names for. He was surrounded by aquatic stars, and feathered sharks, and giant mermen, and singing whales. He was floating in a realm where he was just another one of the sea creatures, and not the most disgusting monster in the world. 

     Was drowning supposed to feel like this? 

     Air bubbles tickled his lips as the last of the oxygen left his lungs, but for some reason it was . . . not scary.  

     It was odd, actually. 

     He felt at peace. 

     “Boy, are you deaf?”

     The whales’ song . . . oh, what a peaceful tune to die to. 

     “Answer me!” 

     The louder the whales grew, the more he thought he could hear echoes of Felix and Yeonho calling him from the surface. 

     Hyung!

     Hyung?

     Hyungie, where are you? Where have you gone? 

     But then the whales’ song distorted, morphing into a man’s angry voice, dragging him upward, bringing him back. 

     The ocean broke. 

     His lungs filled with air. 

     “LOOK AT ME, YOU BRAT!” 

     Twelve-year-old Lee Minho opened his eyes, and looked at Tatsuo Shigeru. 

     Was it nine o’clock? Ten o’clock? 

     Time had a strange way of passing at the brothel. Maybe it wasn’t even six yet. 

     It had to be early morning, Minho decided, because the frost-bitten windows were filling every corner of the concrete hallway with a light as pale as the snow outside. The glare was so strong it exposed the grime on the radiators and the leaking pipes overhead, making them feel somehow dirtier than his stepfather, who was speaking so close to his face that Minho could smell the breakfast on his breath. 

     Eggs, cigars, alcohol and fish. 

     “I said,” Shigeru repeated in his clipped Japanese accent, “what’re you, little bastard child, doin’ here?” He bent down, baring his yellowing teeth at Minho’s untwitching face. “Ain’t ya heard they found a body in the boiler room? A man was murdered here last night. What, you wanna go cryin’ to your mummy after you see a bit of blood? Didn’t that bitch teach you to keep your nose out of grown-ups’ business? Go back upstairs!”

     Minho remained standing, staring ahead with empty eyes. 

     His lack of facial expressions always irritated the shit out of his stepfather, so it didn’t surprise him when Shigeru reacted by shoving him hard in the chest. 

     “Don’t just gawp at me like that! Speak up when your elders speak to you!” 

     He gripped the collar of Minho’s flimsy brown jumper, shaking him. 

     “This is adult stuff, you nosy prick! I’ve got a dangerous criminal to catch, and I can't do it if a snot-nosed mutt gets in the way! Go to your mother before I kill you!” He shoved Minho into the wall, but the boy didn’t so much as blink at the impact; he was, courtesy of his deceased father, used to much worse pain. “When Tatsuo Shigeru gives an order, you obey! Got it, mutt?!”

     Tatsuo Shigeru. 

     Minho clenched his fists under the woollen sleeves of his brown jumper. That name alone made his blood boil more than being shoved into a dirty wall ever could.

     He hated this man. 

     This brothel-keeper, with his ugly goatee, his disgusting silver tooth that glinted every time he smirked, and his slicked-back hair so greasy it shone like oil. He hated that this man called himself his mother’s husband. He didn’t know what kind of husband would force his wife into what Shigeru forced his mother to do, but he knew it wasn’t the sort of man a boy was meant to call stepfather. 

     What kind of husband sold his own wife to filthy men like the one found dead in the boiler room? 

     Minho hated, above all, that his mother ended up marrying this depraved creature as a consequence of what he had done to her first husband. 

     “There you are, Misora.” Shigeru straightened at the sound of his little sister’s footsteps, but he did not stop glaring at Minho. “Get your slow-headed friend and scurry outta here. Fucktard kid, doesn't even know what world he lives in. Doesn't speak, doesn't hear. Is he blind too? Look how empty his eyes are.” 

     Minho was not blind. 

     He was looking, in fact, behind Shigeru, beyond the steel doorframe leading into the boiler room, where two Yakuza men were covering the corpse with a sheet of plastic. He could only see the side of the dead man from where he stood, but he didn’t need to get any closer to find out whose mutilated face and spilled intestines they were. 

     He knew. 

     He remembered. 

     Kobayashi Junzo. 

     Minho had come here as soon as he’d finished washing his blood from under his fingernails. 

     Mr Kobayashi had been a sumo wrestler before he became a pimp, so whenever he bought Mum for the night, the mattress would sink so low under his weight that Minho feared it might break and crush him to death. Mr Kobayashi wore big boots and groaned when he walked, but he laughed when Mum cried. He laughed as he hit her, and of all her clients, he hit her the most. Once, Mum vomited after he left. Another time, Minho watched him waddle out of the room with one hand palming his crotch and the other picking his nose. Every time, Mum didn’t move for so long that Minho thought she had died until he’d finally crawl out from his hiding place to sleep beside her, sobbing silently in her arms. Mr Kobayashi called her names. He yelled at her. He grunted like an animal. He gave her bruises the exact shape of his enormous hands. He seemed to enjoy that Minho could hear everything from under the bed. 

     When he died, Mr Kobayashi hadn’t screamed like Father had. 

     Killing him hadn’t been that difficult, either. 

     Mr Kobayashi had been five times Minho’s size, but Minho had been fighting men like him since he was seven, tossed into the ring by his father like raw meat in a dog pit. He had learned long ago how to be stealthy, how to act fast, and where to strike to make it count. After baiting the giant into the boiler room, all he’d had to do was jump out of hiding and stab him in the neck. The man had dropped to the floor with a sound that reminded him of dumplings falling into soup. It had been a pathetic sight to behold, but as he stabbed him again to be certain he stayed dead, he’d felt no empathy for him. At that moment, he’d forgotten what he was supposed to be feeling, or if he was supposed to feel anything at all. 

     He’d felt nothing. 

     Not even his own hands. 

     Now, in the morning light, Minho was staring at the body as Shigeru yelled at him—“Child, don’t you understand I’ve got a dangerous killer to catch? Be obedient and leave before I give you a beating!”—and he wondered how much it would take for Mr Kobayashi to be gone for good. 

     How long until he rotted fully? 

     How long until maggots ate the fists that made his mother cry? 

     Would the memory of him decompose from Minho’s brain too? If he waited long enough, would it decay and be gone with him? 

     “Minho!” Eyes widened in impatience below thick brown bangs, Tatsuo Misora crossed her arms over her pink hoodie with the Christmas bells on it. “Are you deaf, or what? Stop getting on my older brother’s nerves. Let’s go get breakfast.” 

     Minho didn’t reply. 

     He took one last glance at Shigeru’s flared nostrils, then let Sora pull him away from the crime scene. 

     When they stepped into the lunch room, the air was thick with steam and whispers. As expected, the women had already heard. They didn’t know whose blood had been spilled yet, but they knew that for once it was a man’s and not theirs, and so it seemed they were celebrating the mysterious murder. They were ladling stew into bowls, passing cigarettes, leaning shoulder to shoulder like sisters at a family table. Some spoke Korean, others Japanese or broken English. In the year he’d lived here, Minho had seen new girls arrive every few weeks. Most of them were young, pale, and silent, led upstairs to fight back for a few days until they either gave in to their fates or slit their wrists. Some were from Seoul, some from Tokyo. Some cried, some stared straight ahead. Many came in. None of them ever left. 

     Minho had learned to tell what the Japanese girls were saying by the tones of their speech, but he still only understood the Korean ones as he tried to decipher what was going on. “May he rot slowly, whoever he is,” said one of them with a scoff. “Hope it’s that bastard who likes his smelly feet rubbed,” chuckled another, blowing smoke. A third grinned around her chopsticks, whispering, “Wanna bet it’s one of the pimps and not a client?”

     “Oh, that’d be even better!” 

     “It’s Hakashita! Has to be!”

     “I’ll do everyone’s laundry for a week if it’s Kobayashi.”

     “All right then, who’s team Hakashita? Who’s team Kobayashi? Anyone for Kurozumi?” 

     “I’ll put my whole pack of Esse Lights on Kurozumi!”

     "Your whole pack? You planning to quit?” 

     “Seungmin’s not here yet,” Sora thought aloud, letting go of Minho’s sleeve to study the many tables of the small lunch room again. “He’s probably in the kitchen, right? I think his mum’s on cooking duty again.” 

     Minho nodded absently and followed her to the far bench where the three of them usually sat, trying to ignore the women’s merry whispers, and focus on his friends instead. 

     He didn’t like hanging out with them. 

     Kim Seungmin was a nine-year-old who never spoke, rarely made eye contact, and cried if anyone mentioned that he’d been born in the brothel, to a mother who didn’t know which of her clients was his father. He was very polite and very skinny, but he followed his mother like a bodyguard, always hovering behind her elbow as she stirred pots or mopped floors. He loved her too much for his own good. It was no rare occurrence to hear that Seungmin had been once again beaten by one of the men because he’d tried to protect his mother in his usual tiny, polite, non-verbal way. 

     Minho had come to realise that he reminded him of Felix. They didn’t look or act alike, but his presence felt like Felix’s. 

     Sora’s did too, in a way. 

     Sometimes, if Minho kept his eyes closed long enough, he could almost imagine that Seungmin was Felix, and Sora was Yeonho, and the three of them were back under the twinkling lights of a Christmas tree, shaking wrapped boxes and trying to guess what was inside like they used to every year. Obviously, neither of them were Felix or Yeonho, but it was almost Christmas, and Minho missed his cousins so much it didn’t matter that he didn't actually like his new friends. 

     He didn’t understand why these two spent time with him either. 

     Seungmin didn’t seem to enjoy being near anyone except his mother, and Misora—as the little sister of the man who owned this brothel—had no business entering the upper floors of the building, which were reserved for the whores. 

