Preview: The 13 Strokes of Midnight

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 The moon, huge and resplendent of beauty seemed to be watching over the night city of Seoul which, despite the late hour, was still completely lively and awakened. People would come and go as they please, often their faces showing signs of evident tiredness or drunkenness; others would simply be looking at their phones while walking, not minding other people's worlds. The millions of lights from the headlights of cars moving in all directions created a ballet of luminescence that seemed to be dancing under the shy brightness of the stars. The cold attitude of individuals toward each other versus the warmth from the bright colours of the city allowed for an intriguing contrast to take place.

Far up from all the noises, were dangerously standing near the end of the building's rooftop two dark silhouettes. 50 storeys were separating them from the ground. One wrong step and it would be the end. The wind was blowing fiercely that night and was indeed more intense up there. Perched on the edge of the structure, a man clad entirely in black and dressed in a perfectly tailored suit borrowed from the style of the Englishmen of the mid-1800s completed with a top hat which married well with the thematic of his entire outfit was lost in the contemplation of the hypnotic light of the moon, unaware of the presence of the other figure. 

Silently, with the agility and the grace of a cat, the smaller of the two individuals approached. Due to his remarkable and almost unhuman natural stealth, it was nearly impossible for anyone to detect him, even less during nighttime.  Once he was about a meter away from his prey, he decided nonetheless to manifest his presence by purposely creating a light friction sound of his shoe against the cold concrete, which was almost unnoticeable. The hatted man suddenly jumped in surprise and swiftly shifted his body, ready to face his opponent, but he then quickly lowered his guard, his eyes still glittering from the sudden rush of adrenaline, as he recognised his comrade who was holding in hand a tray in which were resting two cups of tea, a human invention that had shown great use in the attempt of keeping their minds focused on work and which rapidly became an addiction within the Organisation.

"Seems like you need training again...You have become weaker, Jooheon-ah," The smaller man gently scolded with his honey-like voice as he presented him with a fuming cup from which emerged a slight aroma of orange. For his part, he preferred mint. "I could have easily killed you. You need to be alert all time. You never know when they will come for you." 

Jooheon smelled the steam coming from his teacup and let out a deep sigh of satisfaction. After several seconds, he decided to finally bring back his attention to his companion.

"Oh! For God's sake! Can't you stop with your nagging for once, Minhyuk Hyung?!" He replied, slightly annoyed. "I only wanted to relax for once, okay?! I got distracted, that's all. Also, if you really wanted to kill me, you already had tons of opportunities to do so while I was asleep..."

 "Are you insane?!! There's no fxxking way I would do something that shameful! I have standards," Minhyuk cried out, sincerely offended. 

 "No, of course not. You wouldn't ...without a good reason," Jooheon dropped, a small smirk forming at the edge of his lips as he watched his friend lose composure. The poor Minhyuk normally would always try hard to keep a professional mask in front of the other team members. His true nature, however, was that of an eccentric and so, no matter how hard he would try pretending to be dignified, it simply couldn't work. The contradiction of his personality versus what he wanted to achieve was similar to how a narcissistic individual would self-proclaim as modest. It just didn't work. It was a wonder why his Hyung would put such efforts into pretending to be something he was not. Rather than trying to figure out the logic behind his mind, Jooheon simply grew to accept Minhyuk the way he was. After all, in terms of eccentricity, none of his teammates could be defined as normal. Minhyuk wasn't even half bad compared to another member of their unit. 

"...However, I'm sure you could do it for more blankets and more space in the bed," He teased.

Minhyuk paused as if he was calculating the probabilities of actually killing for blankets and grinned at the thought.

"How could I possibly do this to our cute little Joohoney?" He teased with a voice that was intended to mimic the high-pitched tone of a woman -but since his voice was naturally husky, it failed miserably- and followed his words by a blowing kiss gesture towards Jooheon.

The place they had rented for the mission had only two rooms, a washroom and a humble room of 8-meter square that included a tiny fridge completely useless as they didn't need any, a broken heater and an old mattress that was lying poorly on the floor and acted as a bed for the two of them. Money wasn't a problem for the Organisation, however, they had been told to keep a low profile during the duration of their mission, which brought them to this uncomfortable situation. 

They had received orders to work together following the same schedule and they had rapidly concluded that there was no other option but to sleep together on the same-ugh- bed... They had only one pillow and therefore, had to play rock-paper-scissors every night to determine who would be the lucky one to sleep on"luxury". The situation was already awkward enough and although they were really good friends, their pride was greatly affected by the somewhat forced cohabitation in such conditions. 

Jooheon jumped as he tried to dodge away from the invisible kiss and fell back on one foot, only a few centimetres away from the edge of the building as if it was the easiest thing to do. He crouched, still holding his cup of tea in one hand. He was about to throw his hat at Minhyuk's annoying face, but refrain from acting as he remembered the price of his costume.

Tch! He doesn't deserve to get hit by something this expensive. He should be grateful that I'm such a forgiving soul...

They stayed quiet for a while, both enjoying the heat of their cups. They remained still until there was no longer any of their precious liquid left.

"What a shame. Good things always end too fast," Jooheon mumbled to himself, sadly staring at his now cold and empty cup. Tea and coffee were really dangerous-but oh so needed addictions.

"Speaking of nagging, Kihyun is doing a way better job at it than me," Minhyuk suddenly dropped, breaking the peaceful silence that, up till then, had been surrounding them.

Oh God, I can't believe he is still stuck up on this. It was a mere detail I said like 20 minutes ago!!

Jooheon shook his head, feeling sincerely sorry for his Hyung's stupidity.

 "Now that you've mentioned it, where is he? Wasn't he supposed to join us two days ago?" He asked in a subtle attempt to change the subject of their conversation.

"He told me he had a few things to do before and some business to deal with..." Minhyuk replied, but was soon cut off by the sound of his phone ringing in his pocket.  "Ah-ha! Speaking of the devil!" He announced after looking at the name displayed on the small screen. 

He quickly responded.

"Hellllllooooooooooooo??????...(pause)...Yes?...(pause)...Yes...(pause)...I see. We'll be there soon," He stated, his voice gradually changing from teasing to serious, before quickly hanging up.

"Where are we going? I thought we were supposed to stay here and keep an eye on our target." Jooheon asked, concerned.

"Something unexpected came up," Minhyuk answered with a sly smile. Jooheon suddenly felt a shiver down his spine. He knew damn too well that kind of perverted grin, and when Minhyuk-Hyung had that smile on his face, it meant only one thing.

Troubles.

Life is C between B and D [A Hyungwonho/2won Story] *Editing in progress*Where stories live. Discover now