TW: MENTIONS OF SUICIDE AND RAPE, AND OTHER POSSIBLY TRIGGERING STUFF, READ AT YOUR OWN EXPENSE.
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Crows shrieked above the car parked at the top of the street of Mingyu’s house. Inside, bundled up in padding jackets, air conditioner heat blowing at their faces, sat Jeonghan and Onyx, focused on the monitor in front of them. The night clouds brought rain along, which was rather inconvenient for their third day on the watch. Onyx yawned, resting against the headset with her eyes closed. Jeonghan chewed on sour candy strips, as he rotated the view of the camera. Everything was still the same, the stalker inside the van was still there, and ever since they planted the bug earlier - using the time the man took off to relieve himself - the only sound heard was static from his movement and the random thuds here and there.
Hours passed by, the moon took its place right above them, casting beams across the car hood. Onyx would’ve almost dozed off, if it wasn’t for the sudden rise in the volume of the static. The gruffy voice of Bob The Stalker alarmed both of them and they fixed on their headphones to listen.
“Hey man, I don’t think the guy’s home. The lights are on and all, but something’s off, and he hasn’t come out for three days since I’ve last seen him, and even before that, he was absent for far too long.”
“Bob’s suspicious of our beloved Mingyu,” Jeonghan smiled mischeivously, “finally we’re getting some action.”
“Should I check?...Okay, I’m going in.”
Jeonghan motioned to Onyx to exit the car immediately. This was their signal. They dropped everything and went down the street, carefully sprinting between houses. They watched the man, burly and large, walk towards the door of Mingyu’s house, fiddling with the lock before it broke and he went in. Onyx motioned to Jeonghan to move closer, until each of them took a side beside the door.
“Joshua, it’s time to go fishing,” she said to the earpiece.
“Copy that.”
They heard noises inside, the realization curses and banging doors. Onyx let out a deep breath slowly, taking out a knife. Jeonghan, on the other side was holding a baton, swinging it once on standby.
Oblivious, the man came jogging out of the door. Jeonghan smacked him once up the head with the baton, making him waver on his feet. Onyx kicked him behind the knees, dropping him to the floor, before pressing a chloroform soaked cloth against his respiratory entryways. The struggling man grasped against the porch mat, trying to raise himself up only to be stopped by Jeonghan pinning him on the ground by his foot, losing all consciousness. Onyx ran uphill to get their car, driving it full speed down to the house. She took out zip ties and strapped them tight around the blacked-out man’s wrist and feet and covered his eyes with a cloth. The chloroform should keep him out until they returned to headquarters. They lifted him up, heaving up his weight, shoving him inside the car on the back seat. Jeonghan got into the driver’s seat, buckling up. Onyx scanned the area quickly before grabbing the camera and the bug they placed and jumping into the passenger’s seat.
_____
He smiled against his mask; finally the fun has begun. Joshua dropped the book he was fake reading. Fortunately for him, his target chose to change his parking spot for a better view of the university, since he reported seeing a man resmebling Mingyu enter the campus, when in fact Mingyu never left the residence. The car was parked in an alley, hidden behind a large potted tree. Joshua casually strolled into the alley, talking on the phone, before he stuck his large, leather-gloved hand in the opened car window and pressed a cloth against the man’s mouth forcefully.
“Shhh, love, a few seconds and we’ll be done.”
The stalker struggled against his hold, grasping Joshua’s arm, the muscles in his neck tightening. His instincts kicked in, causing him to take deeper breaths only to end up gulping more of the toxin and completely collapsing. Joshua flicked his wrist, shrugging away the pain forming from the man’s hold. He sent his location to Onyx.
“Update, Joshua.”
“All clean, boss.”
A few minutes later, their car pulled up in front of the alley. Jeonghan opened the back seat door and helped Joshua haul the second stalker inside. Low-fiving him, Joshua nodded at Onyx, a single strand escaping his slicked back hair, before walking in the opposite direction and hopping on the motorcycle he parked earlier. He slipped on the helmet, before roaring the vehicle to life and riding after Jeonghan’s car, back to the organization headquarters.