     Shigeru most likely didn’t care enough about her to forbid her from running amok, but Sora belonged in the living quarters downstairs, protected from the creaking beds and the nudity of the women held prisoner upstairs. 

     Minho and his mother were supposed to be protected too. 

     That was what Shigeru had promised when he took them in, claiming to be an old friend of Father’s, offering marriage to keep them from starving on the streets after the Park Clan had kicked them out of their own home. 

     Shigeru hadn’t kept his promise. 

     He wasn’t even who he’d said he was. 

     Now, Minho and his mother lived in a small bedroom at the end of the hallway on the third floor, where men stumbled in drunk and stumbled out buttoning their jeans, pockets emptied of the money meant for their wives and children waiting at home. Now, Park Minho was Lee Minho—the Viper’s quiet, sickly son. The boy who didn’t move too much or speak too loud, because the painful scar on his chest often made it difficult to, since it always got infected and still bled from the wound that should’ve killed him a year ago. The boy who secretly dreamed of quietness, and warm mittens, and chocolate, and pain-killers. The boy no one heard. The boy no one saw. This wasn’t the life his mother had imagined when she’d said yes. She’d told Minho, over and over, that she’d believed Shigeru’s offer because she’d been so desperate to keep her child safe that she would’ve been blind to anyone’s lies. 

     And what could Minho do about any of it?

     He was just a boy.

     Exiled. 

     Forgotten.

     Missing. 

     Trapped. 

     Him and his mother, against the world. 

     “Did you do it?” Sora asked suddenly. 

     Minho looked at her across the table, blinking at her narrow face that looked so much like her brother’s. “What are you talking about?”

     She smirked. “Don’t act dumb. You know what I mean.” 

     “I— I don’t, actually.”

     “Did you do it?” she hissed, leaning in. “Were you the one who killed that man?” 

     Minho’s breath hitched. 

     That man. 

     Mr Kobayashi.

     Huge hands. 

     Heavy boots. 

     Spittle-covered lips. 

     Loud laughter. 

     Last night. 

     Minho’s eyes squeezed shut, and he was suddenly under the bed. He was hugging himself, trying to rock himself to sleep without crying too loud. The mattress was creaking and swaying above him. As always, his mother was trying to swallow the sounds, but, like always, he could hear them all anyway. He was trapped. He was under the bed. Trapped for so long it felt like he had become the bed. Trapped. Made of wood and springs instead of flesh and blood. Trapped. 

     “You better moan, bitch,” Mr Kobayashi’s voice boomed above. “It’s not every day Shigeru shares his favourite whore with us for so cheap. You woman best not ruin it for me by acting mute.” Mr Kobayashi cackled with a mouth full of spit at the sob she let out, and Minho imagined, against his will, the way the man’s sweaty stomach jiggled above his crying mother. “I don’t care if that bastard kid of yours has no other place to sleep in— you moan or I’ll kill you!” 

     He hit her. 

     She begged him to stop. 

     Minho’s fingernails dug into his arms. He rocked harder. Fast. Faster. If he could go fast enough, he thought, the bed would disappear, and he could go somewhere else, somewhere clean and quiet. 

     Please die, he thought, when no matter how fast he rocked, the noise didn’t go away. 

     Mr Kobayashi laughed, and hit her, and made her scream, and forced drugs down her throat, and there was only noise. Noise. Noise. 

     Please die please die please die please kill me. 

     The mattress shook. His hands shook harder. The scar on his chest bled through his Spiderman pajama shirt. The noise made him pull his overgrown hair out in fistfuls. He slammed his fists against his own head until it could burst from the pain, hoping, begging, praying under his breath, God, if you exist, take the noise or take my life. 

     “Hello? Are you seriously going deaf? Aish, you’re being so annoying today, I could hit you! Did you or did you not kill him?” 

     Minho met Sora’s eyes. 

     He immediately looked away. 

     He hid his hands under the table, pinching them so they’d stop shaking. “No. No.” He cleared his throat. “Wh- why would you ask me that?”

     “Because you’re a murderer,” she said sweetly, and his heart dropped. “You told me you killed your father last year. The scar on your chest— you said you got it the night he died. Didn’t you?” Minho’s breathing sped up to a rhythm he knew made him look suspicious, but he couldn’t stop it. His fingers twitched with the need to cover the scar already hidden under his jumper. His heart raced. He didn’t remember telling her that. Or maybe he did, but he hadn’t thought she’d remember. He shouldn’t have told her anything. Why did he tell her? When he recoiled from her, she only smiled wider. “I’m not disgusted,” she said, cocking her head. “I think it makes you more interesting, Minho. I like that you can kill.” 

     That horrified him. 

     “Maybe you will be my husband one day.”

     That horrified him even more. 

     “I- I don’t want that,” he said quickly. “You’re my aunt.” 

     “Your step-aunt,” she corrected, annoyed. “And we’re basically meant for each other.”

     “You’re wrong,” he said, but it came out too quietly, and Sora talked over his voice. 

     “Yes, we are. We’re the same age. We live in the same house. And we’re just like each other, aren’t we?” She cupped her mouth with one hand as if to say a secret, then added, “Do you remember the baby that died in the first month after you got here? The mum lives in the room next to yours. She yelled at me once for stealing from the kitchen, so I had to punish her. I waited until she left her room, then I went in and killed her baby. It was so easy. I just put the pillow over its face, and it didn’t even squirm. Babies are so weak. I can’t tell anyone else, but you understand, don’t you? You’ve killed someone. You know what it feels like. You and I— we’re not like them. We get rid of what we hate. How can we not be meant for each other, when we both know how good it feels to end a life?” She shrugged, casually fixing her bangs. “The baby’s mum doesn’t know it was me, so she keeps scolding me like the stupid slut she is. She’s pregnant again, of course. I’ll show her. I’ll kill her new baby and then I’ll kill her too. I swear it. Maybe you’ll help me.” 

     Minho wasn’t sure if what he was hearing was real.

     His ears were ringing. 

     “When we get married, Minho, we can do stuff like that all the time. It’ll be fun.”  

     He felt sick. 

     His hands spasmed uncontrollably. 

     He wanted to argue with her, to scream at her to leave, but he was so mortified that his mouth refused to open. 

     He knew the woman who lived in the room next to theirs. Since the prostitutes used fake identities based on how they looked, Minho didn’t know her real name, but everyone called her Blossom. She was a young Japanese woman who’d been brought to Korea when Shigeru opened this brothel in the slums of Jeju City, and she was known for her kindness and her humour. 

     Whenever Shigeru came upstairs and didn’t want Minho in the room, he would first drug Mum—forcefully, so she couldn’t argue—then he’d kick Minho out to sleep in the hallway like a discarded dog. Every time, it was Blossom who found him there. 

     “Hello, hatchling,” she’d whisper, referring to his mother’s fake name being the Viper because of her snakelike eyes, which Minho had inherited. “We’re having a sss-sleepover again? Make some room.” 

     Blossom would hold her pregnant belly and curl up beside him on the cold floor. She would tell him silly jokes until his hands stopped shaking. She would calm him down. She would put him to sleep either by humming lullabies to him or by whispering funny stories about her family back in Okayama. For a few hours, while his own mother was too drugged to even cry on the other side of the wall, he would become Blossom’s temporary child, and the world would be so quiet.

     Minho knew of the infant daughter Blossom had lost last year, because nothing thrived like gossip in such a crowded household, but she had never spoken of her. 

     Not to him, not once. 

     And it was Sora who’d killed her. A helpless baby. She’d killed a baby over a scolding she’d gotten after stealing food from the prostitutes who already didn’t have much. It wasn’t the same as what Minho had done. He hadn’t meant what he’d done to Father, and what he’d done to Mr Kobayashi had come from rage, from noise, from fear, from a parasite inside of him that he couldn’t control. 

     Last night, that parasite burst out of him and turned him into a monster when he couldn't make the pain stop any other way. 

     None of it had been fun for Minho. It had been agonising, and it would keep him in agony for the rest of his life, which, if there was any mercy left in this world, wouldn’t be that long.

     “Please don’t,” he whispered, unsure of what he even meant to say. “Stop. Stop it, Sora. Don’t hurt her. Stop hurting innocent people. Stop doing it. Stop. I don’t want to be like this— I don’t want—?” 

     “You don’t want what, slow-tongue?”

     “I— I—”

     “Ugh! S-s-spit it out already!” 

     He scrunched his eyes shut and pictured the sea.

     Waves. 

     Whales. 

     Strange sea creatures. 

     The pull of the current. 

     Blue. 

     “I won’t get married to you. I’m already engaged.”

     “Ha!” Sora snorted a mocking laugh, crossing her arms over her pink jumper. “We’re twelve, Minho. You can’t possibly be engaged to anyone else.” 

     “I am engaged,” he insisted, hands twisting and untwisting in his lap. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat, breathing slower, deeper, hoping he wouldn’t stutter this time. “Someone . . .  someone already proposed to me a while ago. I promised that person something very important. I can’t say what, ‘cause . . . ‘cause we agreed to keep it secret. But . . . I already like someone.” 

     Sora’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Is this stupid girl some kind of imaginary friend?”  

     Rage shot through Minho at her words. “Don’t call him stupid,” he hissed, eyes filling with tears. He sunk his fingernails into the metal bench underneath him. “He is real. He is a real person, and if I ever marry someone, it will be him. We made a pinky promise together. Mum and I fled Seoul so fast after my . . . Venom . . . my dad . . . everything happened so fast. I couldn’t go back to the place where we agreed to meet again. But I want to meet him again. I promised him. I— I have to.” 

     “Yeah, right. And what if you never meet him again? Will you cling to your silly secret promise even then? Forever?” 

     “I think I will.” 

