"There was so much you could have achieved!"
Jisung flinched and hung his head, staring at the floor so hard that if his vision hadn't been shielded by a film of tears he would torn a whole through the wood and fallen through the world.
"Everyone that could possibly go wrong with you went wrong! How could you do that to us? Your own father and mother? You're too expensive! Far too ungrateful! All of you children these days!"
Everything that could possibly go wrong with you went wrong. Everything that could possibly —
Jisung was pushed aside by the door opening and closing. He lost his balance and fell onto the ground. His chest ached. How it ached. How he wanted to cry. The tears just wouldn't fall.
He was alone for the longest time. The water dried in his eyes and he watched the sun set. Again and again.
When he left the room, his vision was shaking. He went up to his room and packed his things. It was as settled as it would have been if they'd screamed it into his ear among the other things.
Get out.
—
Jisung shot awake, cold sweat lining his features and chest vibrating feverishly. He pressed his fingers to his mouth. The other hand reached for his gun. He wasn't meant to remember shit like that. It was in the past. What was more, it was his past — his past self didn't fucking matter.
He struggled upwards and got out of bed, supposing he could find some sleeping pills or something for a queasy stomach. His innards flipped at the thought of drinking water.
"Shit, shit, shit," he muttered, rummaging through the apartment. He didn't have any medications in his possession and no one had thought of putting any his apartment.
(Everyone forgot Jisung was human. Even Jisung.)
He put on the single pair of jeans he owned and tugged a jacket over his threadbare shirt. He'd go and find some 24/7 pharmacy.
He walked down two streets before he heard the sound of laughter. What? It was two in the morning. Jisung meant to shake his head and continue his search for a pharmacy, but instead his feet took a step towards the gliding sound.
When he did nothing about it, his feet carried him through towards what was sounding more and more like a festival. He tried to think of festivals they'd be celebrating now, at night, but he hadn't thought to look over this. It was strange, he thought Sicheng might have told him of all the festivals in the Mandarin course. He must have figured Jisung would have no interest. He still didn't.
So why was he suddenly so damn interested? What was so alluring about this?
It was a sight to behold. He stood before the only open park for kilometres around. It was a little green space that grinned up at the moon along with all of its occupants. People flooded its plain, moon gazing, laughing, eating sweet round moon cakes, drinking cassia wine. Children chased each other around the grass with little light up animal toys that glowed red and blue, and a big group of elderly people told other kids stories in a circle of chairs.
There were lanterns everywhere — all the colours of autumn. A girl danced gracefully by herself, throwing up a burning red one and catching it with a finger. They were strung up on gold coloured strings, lighting up the field so much that it should have given Jisung a headache after walking in the dark for so long.
It was beautiful.
He shut his eyes hard, trying to squeeze the image out of his mind, but cementing it there instead.
My mother should paint this.
He turned around and left. The streets were suddenly a lot busier, and he nearly bumped into every third person. There were no tears in his eyes but he couldn't see anything. His mind was clear but he couldn't think.
He speed-walked away until he couldn't hear or see anything anymore, then slid down against the side of a random apartment building and stayed there. He didn't know for how long. It was like watching the sun rise and set, over and over again. His mind skipped back to his dream — no fucking reality of his, he'd tell you that.
He buried his head in his hands. His mind was meant to be his ally. It was his only ally. There was no one else. It had betrayed him once but it was never meant to do it again.
"He's sociopathic," a blink and a shrug. "The meds are... a bit dear. But though I'm afraid housing him here would be quadruple that, that's what I'd suggest."
House you here? Look after you? You've failed.
"Stupid brain. Don't make me remember."
"Yoonso?"
Jisung knew who it was. He refused to look up, refused to try and comprehend the chances of this man finding him curled up in a dirty side-street on an extremely busy night in one of the most chaotic cities in China.
He didn't want this. He didn't want the burning hope in his chest. He didn't want to be honest with himself.
He didn't want a friend.
"Yoonso? Are you okay? That's you, right? God, I do hope I'm not talking to some random fucker in the street."
He stood up slowly, for once in his life trying not to look threatening. "It's me."
Jisung. Park Jisung.
"What are you doing here?"
"I could ask the same of you."
Chenle slumped. "I like to come here to watch the celebrations. They're nice to see."
Jisung furrowed his eyebrows. Then what was Chenle doing here?