Arriving at the building, Onyx ordered a couple of security guards to manhandle the men and lock them up in one of the rooms in the basement. She proceeded onto the Black Squad room, flanked by Jeonghan and Joshua who kept gossiping about how their mission went. Their excitement brought a bittersweet smile to her face. Should one be excited about committing crime?
S.Coups and Jun were waiting in the room as they walked in, as usual one drowned in reports and plans and the other burning his eyes off in front of the screen.
“Our fishes are in the tank,” Onyx said, “Out of it now, but in a few hours they should be ready for questioning.”
S.Coups nodded, “Well done.”
“Any progress on Mingyu’s laptop, Jun?” Jeonghan asked, slapping the man on his back.
“Not yet, but we’ll get there,” Jun said, wincing. “He’s damn good. If he’s a hacker, then he’d probably be known in the undergroud scene somewhere, I can ask around.”
“No,” Onyx objected, “It might put him in more danger. We’ll question him when you crack his laptop.”
“We’ll have to, eventually,” S.Coups said, “It’s a first time for me working a case where the victim is also a criminal.”
“Nonetheless, it explains a lot, there could be someone after him for this.” Joshua said.
Onyx stared at the ground. While one part of her stayed neutral and professional, another one was feeling disappointed; she didn’t want Mingyu to be what they thought him to be. Not that she was one to talk about moral compasses or sketchy side-hustles, her entire job was being a murderer in the essence, but still she felt like a criminal record to Mingyu’s peaceful looking face was not right. Her thoughts surprised her, why would she care about him? He’s just some victim she had to protect, someone very different from her, with his dreams and artworks. She needed to stay away, otherwise there will be extra problems that would cost them both things they cared for deeply
______
The battering rain against the windows was vivid in her ears, thunder roaring in the midst of howling wind. Sarang found herself walking down familiar, old, wooden stairs that creaked with her steps. The hairs on her arms stood from the cold, shivers running through every fiber of her being and even though it was early morning, the sun dared not show. It was dim inside, and unusually quiet.
She reached out to the light switch, flicking it on, only for it to fill the shabby living room with unusual white light. She frowned, wasn't this light yellow?
Then the ground caught her attention. It looked like a toy factory had erupted on the carpet. Stuffed handmade plushies, porcelain dolls, building blocks, construction puzzles and many other toys covered the entire floor, to her horror and amazement, so much she couldn't even take a step forward.
We never had any toys....
Then, a shrill shriek interrupted the silence like a spear. Sarang hadn't even noticed that the winter storm had quieted down, as if someone pulled the plug from its socket. The shriek then turned into a wail, that of an infant, a baby. She could feel her heart panging in her chest, her lips were whispering the same name over and over, as she fought her way through the toys towards the room where the crying was coming from.
Minsoo, Minsoo, Minsoo...
In her hurry, she almost stepped over the baby that was lying right at the doorstep. Minsoo's clothes were dirty with vomit, remnants still left at the mouth, and feces oozed out of her clothes. But what struck Sarang the most was the pooling blood at her head. Hands shaking, she didn't dare pick Minsoo up. Her eyes traced the trail of blood into the room, upwards to the body hanging from the ceiling by a tight rope around the neck. The rope slowly morphed into an umbilical cord, right in front of her.
Sarang lost her breath at that point, pressure building behind her eyes as she covered her mouth. Sweat beaded her forehead while she stumbled forward, a scream still stuck in her throat, as she shook the woman. To no avail. Tears streaking down her cheeks, she got up on the bed, trying to loosen the rope from the top, but the body was too heavy, and the knot was too secure. She dropped down to her knees, chest heaving, grasping her hair like maniac. Wide-eyed, she stared at the dead body, then at the sobbing baby on the ground, then back at the woman hanging.
"What have you done, mom, what have you done?"
Onyx screamed herself into awakening. Her hands flew to her face, trying to rub away sleep, tears and every detail engraved in her brain of the horror that she saw replaying in her dreams over and over again, ever since that night, five years ago.