     “Why?” 

     His lips trembled before he spoke. “Because . . . Because . . .” 

     Because that night, underneath the bridge, he asked me what calms me down, and I told him, “I don’t know. Besides my snake, I think the sea.” Then he said that when the beatings become unbearable, when the world grows too noisy, when the boxing ring fills every corner of me with fear . . . I should imagine I’m there, floating on an ocean planet far away, swimming among silly sea creatures, listening to the whales. No one can hurt me there. That’s where I go when the mattress is creaking above me. When my chest bleeds and my hands shake, that is what I see. 

     He was right. It works. I can do it. I can escape the real world, but only if I imagine that he is there too. 

     That he is the sea. 

     That it’s his arms holding me up, his little hums quieting the noise, his smiling face in front of mine, his shiny round eyes watching me the way they did that night, when he heard me, and saw me, and hugged me. I don’t eat for hunger. I don’t drink for thirst. I live because the memory of him won’t let me die. 

     If I grow up, I will find him. 

     “. . . I dunno,” was what he muttered in reply to Sora’s question,  eyes fixed on the floor so she wouldn’t see them teary. “I guess pinky promises are important to him, or wh- whatever.” 

     Arms still crossed, Sora leaned in. “You’re so pathetic sometimes, Minho. No wonder my older brother says you’re not normal. Do you even have a brain? Here you are, rejecting me, when I bet that boy doesn’t even like you or remember you anymore. Bet he found someone cooler than you. But fine, if that promise is why you don’t want to marry me, then I’ll make you break it one day.” She smiled. “I pinky promise.”

     Minho frowned at her, but just then, Blossom entered the lunch room smiling, and out of pure mortifying guilt, he stayed quiet. 

     After Seungmin joined them, carrying the usual bowls of sticky rice and rubbery eggs for breakfast, Minho took two bites, then went upstairs. 

     Sora asked him and Seungmin to go play in the snow outside, but he’d said no, and he’d made sure to lie to Seungmin that his own mother was looking for him as well, just so he wouldn’t be alone with her. No matter how badly he missed his cousins or how much he wanted to forget everything and run outside, Minho would rather die than be near Sora today. 

     Even though escaping her meant going back to the place he usually avoided during the day. 

     The third floor. 

     In the brightness of daylight, everything that looked otherwise blurry at night became clear to the human eye. The peeling wallpaper. The trapped cigarette smoke. The fatherless babies, crying their voices raw. Their empty-eyed mothers, nursing them while scratching at fresh flea bites. The topless women, counting money in their doorways. The ugly pimps in tacky white suits, taking the money, staying for a quickie, then swaggering out with their crocodile-skin espadrilles without giving anything back. 

     He couldn’t stand any of them, but what he hated most was the sight of his own mother. 

     After a whole year in this place, she still didn’t belong. She was the only woman who still buttoned her blouse, who still brushed her teeth twice a day, and combed her hair before leaving her room. 

     She still tried with all her might to remain her dignified self, and it sickened Minho. 

     Sometimes he thought it might’ve been easier if she gave up and let herself become as miserable as everyone else. Then maybe he could hate her properly, and wouldn’t have to keep caring about her like this. 

     He didn’t want to see her in the daylight, especially not after what he’d done last night when she’d gone to sleep, but still, he opened the door. 

     When their eyes met, both of them flinched. 

     Mum was sitting on the edge of the bed with her shoulders hunched and a crumpled tissue pressed against her nose. Her eyes were bloodshot. She’d been crying. 

     “Th- there you are,” she said quickly, sniffling. “C- come here, Min. Close the door, please. Come here.” 

     He obeyed without a word. 

     When he stepped in front of her, she held his cheeks in her hands. 

     He couldn’t help but look at her and think that she, despite the constellation of cuts and swollen bruises across her body, was the most beautiful person he had ever seen. She didn’t look like a snake. To him, she looked so human. 

     “Minho,” she said his name the way she always did when she didn’t want him to lie. “I will ask you a question, and I want you to be honest with me. You cannot talk about this to anyone else, but you must talk to me. You can tell Mum anything, all right? Anything.” 

     He nodded a little, just to make her stop looking at him like that. 

     But her expression only saddened as she gripped his cheeks and whispered, in that elegant Chaebol-trained voice of hers, “Mum won’t judge you. Mum won’t get angry at you, no matter what’s happened. No matter what you think you’ve done, I love you more than words can say, and I will always be on your side. I want what’s best for you. I know what’s best for you. Do you understand that?” 

     He stared unblinkingly at her. 

     “Son,” she repeated with more urgency, shaking him softly by the cheeks, “do you understand that?” 

     He nodded. 

     Mum took a deep breath. “Minho, they found a body this morning.”  

     Minho looked down. 

     He didn’t mean to. 

     It was instinctive. 

     “Oh, my boy.” A startled sob escaped her throat, but she gulped it down, forcing calm into her expression as she let go of his cheeks and gripped his hands instead. “Okay. Look at me.” She squeezed his hands tighter. “You have no idea how much I love you. I would die for you. Do you know that? Do you trust me? Look at me, and talk to me. A few hours ago, they . . . they found a body in the boiler room. T- turns out he was Mr Kobayashi Junzo. Do you r- remember him? He comes to v- visit Mum’s room sometimes. He was here last night. He’s been s- stabbed, and— the knife I keep under my pillow is gone— I don’t know where it went— so–” 

     “I took it.” 

     One tear slid off Mum’s trembling chin. It landed on the toe of his shoe. “M- Min . . . —”

     “I killed him with it.” 

     Lee Garyeong took her son by the shoulders, pulled him into her chest, and cried like she’d been holding the tears in since she was sixteen. She cried and cried, swaying them back and forth, nails digging into the back of his shirt as if someone might take him away if she let go. “Oh, God. God, help me. My little boy . . . My little, sweet-hearted boy . . . Why did you do it? Why? Why? Why? Why? Wh- where is it, baby? Where’s the knife? Can you tell me? Did you clean it? Did you hide it? Oh, God, you didn’t, did you? You didn’t lose it, right? Tell me you didn’t— tell me you didn’t— my baby, my poor baby, what have they done to you . . . what have they turned you into . . .”

     Minho did not hug her back. 

     His arms hung limp at his sides. 

     He stared at the bare wall behind her. 

     “In the common bathroom,” he whispered calmly, no emotion on his face. “I hid it . . .  in a toilet tank after I washed . . . my hands.”

     “Okay . . . okay . . .” She pulled back and bit her lips as she brushed his hair back from his sticky forehead. Her eyes were still leaking tears, but he could see in them that she was already planning how to fix this; that she already knew what she’d have to do. “Listen carefully. Water removes blood, masks scent . . . but a toilet tank will not hold forever. I’ll take care of it, but this stays between us. If anyone questions you about the murder, you were asleep all night. You didn’t see anything and you don’t know anything. You don’t even know who Mr Kobayashi is, all right? Don’t you stutter if they ask you anything. Don’t fidget. Don’t look nervous. Stand tall and strong like I taught you, look at them like they’re boring you, and say you were asleep. You do not confess. They can never find out, Minho, never. You hear me?” 

     He nodded, feeling dazed. 

     “No one’s going to find out. They’ll never suspect a little boy of killing a sumo wrestler, but Shigeru knows that’s my knife. I just need to get rid of it quickly. Then I’ll take care of everything else.”

     “M- mum . . .” 

     “Don’t say anything.” 

     “I’m . . . I’m . . . I’m sorry.” 

     “Do you remember what your father used to call me?” She paused, watching the way his chin began to tremble. “Viper. A cold-blooded viper with ugly snake eyes. Do you remember? How mad he was that you inherited my eyes? That they look like mine?” 

     “Yes . . . Yes . . .” 

     “Well, we are vipers. And thank God for it, because only the venomous survive in this world.”

     “Mum . . .”

     “Being dangerous is nothing to be ashamed of in a world like ours, but you need to understand that vipers are not only deadly. They are insanely smart. They use their venom only when it matters. You need to learn how to be smart, Son. If you are going to kill, you are going to do it for a reason, and you are not going to get caught. You cannot stab someone in the neck and leave the body where it can be found and linked back to you. You cannot hide the murder weapon in a toilet tank. You cannot make mistakes.” 

     He tried to hold it in. 

     He really tried. 

     But then his chest heaved once, then again, and the sobs broke free. 

     He collapsed into her arms. “I’m sorry!” She caught him and held him tight as he wept. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I don’t know what’s wrong with me! I don’t know why I did it! I was so angry!” He clung to her shirt, hiccuping between gasps for air. The sudden jerks made the scar on his chest burn with pain; his two‑day‑old bandages were bleeding again, but he didn’t care. That pain didn’t matter. The only pain that mattered was the one twisting in his chest at the thought of disappointing his mother. “I’m not a murderer, I don’t know why I did it! I’m not a criminal! I just felt so— I wanted him gone— I wanted him to stop h- hurting you— to never see him again— I don’t— I— Will Shigeru come for me? Will he b- beat me? Will he kill me?” 

     “No, absolutely not, he won’t,” she said firmly, cradling his head against her shoulder. “Do you remember Mr Kang? The sweet old man who used to bring you candy? That’s Chairman Kang. He found us, Min. He’s been searching for us this entire time. Mummy spoke to him. He’s going to help us get out of here.” 

     Minho only saw the shape of her jaw from behind the wall of tears, but she wiped them gently away, and continued, “Just give me one more year, baby. One more year, and we’re gone. We’ll never step foot in this place again. I will give you everything you deserve, everything the Park Clan took away from you except much better. I will destroy every person who’s ever put their hands on you. I will make you a strong, strong man. I will make you unbreakable. They can call me Viper all they want, Minho, because I will slaughter all the kings of the crime world to make you Emperor.” 