Her heart was pounding in her chest, heat burning her up from within against the cold breeze coming from the slightly ajar window. She stumbled out of bed, legs still weak and barely working, and grasped the glass on her bedside. Her trembling hands gave way before she could even begin filling it from the heavy water jug, and the water splashed all over her as the jug fell down and rolled away, in sync with the glass that shattered right under at her feet. She dropped over the broken pieces, those with sharp edges cutting through the skin on her legs and hands. She hissed as she tried to pick herself up, only to end up slipping on the water and plummeting face first onto the shards.
It was one of those heavy nights, when the recurring nightmare did not pass with normalcy. No, this time it was intent on tormenting her, with injury to double the pain. The cuts began burning, and it was all too much at once. A whimper escaped through her clenched teeth, she had no strength left.
Her mind screamed at her that she needed help but her body refused to cooperate. She stretched out her arm to grab her phone and tapped the speed dial. It rang thrice before a soft voice answered.
“Sarang?”
“Yes,” Onyx said, breathless.
“Are you okay? What happened?”
“Can I come?”
“Now? It’s 2am!” A pause followed. “Of course, drive safe.”
The girl on the other line hung up. Onyx closed her eyes. She picked herself up, stepping away from the broken glass and grabbed a long padded jacket from the hanger. Ignoring the cuts oozing with blood, she staggered to the garage, keys and phone in hand. The three cars were parked there, she chose the oldest of the them and the least extravagant, twisting the key and revving up the engine. The automatic garage gate slid up and Onyx drove out into the night. The moor was bathed in fog, fazing the path in front of her, but she drove by muscle memory, grimacing at her burning palms.
The highway brought her downtown, home. The urban buildings soon turned into modest, low houses and cottages, some roofless with only thin metal sheets, others with barely intact bricks. A few reinforced tents, wet with rain from the previous night, passed her as she drove deeper through streets that progressively got narrower. Onyx parked the car in front of one of the houses, checking the time.
2.34 am
A girl sat at the porch, cardigan wrapped tighlty around her body, glasses sitting high on her nose-bridge. She jumped up as soon as she saw Onyx arrive and immediately ran to her, flinging her arms around her, into the warmest embrace she had for a long time. Pulling away, she held Onyx at an arm-length, her bright smile immediately turning into a frown.
“What on earth happened to you?!”
“Don’t freak out, Siyeon, it’s just minor cuts, a glass broke and I fell over it,” Onyx said.
“You should’ve gone to the ER or something,” Siyeon said, pushing up her sliding glasses and dragging Onyx inside the house.
“I came to the second best thing though,” Onyx teased in a tired voice. “It's not worth it and I don’t want to see people.”
Siyeon nodded, leaving her to sit on a patchy couch, and walking off to get a medical kit. The light was dim and orange, casting warmth in colour around the small room. Onyx noticed the books sprawled out on the coffee table, a stack of papers and almost five different coloured pens and an old model laptop, showing pictures of skulls and bones. She chuckled to herself and took off her jacket, as Siyeon walked in.
“Still up studying?”
“At this point it’s pure torture,” Siyeon said, “Hands.”
Onyx displayed her injured hands, wincing when she started wiping them gently with alcohol. “Now, what made you call me in the middle of the night sounding like death was staring you in the face?”
“You’re close,” Onyx said, “It’s the fucking nightmare again.”
“Ah I see, trauma is still haunting you,” Siyeon said, taking off the cardigan, revealing a petite tattoo of a red poppy flower on her arm, that matched the one on Onyx’s.
“I don’t think it will ever go away.”
“It can though, if you are ready, which I know you’re not,” Siyeon pressed, covering up her cuts with medical plaster and bandages. “Have you thought about therapy?”
“I don’t have time for that.”
“Talk to me then, I haven’t heard from you for two weeks. Minsoo misses you too.”
“I’ll see her on the weekend, I just got caught up in a new case,” Onyx said, leaning back. “It’s so freaking messy, and then there was Wonwoo’s birthday and now this nightmare about mom and it’s all just too much at once.”
“Do you want some hot chocolate?”
Onyx nodded, flowing her into the tiny kitchen. Siyeon set two mugs with different patterns and poured water into a kettle, letting it boil over the stove.