     “But I just wanna go home.” 

     “Oh, I know, baby,” she sighed, wiping more tears off his trembling chin. 

     “I don’t want revenge,” he whispered. “I wanna leave . . . I . . . I wanna leave so bad.” 

     She cupped his temples, making him meet her gaze. “I know. I know you do. And we will. Just hold on. Just one more year. That’s it. It’ll fly by so fast. When you’re older, you won’t even remember it.” 

     She attempted a breezy chuckle, but he knew she was only forcing herself to smile to encourage him. 

     He’d stopped being encouraged by that smile after the third time his father had given him a black eye. 

     “When it’s over, I’ll take care of everything. Tatsuo Shigeru won’t get away with what he’s done to us. I’ll have enough dirt on him to put him in jail for the rest of his life. Chairman Kang is helping me. We’re not alone this time. Mr Kang won’t turn his back on us like the others did. Mr Kang is a good man. He’s helping me build a case, gather evidence— everything we need to make sure the Tatsuo Family will never come near us again. So can you be a good boy and wait a bit more? Hm? What do you think, Son? One year, and then Shigeru will be locked away for life. We will never have to see him again. He will never hurt us again. No one will beat you, never again. Never. Mummy won’t let them.”  

     “. . . Can you promise?” 

     A small smile found its way to her lips, and it looked genuine this time, but Minho, looking up at her with unsure eyes, still couldn’t smile back. 

     “Yes,” she said, offering her little finger. “I promise.” 

     Minho slowly reached out and curled his finger around hers. 

     In her presence, the monster inside of him shrank.

     He was Minho again, only Minho, and she loved him.  

     “Why don’t you rest for a bit?” she asked, making room for him on the bed. “I’ll change your bandages for you. Your chest must hurt, right? Oh, it must hurt terribly. I’m sorry you’re in pain. Come here, baby, I’ve got you.” She rested her cheek against the top of his head, and despite all the blood his hands had spilled, she kissed them both, over and over. 

     He closed his eyes. 

     He was under the surface of an ocean planet in a galaxy far, far away. He was swimming above the pulsing choreography of coral reefs that glowed in colours the human eye had no names for. He was surrounded by aquatic stars, and feathered sharks, and giant mermen, and singing whales. He was floating in a realm where he was just another one of the sea creatures, and not the most disgusting monster in the world. 

     Minho had no hope. 

     Minho didn’t want to live anymore. 

     Minho wished someone would do to him what he did to Mr Kobayashi. 

     And yet, when Mum’s first client of the evening knocked harshly at the door many hours later, he stood up, dropped to his knees, and crawled under the bed. It was only him and Mum for now, but just one more year, and then they’d go back to Seoul. If he could wait for a little longer . . . if he’d hold on just a little longer . . . 

     He covered his ears with shaking hands. 

     He imagined the blue sea. 

     He’d keep his promise. 

     He’d find him. 

     One day, he would. 

***

November, 2021 

     “Someone drugged me. And I know who it was.” 

     Minho snapped to his feet so fast that a handful of guests flinched, chopsticks freezing above their platters. The clatter of porcelain stopped. Conversations died down. Someone muttered his name, but he didn’t answer. 

     Instead he grabbed Jisung’s wrist and yanked him up without a glance at the stares around them. 

     “Walk.” 

     It wasn’t a request. 

     For a bastard who’d just spent five minutes lecturing him on how improper it was to storm out mid-dinner, Minho sure looked ready to kill someone if they didn’t leave at once. 

     Jisung followed his order, only because God knows he wanted nothing more than to leave, but his limbs felt like they were vibrating, his feet floating above ground instead of touching the carpet underneath. 

     Sora. 

     That lunatic had actually spiked his dinner. 

     Jisung truly understood her desire to help him with an escape plan, but for fuck’s sake, he’d said no. He’d told her he didn’t want to drug Minho, didn’t want to seduce him, didn’t even want to think about it. And now she’d gone behind his back and drugged him instead? For what reason? 

     For revenge? For fun? By mistake? 

     Why? 

     It made no sense. 

     He tried to breathe in, but his chest was buzzing instead of expanding. He was already sweating, already slurring his own thoughts. He needed water. He needed to stay upright. He needed a locked door. He needed to get the fuck away from here. 

     Even in his dizziness, however, he couldn’t help but notice that he was not afraid. 

     The stares of Chairman Kang and Felix burned against him, but their faces were sliding around, out of focus. He knew they would be concerned for him, that they would have questions, but . . . 

     But for some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to worry about it. 

     He’d been drugged, and he knew he should be terrified or furious or at the very least panicked, but his body didn’t seem to care what he knew. His brain screamed danger. His body purred safe. 

     He felt calm and cheerful all at once. 

     He wanted to go upstairs and talk for hours. 

     He wanted to laugh. 

     He wanted to be kissed. 

     God, it would take a freaking bullet to the head to keep him from wanting it. Might even take two bullets to keep him from giggling about how exciting it felt to want it. 

     He hated his own body more than he’d had at eight, back when bigger boys used to shove him into lockers. He hated it more than at thirteen, when his pubescent voice used to crack and squeak every time he opened his mouth. Hell, he hated himself more than at sixteen, when every K-Drama actor on TV gave him recurring wet dreams and random hard-ons in public spaces. All of those humiliations were nothing compared to this one, because right now, at this very moment, Jisung’s body was conspiring to make him do things. 

     And the only person close enough to do things with was Lee Minho, damn him, and his stupid face that looked straight out of a compilation titled ‘Top 10 K-Drama Villains You’ll Hate Yourself For Crushing On.’ 

     Not only did Minho have the audacity to keep him upright like only a heroic male lead would, but he was also doing it with one hand. 

     The other hand, you ask? 

     Oh, that one was making sure Jisung’s jacket was covering his crotch, hiding the evidence of whatever Sora had slipped into his food. Exactly. 

     If Jisung was saner at this moment, he might have only been grateful that Minho was saving him from the worst embarrassment of his adult life, and nothing more. But he wasn’t sane. If Minho dipped him backwards and kissed him right now, his brain might scream, ‘No! SOS! Enemy! SOS! Mortal enemy!’ but the thing below his belt might actually let it happen. 

     Chan’s words from earlier today kept needling at him, making him wonder, ‘What if Chan was telling the truth? What if my kidnapping really wasn’t Venom’s doing? What if Miss Garyeong has been the one pulling the strings this entire time? What if she’s the one giving the orders? That wouldn’t redeem him, absolutely not . . . but . . . but . . .’ Jisung had to bite his tongue so as not to speak these thoughts aloud. 

     He was no longer in control. 

     He was possessed, feverish, uncontrollable, spiralling, and instead of gratitude, what he felt was a strange curiosity for the very man who should have disgusted him. 

     “How . . . how is your jawline even real?” he murmured as the guards opened the doors for them, mouth too close to Minho’s cheek. “Not saying it as a compliment, evidently . . . It just looks . . . very . . . mathematically precise.” 

     “Quiet, you’re delirious,” Minho muttered with urgency, adjusting his arm more securely around Jisung’s waist as they crossed the threshold into the marble corridor. 

     “I said it’s not a compliment,” Jisung insisted. He couldn’t stop staring at Minho’s features—his maddeningly sharp, maddeningly pretty features. “Of course you’ll think I’m lying ‘cause I’m drugged and all, but I mean it. Sometimes I look at you and think, ‘dude, this bastard’s face is so symmetrical.’  I mean, objectively, like . . . in the same way you can admit Stalin had a nice moustache . . . But, you know, you’re a piece of shit who keeps pissing me off, and I’d rather eat cow dung than admit I like anything about you.” 

     “Thank you,” Minho muttered again, eyes on every bodyguard and maid they passed down the endless hall. “But we have more important mysteries to uncover than the symmetry of my face.” 

     “Like what?”

     “Like the identity and motive of the person who wanted you to fall into my bed.” 

     “Wh— Wh— Fall into your bed? Who, me?” Heat shot to Jisung’s cheeks, whether from shyness, fury or the drug’s effects he couldn’t tell. “Ha! As if! The ego of this guy! See, this is why I’m better off eating cow dung!” 

     “You forced me to be your boyfriend, didn’t you?”

     “Yeah, after you kidnapped me into a legally dubious marriage, jagi-yah!”

     “Which was supposed to be a fake arrangement until you demanded otherwise.” 

     “So?” Jisung barked, nearly tripping over his own feet. “That just means I wanted revenge and control and to punish you for your arrogance, not to get in your pants! Oh my God, I know what this is about! You’re mad ‘cause I outsmarted you with my superior intellect! Well, stay mad! Fuck you! I can’t stand you! I swear, if I had a gun right now—” 

     “You’d miss.”

     “Ha—!”

     “Quit it, Han.” Minho’s hand steadied him at the waist. “Focus. You need to stay lucid. I don’t know what or how much you ingested, but the second we’re upstairs, you’re telling me who did this to you.” 

     Huh? 

     Why was Minho looking at him like that? 

     His usual array of facial expressions consisted of boredom, detachment, contempt, calculation, maybe blankness on a good day. Never worry. So why were his eyes so weird? Why were they soft? Why was he guiding Jisung up the stairs so quickly? So carefully? Why was his voice kind? 

     Was Jisung imagining it? 

     “Did you hear me? Whatever’s happening to you, someone will pay for it. I’ll make sure of it.” 

     Jisung blinked. 

     What exactly had Sora slipped into his dinner to make him hallucinate hearing these things? 

     Was it potent enough to lead to an overdose? 

     Was he in danger? 

     Well, if all those years of relentless study had been leading up to one moment, this was it. 

     The grand finale: Han Jisung versus Mystery Sex Drug. 

     “All right— okay, Jisung-ah, think. What’s happening to you? Focus. Don’t lose it. Think. This is . . . this is not just any drug. I’m not hallucinating. I’m lucid enough to know I’m not exactly lucid. And the arousal— this— it's, like, pelvic.” It’s too targeted. Something dopaminergic? Amphetamine derivative? No, wait, no— I’m not jittery, I’m a bit slow. I’m . . . slurring. CNS depressant? GHB? No, GHB would’ve knocked me out, not turned me into a— Okay. Okay. Derealisation, check. Confusion, check. Hypersexuality, check. Hm. This isn’t only one drug. It’s a mixture. “This is a club cocktail,” he concluded under his breath. The memory of Sora’s face crossed his mind. “You witch,” he spat, wishing he could strangle her. “What did you put in me?” 

     A door opened before him, and it was Minho who manoeuvred him gently inside. 

     Jisung distracted himself by breathing in deeply, because his lower body reacted with a throb, and if he had one more shameful thought about Minho, he was certain it would either result in him grabbing the man or moaning his name in a way that only belonged between bedroom walls. 

     Oh, would you look at that. They’d entered the master bedroom. 

     Logs roared in the fireplace, crackling so fiercely Jisung had to take off his jacket, rip off his tie, and unbutton his collar before continuing: . . . Derealisation, mild dissociation— yeah, classic NMDA antagonist. It’s definitely ketamine. But my synapses are swimming in serotonin. The serotonergic flood can’t be ketamine. Something else is causing it. 

     Too hot to bear the physical contact any longer, he swore under his breath and abandoned Minho’s arms to kneel down on the polar bear rug instead. 

     Focus. Focus. What was I saying?

     He tried to remember, but the words were so far away, and suddenly he was . . .

     Smiling. 

     This room is so pretty, he thought out of nowhere, ridiculously giddy. Prettiest house I’ve ever seen. Like the houses they film sitcoms in, only more expensive and, like, the horror version. Everything is so pretty. This is nice. 

     He bounced slightly on his knees, ignoring the heat pooling between his thighs. God, he felt so . . . happy. He felt so euphoric he couldn’t remember ever being sad. Why would anyone ever be sad? Why would he? His heart pounded, each artery fizzing with neon-coloured bubbles. His skin tingled from scalp to soles. Every brush of fabric made him shiver. Every inhale of fire-laden air sent sparks through his tummy. It felt so wonderful that he needed to share the joy. He wanted to be closer to Minho. He wanted to be nice to Minho. He wanted to stand before him, smooth his frown, adjust the way he stood, maybe— ugh— maybe hug him. He wanted to lean into his shoulder, bury his face in his stupid chest, talk to him, tell him secrets, make him laugh, make him blush, shiver against him.  

     None of it is real. 

     It's not real. 

     “. . . It’s MDMA,” he muttered. 

     Well, this was bad news. 

     The MDMA is making my body too sensitive and inducing euphoria, which is what's distorting my judgement right now. The ketamine is making me pliant and confused. And— Jesus— yeah, there was definitely Viagra involved. Too much Viagra. Way too much. This erection is like a damn cement pillar, uh—

     “. . . talking to you. Do you hear me? Say something.”   

     “Goddamn it, where’d a housemaid get her hands on all this stuff?!” 

     “Han Jisung.” 

     With a tsk, Jisung looked up. 

     Oh.

     A very beautiful man lingered at the threshold. He was keeping a rather generous distance from where Jisung knelt by the bed, almost as if he were afraid to approach. His silhouette was half-swallowed by the shadows of the doorway, but the side of his face glowed amber from the roaring fireplace. His mouth curved downward in displeasure, but Jisung remembered too vividly how those same lips had softened against his skin not so long ago. It made him wonder . . . if he asked really nicely, would Minho press another kiss to his forehead? If he did, would his hands be tender? Would his voice be soft? Would he let himself be nice, just this once, just for him? If Jisung dared to ask . . . if he could ask . . . would Minho . . . ?

     No. 

     No. 

     Fuck, no. 

     Pull yourself together. 

     Jisung cleared his throat. “Yes?”  

     “You said you knew—”

     “Yes, I know. It has to be a mixture of ketamine, Viagra, and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine.” 

     Still in the doorway, Minho restrained a sigh. 

     “Or, um—” Jisung scratched the tip of his nose, round eyes widening in confusion “—better known as ‘ecstasy,’ I guess.” 

     “You said you knew who did it.”

     “Ah, right. That.” Jisung cleared his throat again, pressing one knee against the other to try to better hide the growing bulge in his trousers. It felt so exposing he couldn’t dare look Minho’s way. “Right. It was your housemaid.” 

     Minho raised a brow, but he nodded patiently. “Which one?” 

     Oh. Jisung hadn’t considered that he’d actually have to explain everything. “. . . Look,” he began shyly, hands wringing, “if I tell you this, you have to swear you won’t get— like, mad at me. Because statistically speaking, considering everything you’ve done to me . . . traumatised me, terrified me . . . you’re not in a position to get mad at me if I made a dumb choice. If I did something dumb, it was by accident. Big emphasis on accident. And you’ve done way worse to me. So— so please just—”

     “I would appreciate it if you hurried up and told me already.” 

     “What have I done to deserve this . . . Fine. The— um— the time I was locked in that room on the third floor, there was this maid .  . . She’d bring me sandwiches, sit with me, talk. She said you put her on guard duty the night I arrived, but she heard me talking to myself or whatever, and— and she decided I needed help. She took the keys and came back. She gave me one too. That’s how I escaped, actually. She said it was safe to wander the house at night, so I did, and I ended up seeing . . . everything you did to that prisoner. I had the key in my pocket when you caught me, but I tossed it into a random vase as soon as the chairman got me out.” 

     “There was never any maid on guard duty,” Minho said, more to himself. “There was only Seungmin.” 

     That lying wench. 

     “Well, I— I met her again after that.” 

     Minho huffed in evident exasperation. He took one step closer, firelight tracing his face. “Tell me.” 

     “This is the upsetting part.” 

     “Tell me.” 

     Jisung gulped, looking away. “The night I went to Dongwon’s studio for the first time, I was in the middle of a tantrum, crying because I missed my sister and I’d heard a scary sound, when that maid appeared out of nowhere. She told me she had a way to get me out of this house. A secret plan. She said I should—” The words choked in his throat, because how was he supposed to say something like that out loud? “. . . She told me, um, to . . . to sleep with you, I guess.” 

     Minho’s brows twitched into a frown above his darkening eyes. 

     “Now I obviously said no, all right?” Jisung rushed to clarify, hands rising in frantic defense. “I told her I didn’t want to escape, because you and I had a deal! I made that clear, but she wouldn’t stop pushing! She said seducing you was the only way I’d survive! I told her no again— I swear I did. But— but the worst part is that when I told her you wouldn’t ever fall for it, she suggested I drug you. She said she’d help me do it. She wanted me to . . . touch you while you were out. Gosh.” He shuddered at his own words. “I said no, over and over again. I promise, I refused. But she was the one who brought our food tonight. So I think . . . I think it was her.” 

     “What is her name?” 

     “Sora.”

     “. . . No, that cannot be right.” 

     “Yes, it is, I’m sure of it!” Jisung insisted, leaning forward on his knees. “She has pale skin, brown hair, huge brown eyes, and your mother’s labourer tattoo on her wrist! And her arms . . .” He rubbed his own forearm without realising it. “. . . Her arms are covered in burn scars. She always kept trying to hide them with her sleeves, but her uniform didn’t quite fit her. You must know her. She told me— she told me to look for the scar on your chest and find out how you got it. She wouldn’t stop going on about it. She was so adamant, like— like she needed me to sleep with you. I thought she was your crazy lover or- or something . . .” He coughed, embarrassed. “What’s– What’s happening to your face? Why are you looking at me like that?” 

     The silence stretched for so long Jisung almost forgot what they were talking about, until Minho finally hissed, “Where did you last see this woman? Before tonight.” 

     “Dongwon’s studio. Why? Do you recognise her now? I swear I’m not lying. I have no reason to.”  

     Minho’s lips pressed into a tight line. “Her name was not Sora,” he whispered.

     “Was?” Jisung blinked, uncomprehending. “What do you mean, was? What?” 

     “Her real name was Tatsuo Misora, and I killed her weeks ago.” 

     A rush of icy air seemed to sweep the room.

     Jisung wrapped his hands around himself, goosebumps prickling across his skin. For a moment, he thought he’d misheard the words (who knew—if the ketamine and ecstasy could make him want to cuddle up to this insufferable bastard, then who were to say they couldn’t make him imagine things as well?) but then he remembered this was Venom of The Vipers, and murder was no longer an unbelievable concept. 

     Yeah, that sounded like something his fiancé would do. 

     But Misora? Where had he heard that one before? 

     “Misora . . . Misora . . .” he mouthed the name, frowning. “. . . Tatsuo Misora? Wait, the psychopath who blew up your cocaine warehouse on Mount Yongmun and killed all those people?” His breath hitched. “That’s right, she’s dead! The prisoner Hakashita said you killed her! So why would the housemaid introduce herself by that name— Hey! Where are you going?” 

     Minho had turned towards the exit, checking the weapons hidden underneath his jacket with quick touches. 

     Jisung gasped. “Wait!” 

     His own behaviour made him blush, but he couldn’t stop himself no matter how ridiculous he knew he looked. His every heartbeat screamed for attention, and he couldn’t bear the thought of remaining alone, caged in this furnace of a bedroom like a pet left at home by itself. 