“It’s easier to have someone or something to blame,” Onyx said, chewing on a biscuit Siyeon offered, “You have a target to direct your anger towards. But who am I supposed to blame? Her? Him? Minsoo? Myself?”
“Depends on what exactly you’re blaming them for.”
“I will blame him, but I also killed him, so it’s almost as if he didn’t exist,” she said. “I blame mom for the suicide but I know I shouldn’t, she didn’t have a choice.”
“She did have a choice, but neither were easy,” Siyeon said, handing her the mug.
“She left us both, I had to raise my sister from her nappies, I had to provide in her pregnancy because she was in so much pain,” Onyx said, swallowing down a lump in her throat. “I was only 17, what the fuck would I know about caring for a child?! And then she had to go and fucking work again after just giving birth because she wanted me to finish school!”
Onyx exploded in sobs, banging her head on the table. She felt as if the life was being squeezed out of her temples, heat rising into her face. Siyeon reached out to her and pulled her into a hug, stroking her hair. “Nothing of what happened was fair, and none of you deserve it.”
“I want to turn up his filthy grave and shred his rotten body to pieces!” Onyx yelled into her shoulder, “I should’ve burnt him alive instead of just beating him up, so he could fucking feel what’s it like!”
Siyeon rocked her until the heart slamming against her chest slowed down. Onyx wiped away snot and tears with the back of her bandaged hand, looking up to the ceiling.
“Her face, Siyeon, when I asked her how she got pregnant,” she whispered, “It was like staring into a corpse. The fear inside her eyes, the way she shook, it was like her whole body was a living earthquake. She looked like she witnessed war.”
“She was brave, you must know that, she pulled through for you,” Siyeon said.
“Do you think she’s proud of me? What I have become?”
“Does she have a reason not to? You’ ve grown to be a strong woman, you’re doing good things, you’re still choosing to go on, you still chose to love and care,” Siyeon said, lifting her chin up. “Look at me. Loss does messed up shit to people, you’re carrying yours like a champ.”
“But I’m a monster now; I murder, I get paid, I donate to the fucking orphanage that houses my own sister just to ease the weight on my conscience.”
“You’re doing what you can. This is where life took you, both choices you made and those others made for you, accept that,” Siyeon told her. “Sarang, you still have a heart, you’re doing good for the world by removing those bad people, and that’s what matters.”
“Is that your way of making peace with what I’m doing?” Onyx looked her in the eye.
“Is there any other way?” Siyeon said, chuckling.
Onyx laughed emptily, slapping her arm, before chugging what was left of her drink. She put on her jacket, and walked out towards the door, lingering in the hallway. Siyeon came up to her for one last embrace, declaring it was a nice break from studying that she had.
“You should move in with me.”
“Your place is humanly inhabitable, thank you, but I have enough horrors in my textbooks.”
Onyx strolled to the car. “Thank you, Siyeon, love you.”
“Me too, Sarang, unconditionally.”
Siyeon watched Sarang start the car before remembering something. “Sarang, wait!”
“What is it?” Onyx said, rolling down the window.
“How’s Seungchoel? Is he doing okay?”
“He’s fine, working his ass off everyday,” Onyx said, grinning. “You should see his biceps though - Ouch! Okay, fine!”
“Tell him I miss him.”
Oh what would she give to know how much he missed her back?
_____
It was dawn when Onyx reached headquarters. All lights were switched off except for a few ones at the ends of the halls, casting a faint glow, almost creepy. She knew that with the heavy distress she went through, there was no chance she’ll get a wink of sleep anytime soon, so instead the idea of exhausting herself physically until she got drowsy sounded the most sensible to her.
The gym was located on the first floor, taking up a third of its space. As she got closer to it, she could hear the familiar clang of metal weights. She did not expect anyone to be there that early, and as she entered through the vast doors, the last person she anticipated to see was Mingyu, yet there he was, bench pressing.
“What’s with the workouts at the crack of dawn?”
He jumped in surprise, causing the barbell to almost smash him in the face. He sat up, sweating in his tank top and glared at her. “You could’ve killed me.”