     “Are you leaving? Why? I could die while you’re gone! Seriously! The— the ecstasy! The serotonin surge! The risk of serotonin syndrome! Not to mention, what if I overheat? What if the fire—” He gestured vaguely towards the fireplace “—the fire sparks some oxidative stress? Reactive oxygen species could totally damage neurons if I’m left unsupervised!” He blinked rapidly and wriggled forward on his knees, eyes so big they threatened to pop out of their sockets. “And—and— and I’m thirsty! I— I need water! Hydration is crucial! Dehydration plus ketamine-induced hypotension could— Look, I swear, my heart rate is already elevated! The risk of syncope will increase exponentially if you leave me! So don’t leave me! Please, stay with me! I need you here! I mean, scientifically speaking, duh!” 

     Minho hadn’t moved a muscle.

     His back remained facing Jisung. 

     And even now, standing silent in that doorway, his presence seemed so impossibly immense, like he could say anything, and the laws of nature would shift and break to respect his authority. “Just—” He looked over his shoulder, frowned at Jisung, then tore his gaze away, viper tattoo rippling on the side of his neck as he swallowed. “Wait here.” 

     He opened the door. 

     “I’ll be back with water.” 

***

     Seungmin appeared outside the master bedroom just as Minho pulled the door shut. 

     His expression was composed, but the crease between his brows betrayed the worry he tried to hide. “Sir?” he whispered, stepping closer. “The chairman is upset; he thinks you and his grandson are fighting. The staff is whispering. The guests are leaving early, you should probably—” 

     Minho moved past him. “Guard this door.” 

     “Pardon—?”

     “If anything happens to my fiancé, so help me God, Seungmin, I will kill everyone in this house.” 

     “Sir, I don’t understand, what’s—”

     Minho’s boots were already carrying him up the stairs before Seungmin could finish. 

     He drew his gun from the holster strapped to his chest, clicking the safety off. Safety disengaged. Chamber checked. If it came to firing bullets, he wouldn’t miss. 

     His chest pulsed with adrenaline, but he recognised it wasn’t only that. As if some kind of virus had infected his blood system, his veins were burning in an unfamiliar rhythm. His abdomen felt strange. His torso was warming up, and so was his face. He had no choice but to ignore it all. The sweat gathering at his neck. The odd distortion of the chandeliers. The memory of Jisung’s doe eyes searching for pleasure Minho could never give him. 

     None of it mattered. 

     Dongwon’s studio did, and as soon as Minho reached it, he barged inside. 

     The muzzle of his gun swept the moonlit room in clean arcs—left, right, corners, ceiling—as his narrowed eyes hunted for threats. 

     The only attack, however, came from the scent of oil paint. 

     It was an unpleasant reminder that even though Kang Dongwon’s hands would never hold a brush again, they had once used this space to bring colours to life. The last time Minho had stood here, Dongwon had smeared shades of yellow across the corner of his mouth and kissed it, whispering, “Darling, look at this, I’m painting your portrait. This one is very special.” 

     Now, Minho’s bandaged hand twitched against the gun, because he knew that when that portrait had been finished, Dongwon had filled it with acid meant to murder him. 

     That thought set his chest on fire, but he refused to give a fuck that it burned. 

     Dongwon wasn’t the reason he’d come here. 

     Jisung was. 

     Minho searched every easel, every frame, every cupboard, every centimetre, desperate but patient to find what he was searching for. Nothing. No one. And yet, his instincts screamed as if the studio itself had grown eyes to watch him. 

     She was here. 

     He could feel her. 

     But where? If he were her, where would he hide? 

     He stalked the room again, again, again, again, until his eyes landed on the Japanese ink-brush landscape covering half of the far wall. 

     Hm. 

     Sliding his gun into the waistband at his back, Minho silently approached it. 

     Dongwon hadn’t painted this sansui-ga; it had been a gift from one of his bougie private-school friends in Seoul, placed there only because it was big enough to conceal the hole built into the wall for storage. There was nothing unusual about it. It looked perfectly harmless. Except it wasn’t. One of the canvas’ lower corners was sagging as though it had been touched too often. And why would anyone touch it at all— unless they had to move it, again and again? 

     Yahtzee. 

     Minho began tearing it down. Canvas ripped. Colours cracked between his fingers. The painted rivers and mountains collapsed in tatters at his boots. Behind the ruin, hidden in the shadowed storage hole like vermin nesting in a human house, sat Tatsuo Misora. 

     Alive and breathing. 

     “You bitch,” Minho hissed in Japanese, expertly drawing the gun from his waistband to aim it at her forehead. “How long have you been living inside my walls?” 

     As though merely waking from a long nap, Misora brushed flecks of plaster from her sleeves and emerged from the hole to stand smirking before him. Just like Jisung had claimed, there was a labourer tattoo on her wrist, one that hadn’t been there when Minho’s men had put her in a body bag and taken her out of the interrogation cage. But it was a fake. It was drawn on her skin with black paint. 

     Minho opened his mouth. He wanted to shout, to curse, to demand, but out of nowhere that same warm and electric dizziness from the hallway slammed into him again. 

     His knees went weak. 

     What the . . .

     Blinking hard, he fought to keep his stance firm. He must not lose focus. He must deal with her, once and for all. 

     “Why so surprised to see me?” Misora laughed, tilting her head with a doll’s smile. “Didn’t I tell you killing me wouldn’t be so simple?” 

     Minho hadn’t thought killing her would be simple at all, but she had, in fact, died.  

     After personally checking for a pulse and finding nothing, he’d changed his mental definition of Tatsuo Misora from ‘homicidal lunatic on the loose’ to ‘dead and rotting in Hell’, assuming it would be permanent. 

     He tightened his sweaty grip on the gun, because, sue him, it did catch him off guard to see the bitch rise from the dead. 

     “What are you, a fucking zombie?” he croaked. “You were in rigor mortis when they threw your body into the sea.” 

     “I’m a marvellous actress, aren’t I?” She laughed, throwing her head back as though accepting an Oscar. “This is what I was trained for all my life, remember? Espionage? No? Well, did you really think I’d get caught by accident after that explosion? Me, of all people? Or Hakashita? Or Kurozumi? Please. We let ourselves get caught on Mount Yongmun. How else was I going to infiltrate your house? I choreographed every step, and you danced exactly how I wanted you to.” She walked closer, batting her eyelashes at his distraught face. “I wanted this moment all along. You, me, the gun. Aren’t I impressive?” 

     “Yes,” Minho said, retreating a step. “I’ll make sure to write your pathetic achievements on your gravestone.” 

     “I’d love that,” Misora purred. “But honestly, how stupid can you be? A maid’s uniform, a bowed head, a painted labourer tattoo, and no one in your household questioned me. I’ve been moving on your estate as I pleased. I’ve eaten your food, worn your shirts to sleep, read every paper in your office. I’ve watched you pace at night when you thought no one could see. I’ve been there for your every morning work-out.” Her smile widened as she lowered her voice into a sultry whisper. “How come you’ve never heard me breathing behind you? Not even while you showered? You look better naked, I have to admit.” 

     Minho was going to be sick. 

     Unable to summon words, dizzier by the second, he gulped. 

     “Oh, it’s just lovely! Do you wanna hear the achievement I’m proudest of? Do you?” 

     Each of her abrupt movements made Minho wince. Why the hell did his knees feel so weak? Why couldn’t he focus? 

     He gulped again, struggling to regain composure. 

     “So, I needed a way to serve you dinner, right? To drug you? Easy-peasy! I was going to choose a maid to kill at random, but imagine my surprise when I found out that stupid slut from the brothel was your housemaid now! I’d sworn I’d kill her one day, you must remember! She made the sweetest sound when she died! And doesn’t her dress fit me perfectly? The last one I stole was too small! Hm-mh! Her body’s in the septic tank, by the way, if you care to bury her!” 

     “Blossom.” 

     Minho uncurled one hand from the gun to cover his eyes, swallowing his vomit as he took another step back. 

     “You killed— No. Not Blossom. Blossom was innocent. No. God fucking damn it, Sora. Why.” 

     “No, don’t pout! I left her body intact; I wasn’t even cruel. I killed her exactly like I killed her two babies. Pity I never finished the set. Did you know she had a secret son in Japan this entire time? My brother said they’d taken him and recruited him for the Yakuza, so I couldn’t kill him. Stupid rules. Tsk. Pity. I was raised as the Yakuza’s little princess, but what for? They don’t let me do anything I want! I can’t choose my own missions, can’t torture who I want— it’s so boring! The only whim they ever allowed me was to take Seungmin to Japan with me, but that was so many years ago! I was such a lonely child . . . Seungmin was so fun to bully, and I needed a friend, didn’t I? You can’t hate me for that, Minho. And you got him back in the end, didn’t you? He’s grown up handsome too, but it’s you I like more.” 

     He thought he might actually vomit, but he managed to steady his hands on the gun. 

     “This ends here, Misora.” 

     “Oh? Are you sure you want me dead? If I die, who else will lead you to Han Dahyun?” 

     His face fell. 

     Misora’s sweet smile stretched into a sharkish, predatory curl. “Don’t worry, don’t worry—I haven’t told my brother who she is, or Han Jisung either. You just have so many phones in this house, I couldn’t resist not ringing him up a couple times. You know how Shigeru is, all puffed up like a rooster when he talks about his women. He had plenty of Japanese ones in prison, but according to him, nothing tastes like a beautiful Korean. Naturally, when he told me about his newest whore, I connected the dots. Knew who she was, just didn’t bother to mention it. I thought it’d be fun . . . watching little Jisungie’s face twist when I spoke like her . . . acted like her . . . just the way my brother described her. I couldn’t use his grief against him the way I wanted, though. I thought the idiot would be easier to manipulate, I’ll give him that.” 

     “Then where is she?” 

     Misora blinked, still smiling. “Oh, you’re no fun—”

     “Where. Is. She.” 

     “Tokyo. Kyoto. Maybe Osaka. Don’t know. Didn’t ask. I was more concerned with the fun details—“

     “You don’t know shit. All the phone records in this house are brought straight to me. Not one call has ever been made to or from Japan. Not one. You heard me and Hyunjin talk about the disappearance of Han Dahyun and must be mistaking me for a fool. I know better than to trust anything that comes out of your filthy mouth.” 

     “But why not? I’m trustworthy! Can’t you tell? Can’t you see why I’m doing all of this?”

     His voice stayed low, lip curled in disgust. “What I see is a sadistic little liar who’s about to run out of luck.” 

     “No, no, no. I did it all to keep my promise to you, of course. You were supposed to be mine. I only wanted to make you break your promise, like I told you I would.” 

     “You mean to tell me you did all this because I rejected you when we were twelve?” 

     “Yes, exactly! And look—it worked! You’re going to break your promise to Dongwon tonight, aren’t you?” 

     Minho’s throat stung as if glass shards were lodged behind his Adam’s apple. The gun in his hand felt heavier by the second, growing slick against his damp palm. He pictured Jisung in the bedroom, struggling against a body that no longer responded to his brain’s commands, all because of this deranged woman. 

     He wanted to kill her. 

     “No,” he barked, in the hoarsest voice he’d ever heard come out of his own mouth. “No, I won’t, you psycho.” 

     “Won’t you?” 

     “Did you seriously drug Han Jisung thinking I would ever do something like that to—“ 

     “Drug him?” she gasped, pacing a slow circle around him. “Silly, did you not hear me? I’ve drugged you both. It was in the water, in the wine, in every single dish, every sip, every bite . . .”

     Well, fuck him. 

     He’d already suspected it. 

     Now she’d confirmed it. 

     “Oh, cheer up, Minho! You’re so mean and gloomy that not even ecstasy can make you smile! I should’ve known— you’re a true-born villain!” 

     “Yeah, I’m no saint, but you are a depraved kind of villain,” Minho snarled, adjusting his grip on the gun. “You crossed a line with me, and you’ll pay for it. I’ll lock you in a cage so deep underground you’ll wish you’d died the first time you tested my patience.” 

     “But what will Han Jisung think of that? The man he has to marry, being an executioner? A torturer? Would he like that at all?” 

     Minho’s stomach sank. 

     Why did she think he’d ever care about whether Han Jisung liked him or not? 

     Why would it matter if Jisung did or did not? 

     Why was Minho even wondering if he did? 

     Why . . . 

     Why the hell did it feel like it mattered?  

     Why did the idea unsettle him so deeply? Why did he care if Jisung saw only a monster in him? Why—out of everything Minho had done, everything he had become—would this boy’s opinion of him feel like the one verdict he could not endure? Why should the judgment of someone who loathed him weigh heavier than the blood on his hands? Why was it easier to live with the memory of Hakashita’s dying breath than with the look Jisung had given him afterwards? 

     Fuck, he was too dizzy. 

     “Of course he wouldn’t like it.” Misora leaned into the gun, pressing her forehead against the barrel. “He’s so righteous, isn’t he? So kind-hearted, has so much empathy, even for monsters like us. He’s so sweet I thought you wouldn’t need my help to take advantage of him and break that pinky promise of yours. I thought it’d be easy to make you fuck him. But you stubborn little saints resisted, both of you. You were so boring! So mean to each other! I drugged you because you gave me no choice! You forced my hand! You both did! When you wouldn’t listen to me, when he wouldn’t— I thought about killing him myself. I dreamed of it, Minho. My hands around his throat, squeezing the air out of him just to hear what sound he makes. He cries so sweetly, doesn’t he? The weak little animal— he has such soft eyes, and they look much better wet. I can make him cry for you. Would you like that? I can torture him. I can break him down piece by piece until he thanks you for every scrap of mercy. Say yes. Say yes, and I’ll do it tonight.” 

     “Or just take me instead,” her voice softened into a worshipful whisper. “I’ll be what he cannot. I’ll win you your war. I’ll be your warhound, your assassin, I’ll do anything you command. I’ll kill my brother for you. I can kill Han Jisung too. Don’t you see? He’s worthless. You don’t need that whimpering little bitch when you’ve got someone as capable as me. Who would ever need someone like him? Someone so weak, so naive, so stupid, so—”

     Minho pulled the trigger. 

     Jisung hesitated. “These are . . .” He looked down. “Most of these people are the ones who were in the basement that day. When we met. They know I'm not him. They can bow all they want, but they’ll still la- laugh at me like they did then.” 

     “I will break their mouths if they try.” 

     And he meant it. 

     Minho had meant it. 

     He watched with no emotion as Misora dropped into a puddle of her own blood and brain matter on the floor. Due to the angle he’d shot at, her entire mouth was gone, and if Minho hadn’t been fighting off the drugs she’d put in his system, he might’ve stayed to savour watching her rot. 

     But he turned, put the gun back into the holster at his chest, and went to get water for his fiancé. 

*** 

     It had been an impossible effort for Minho to convince Seungmin that the blush on his face and the trembling in his knees weren’t harbingers of death. Sweat had beaded his brow while he explained he’d just caught a mild cold, over and over, until Seungmin’s expression finally changed from terror to reluctant obedience. 

     “Just . . . just go upstairs,” Minho had muttered through clenched teeth, running out of patience as the drugs clawed deeper into his bloodstream with every heartbeat. “Clean the mess. Get rid of her. Set her on fire if you must, but just— just make sure the bitch stays dead. Go tell Hyunjin the spy was caught, and prepare to retrieve a corpse from the septic tank for burial.” 

     Seungmin had gone with a respectful bow, footsteps fading into the upper floors. 

     Silence took his place.

     Now alone in the corridor, standing outside the bedroom he’d slept in for years, Minho faced a second impossible effort. 

     Opening the door. 

     One hand carried the pitcher of cold water he’d brought from the kitchens; the other hovered uselessly over the doorknob without touching it. 

     He couldn’t explain to himself why he couldn’t bring himself to go in. Minho feared nothing. Not prison, not war, not even death. But knowing Jisung was on the other side of this door, and not knowing what state he would find him in, sent a spasm through his chest so violently fearful it felt like a stranger’s heartbeat. Scenarios flashed before his eyes, and he could not stop them if he tried: Jisung collapsed on the bed, lips blue from an overdose. Jisung rocking in the corner, eyes glassy, whispering prayers or begging to go home. Jisung trembling the way he had the night Minho first saw him cry. 

     He tried to tell himself it was a ridiculous thing to think about—Jisung was stronger than that, stubborn as hell, dead set on surviving—but the longer he stood there, the more his imagination turned cruel. What if Jisung hadn’t been strong enough this time? What if he’d broken? What if the pieces couldn’t be glued back together? Minho imagined the smell of vomit, the hiss of breath caught between sobs, the look of pure terror aimed at him. 

     The pitcher shook in his hand.

     He told himself it was the drugs. He told himself it was an illusion. But he felt physically sick. 

     He was afraid. 

     Fear was what human beings felt when something had, somehow and against all logic, become dear to them, then threatened to disappear. 

     Deep down, Minho was still human. 

     Be alive, and I’ll take care of your idiot self better from now on. I’ll be nicer. I’ll listen to your nonsensical chemistry rants. I’ll take you on as many annoying dates as you want. I’ll kidnap that damn band you like and make them perform in the living room to cheer you up. I’ll feed you corndogs and ice cream so you never want to starve again. I’ll burn all the locks and keys inside this house so you’re never caged again. 

     I am sorry for not having the courage to say no to my mother’s orders. 

     When the war is over, I pinky promise I’ll let you go. 

     He closed his eyes tightly, pressing his forehead to the flat wooden surface. 

     Just be alive, little birdie. 

     He turned the knob and pushed the door open. 

     The air that greeted him was suffocating. Whether the fire had been stoked higher in his absence or the drugs were twisting his senses, he could not tell, but the heat was stifling enough to choke on. 

     The heat wasn’t, however, what made Minho choke. 

     It was the sight before him. 

     When the bedroom door banged shut, and Jisung looked up right into his eyes, Minho froze. 

     He was lying on his back upon the soft white fur of the polar bear rug, one arm flung carelessly beside him, the other clutching at his chest as it rose and fell with heavy breaths. His eyes were impossibly wide, glimmering like a kitten startled awake. Sweat coated his tan skin, making him glisten, tracing the lines of his collarbone, the hollow of his throat. He seemed luminous, in the way stars were to sailors in need of a guide at sea, but when he noticed the water Minho was holding and smiled, starlight suddenly became too dull to describe him. The cosmos itself dimmed to make room for his smile. It outshined the stars and everything brighter. To look at it felt like trespass, as if beauty that radiant should never be witnessed by a mortal. 

     Yet Minho couldn’t look away. 

     “I knew you’d come back.” 

     A pulse of heat, impossible to stop, went straight to Minho’s groin. 

     His cock stiffened with such humiliating urgency he nearly dropped the pitcher of water. As soon as he’d realised his own food had been spiked as well, this was the side effect he’d dreaded the most. Maybe he couldn’t stop the arousal, but he sure as all Hell wouldn’t indulge it or act on it. Absolutely not. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to cross the room and set the water on the nightstand. 

     Jisung’s eyes were on him. 

     Though he could feel them tracking his every move, he refused to meet them.

     Now that the fear was gone, shame had taken its place. 