“You should learn to be more alert and aware of your surroundings,” she said, hopping on a treadmill. “No shade intended.”
The buttons beeped as Onyx increased her speed and incline into a jog, her back to Mingyu. Annoyed, he stomped towards her, toweling away.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a bitch?”
Onyx scoffed. “I hear it everyday like a mantra, your point is?”
“Your head is stuck way up your ass and it’s not cool at all,” Mingyu said, folding his arms.
“I give zero fucks about your opinion, Mingyu,” Onyx said, now running. “And why are you suddenly so defensive? I gave you solid advice, one you might actually want to use, considering how oblivious you are to almost everything going on around you.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know, but you should pick a better hiding spot,” she said, dropping all expressions from her face. “Laptops shouldn’t be hidden under floor boards.”
His sweat ran cold, shivers travelling down his spine. Eyes wide, he stepped back, turning his pale face away from her, before sprinting away and out of the gym.
Onyx sniggered to herself. You can’t run away for ever.
______
“Who do you work for?”
The large, handcuffed man remained silent. S.Coups leaned forward, remaining serious. “Why are you after Mingyu Kim?”
“Are you the police or what? What the fuck is this shithole?”
“Answer my question,” S.Coups retorted.
“What if I don’t?”
S.Coups smirked, pushing himself away from the interrogation table. The lamp above shuddered from the impact, causing shadows to waver as he pulled out a long, thin, carving knife and a lighter from his coat. He flicked the latter on, a bright blue flame sparking, and leveled it up to the man’s face. The fire danced in his eyes as gulped, backing away.
“I’m not the police nor do I have their grace or patience,” S.Coups said, heating the knife over the flame. “Time is of the essence, big guy, so you better speak fast.”
“I -I don’t work for anyone, someone just told me to stalk the guy, I don’t know anything.”
“I despise liars.”
The man’s shrieks echoed throughout the room as S.Coups laid the knife over his pinned hands. The burn seethed, a putrid smell boring through their nostrils.
“Please!” he begged, trying to push away.
“Talk then.”
“I work for Cobalt! They ordered us to kidnap him, I don’t know anything else, I swear to you!”
“Cobalt Cybernetics?” S.Coups asked, removing the knife, “So a tech company now kidnaps people? I sense some bluff.”
“I am not lying, please, I swear on my mother’s life!”
Yet despite that, it didn’t sit right in S.Coups’ stomach. There was no way a prestigeous company like Cobalt would do sketchy stuff like that, not that it was beyond them, it’s just that it’s too risky. The gears in his head spinned, mulling over who could possibly be associated with Cobalt that would be doing their dirty work for them, but nothing came to mind. He shouted out to the guards to take the man back to his cell, and left to go up to the meeting room.
There must be someone behind them, this is too much of a serious game.
_____
Jun's night shifted between energy drinks and coffee. Cracking Mingyu's laptop and whatever mess was going on inside it was like opening Pandora's box; equally difficult and fascinating. But what he discovered put him on a funny middle ground, somewhere between admiring Mingyu and being afraid of him.
Onyx had come when he was close to the breakthrough, but he was too concentrated to notice her face and hands and she fell asleep faster than what allowed for small talk. And now, that Mingyu's entire mystery was sprawled in front of him, he didn't know what to do with it; scream in joy and jump in the air or call up a meeting that early in the day.
As if by sixth sense, S.Coups entered the room, face contorted in a look of focus and irritation. He glanced at both Jun and Onyx, thick eyebrows shooting up.
"You look like you discovered the meaning of life," he said, nodding at Jun.
"Even better," Jun said, "I finally broke through Mingyu's laptop, our boy here is a hacker, and an insane one at that."
"What did you find?" Onyx said, rubbing her eyes.
"Well first, he's hacked almost every single famous company, like 50 of them, and blackmailed them for money," Jun said. "His bank account is flourishing, he's got millions in there."
"No fucking way," Onyx gasped.
"Any company in particular?" S.Coups asked.
"That's what's mindblowing about this, he's hacked the company that provided all those with security systems," Jun said, bewildered, "He's hacked Cobalt Cybernetics."
______
A/N: now which side are you on?