     This was not Sora’s fault; it was his and his entirely. Every part of it. He should have kept a closer watch on the room on the third floor, stationed more guards at the door, killed Sora properly the first time instead of assuming she wouldn’t be deranged enough to fake her own death. He had been arrogant, and now Jisung was the one paying the price for it with yet another undeserved trauma stacked on top of too many others. It was irrational, utterly against himself, but Minho felt like he wanted to kneel, to gather Jisung up into his arms, to apologise and promise he would never allow harm to touch him again. He wanted to brush the hair from Jisung’s face, to trace the line of Jisung’s jaw until his breathing evened out, until Jisung fell asleep and woke up healthy enough to hate Minho again. 

     But he knew he couldn’t. 

     The only reason he wanted to pull Jisung so close in the first place was because of the toxic mixture coursing through his veins. He knew that if he stayed here, he wouldn’t be able to restrain himself from what he would want next. 

     He needed to leave. 

     “There’s your water.” Minho pointed to the nightstand, back turned to Jisung as he walked towards the door. “I’ll make sure to station Seungmin at the door for the night, but nobody will come in anyway. If you need anything, if you feel sick— just ask him to help you. I’ll— I’ll—“ 

     But at the door, once again, Jisung’s voice stopped him. 

     “Where do you think you’re going?” 

     Minho’s chest pulsed painfully. He turned his head slightly, to steal one last glance. Jisung was still on the floor, watching him with flushed cheeks and parted lips in the stifling heat. Even in this state, even when he was drenched in sweat and fury, he was beautiful in a way that twisted Minho’s insides. He was beautiful in a way that Dongwon had never been. He was so beautiful it angered Minho. 

     He forced his gaze upward, towards the gunshot hole in the ceiling that he still hadn't fixed. Anything to not look at him. 

     “I . . . have to be in my office,” Minho managed. He couldn’t take this any longer. It was dangerous. It was too dangerous, and he needed to leave before he did something he would regret for the rest of his life. If he went to his office he could lock himself away, gather the pieces of his mind, and wait for the poison to bleed out of him before he could do further harm. He’d sworn to himself he would never do to anyone what those men had done to his mother, and he wasn’t about to start with Han Jisung. “There are things I need to finish for work. It’s . . . important. You’ll be alone tonight.”

     “No,” Jisung said. 

     “No?” 

     “No, absolutely not,”  Jisung said again, more forcefully this time. “You are not leaving me alone in here. Not again.” 

     Minho stepped backward into the doorway, his hand brushing against the wood for balance. “You need to rest,” he said, voice roughened by the effort it took to control it. “You’ll have the entire bed for yourself. You wanted that, right? It’s all yours. I’ll be downstairs. It’s . . . It’s best if I go—” 

     “No, goddamn it!” Jisung pushed himself upright, hands buried in the fur beneath him, his body trembling. “I’m so fucking done with this! You can’t just— you can’t keep leaving me to suffer on my own!” His voice sounded like he was close to tears; Minho opened and closed his mouth, unsure of what to say, or if he had the strength to say anything at all. “Every time something happens, you leave! You turn my life upside down, you leave! You lock me in a cage, you leave! You see I try to help you, you leave! You see I need help, and you still fucking leave! Every time I’m in pain, it’s you who causes it, and you who leaves me alone with it!”

     “Jisung—”

     “No, you listen to me! I don't want any of your stupid mint chocolate ice cream or your half-assed apologies if you're just gonna treat me like your caged bird at the end of the day anyway! That night, after I saw you kill Hakashita, I remember . . . you told me- you told you wouldn’t hurt me. If you walk through that door again, I’ll know you lied. It will hurt me.” 

     Minho didn’t turn.

     “I cannot stay.” 

     “Why?” 

     “Han, I just—” 

     “Why, Sir? So you can go keep drinking with your mafia buddies downstairs? Or stare at your snakes slither in circles in their cages? Or ride your bike God knows where while I’m hyperventilating on your bedroom floor because you’ve hired a maniacal housemaid who somehow has access to ecstasy and ketamine and freaking Via—”

     “I must leave, because she drugged me too!” 

     He turned harshly to meet Jisung’s eyes across the flickering room. 

     He breathed hard, instantly licking his lips at the sight of him. 

     God. 

     God, he was . . . he was perfect. 

     “I must leave, because if I stay here another second, in this heat, in this silence, watching you fall apart with your lips flushed and your pupils blown and your shirt sticking to your skin like that—” His voice broke as he closed his trembling eyes. “I will lose my mind. And if I act on what this poison of a drug is pushing through my veins, it will hurt you more than me walking out of this room ever could.” 

     He wanted to frighten him. If he managed to scare him enough, Jisung would want the monster gone, and push Minho away himself. Then Minho could go into his office, down a bottle of scotch, and sleep all of this off. They’d wake up next morning and everything would be back to the bitter, tensionate normal. They’d forget this ever happened. 

     But Jisung, apparently not one to scare so easily, flared his nostrils and stood up with his chin raised. “What are you implying? That we’d end up sleeping together?” 

     Minho stepped back, nearly into the door. “That . . . That . . .” 

     “Please,” Jisung scoffed with a roll of his eyes. “Not even Viagra could ever make you want me, so why are you afraid to stay? You can’t even look at me without disdain. You despise both my presence and the sight of my face. You’ve been making it clear since day one.” 

     Minho gulped, hypnotised by the pulsing veins revealed by Jisung’s undone collar. He wondered how the pulse would feel if he wrapped his hand around his neck and squeezed. He wondered how soft his lips would be, how red his cheeks would get, how nice it would feel to hug him, how—

     He nodded, averting his eyes. 

     “No, you’re right. I don’t want you.” 

     Jisung threw his hands up. “Then what is it? Do you think I’d be the one to touch you? Are you insane? I hate you! I hate you so much that there aren’t enough ways on Earth to describe it! You’re a loathsome, heartless, disgusting, repugnant cockroach who crawled into my life and made a hostage and a cocaine trafficker out of me! I may be having weird thoughts right now, but I still don’t want you! You think I’m thrilled my body turned to you? Why not Seungmin? Why not Chaerin? Why not Felix? They’re all nicer than you! They’re prettier than you! They’re better than you! Anyone else would’ve made more sense! But it was you! I don’t want you. I hate you. So, why you?” 

     Minho had grown used to Jisung’s anger, to the insults that he very much deserved, but tonight they didn’t ricochet off his armor like they usually did. Tonight, they slid beneath it, cutting into his skin to make him bleed. The rational part of him—the sober part that knew to maintain distance—was screaming: This isn’t real. It’s not you. It’s the ecstasy. But the other part of him—the stupidly human part, now helpless under the influence of the emotion-heightening drugs—whimpered like a wounded dog. 

     It’s chemical, it’s not real, it’s only in my brain, so why does it hurt so much? 

     Why, if I’m aware I deserve his hatred and worse? 

     Jisung ruffled his hair in frustration, sitting back down on the floor as a wave of dizziness seemed to weaken him. He sighed, his breath trembling.

     “The reason I need you to stay . . . is because I am mortified. I remember the day I woke up on your boat, out at sea, barely comprehending that I’ve been drugged and out for nearly a whole day. I remember how terrified I was, how I kept trying to figure out what it was you put in my body and whether it would kill me, cripple me, or ruin my brain cells forever. Right now— Right now, I am still high, but I know what comes next. When the effects eventually wear off, the serotonin crash from the MDMA, the rebound hypertension, the respiratory drop from the ketamine— it— it can spiral so fast you won’t know what’s happening to you until you’re already dying. You could choke on your own vomit, seize, or stop breathing while you’re unconscious. I’ve studied this for years; I know what I’m talking about. So, please, don’t leave me alone with this. You shouldn’t be alone either. Whatever’s in our systems is still working through the liver, still messing with our blood pressure, our oxygen. We need to monitor each other. I don’t want to wake up half-dead again. I don’t want to die alone on some floor because my airway collapsed and no one was there to help me. I’m scared, okay? I’m too young to kick the bucket. I still want to see my sister. I want to eat ramyeon and watch my favourite documentaries and live enough to get white hairs. So be a decent husband for once and sit in the corner to make sure I don’t die!” 

     He was right. 

     Minho knew that he was, without a doubt, right.

     But his heart felt heavy at the prospect of staying, and it wasn’t because he couldn’t admit he was wrong. It was his gut, telling him that no part of this night would end well. 

     “I could send someone to stay with you,” he offered instead. 

     “Sure,” Jisung scoffed. “But make sure to send someone tall and handsome, will you?” 

     Minho blinked. “What?”

     “You’re my fiancé,” Jisung said, eyes glistening with defiance. “And I promised myself I’d try to tolerate you to make this work— to treat you with some damn respect, even if you don’t even deserve it— but if you walk out now, when I need you most, I’ll find someone who won’t. The banquet’s still downstairs, isn’t it? I’m sure one of your charming guests would love to babysit your drugged-up future husband.” 

     Minho stared at him, struck silent by the bravado. Did Jisung mean it? Would he really attempt such a thing? None of Minho’s soldiers, none of his allies, would ever be foolish enough to entertain such an offer from Minho’s fiancé, so why did it bother him so much anyway? 

     Why did the thought of Jisung with someone else—someone not him—make him feel like this? 

     His heart was heavy, but . . . but in a strange way that he’d never experienced before, not even when he’d learned of Dongwon and Yeonho’s affair. His instincts screamed at him to lock the door and stare at Jisung all night long just to make sure no one would come in and take him away. 

     What was this feeling? 

     What was this man doing to him? 

     “You,” he whispered, dazed, “truly are crazy.” 

     “And you,” Jisung whispered back, narrowing his glassy eyes, “don’t get to abandon me when you’re the one who made me lose my mind.” 

     Minho didn’t realise he’d let go of the doorknob until he heard it clink back into place. 

     He locked the door. 

     “Fine.” He took off his jacket, back still turned to Jisung. “Let’s just sit in opposite parts of the room.”