Tentatively, he voiced the question, and Chenle slumped even further. "Yeah, well, I'm kind of... lonely, so it feels weird standing at the side and watching them by myself. It's kind of stalkerish." He wasn't bothering to cover up the slight sadness in his voice.
Jisung didn't know what kind of gestures he was meant to make, to show that when Chenle has said that he'd felt a pain in his stomach. Something akin to what Chenle felt. "I feel your pain."
"It is hard," said Chenle, a melancholy lilt to his words, "to be so young and so alone."
Leverage.
Levera...
Lev...
"We can go watch it together, then. That way you won't be alone."
"I'm not alone even now, Yoonso. Thanks for that."
—
Jisung sat down at his desk Tuesday morning, functioning off four shots of espresso. Today was the day of the meeting that would pull Chenle back together. He had to be in tip-top shape.
Well, he always had to be in tip-top shape. In all honesty, this assassination was really turning out to be an all-hands-on-deck job. He thought back on the people he had killed before — usually the plans he made were subconscious, as before they hadn't been such huge operations. One of RFN's biggest mistakes were not putting him on important assassinations too often. He would have gotten his first proper kill at thirteen if they had. It really was a waste — and now he really only had three years of experience.
What he was thinking of now was the plan for the meeting. It began in half an hour and he was to meet Chenle outside his office on the other floor so that he could show him where their meeting room was, as there were two each on the top two floors.
Apart from his own developments with Chenle (he had been avoiding the topic of the night before in his own mind since he'd woken up) it was quite interesting to watch Chenle's partiality towards him become clearer by the day. Jisung was fairly sure Chenle's offer to show him to the room was uncalled for, and that in his own case he was meant to assure him he could find it himself, but of course, who was he to say no?
Of course, Chenle took care not to let other people see this, but Jisung couldn't help but notice.
Jisung decided to let his subconscious fester and let it do the work. Sometimes, that was the best plan of action. Chenle was silent leading him from one room to the other, brooding over what was going to happen, how Jisung was going to save the merger.
He was going to succeed, but not legally.
The seats were cushioned, the table a long black oval shape. The room was immaculate, with winding streaks of sunlight splaying the opposite wall. It reminded Jisung of his apartment.
"I need to use the bathroom quickly. When will they arrive?" Jisung muttered after a minute, standing up, hardly waiting for a reply. Chenle nodded, holding up five fingers. Five minutes. They should have been here by then. Jisung quickly left the room.
He looked out the window, coming up with a statement about the weather in case anyone asked him why. Bang Chan was being escorted from a jeep with two bodyguards. He slipped his phone from his pocket and dialled his number, which he'd acquired from Chenle. The latter, of course, would never know.
"Hello?"
"Have you arrived at the Zhong Tech building, Bang Chan?"
"Mr Zhong?... Who..."
"Park Jisung, at your service."
Jisung waited with bated breath, hoping that his hunch had been correct. SKS had swam through more than enough scandals, and trying to get out of the company after being in a position of power was a minefield. It just gave Jisung the feeling...
"Park Jisung? As in Park Jisung?" Jisung held in a satisfied grin when he heard fear beginning to creep into the other's voice.
"Yes, of course. You wouldn't know of me." Jisung wouldn't let anyone find him through the call. Bang Chan had gotten the gist of what situation he was in. Jisung wondered what gang SKS actually was — he hadn't heard of one by that name. They obviously went by something else underground.
Bang Chan's breathing evened out quite quickly. "Are you to show us where the meeting will be taking place?" What do you want me to do?
"I'll come to you. Maybe you should have anyone accompanying you sign in at reception?" Stay put. Be alone.
"Good idea. Thank you." His voice stayed relatively monotonous, though Jisung could hear the last two words struggling out through a clenched jaw.
His sheathed knife bristled against his chest like it was excited. He couldn't pretend like this wasn't his calling, and it felt even better to be doing it for a real reason. To get closer to Zhong —
Hold on.
If he wasn't going to tell Chenle that it was him who made sure that he got the merger back, how would they get closer? He couldn't exactly just stroll up to his desk and boast the fact he'd put a knife to Bang Chan's throat for him.
'For him'. Was he doing this... for Chenle?
He force-quit his current thought process, taking a deep breath of relatively clean air and nodding at Bang Chan as he approached. The man looked decidedly pale.
He wasn't doing this for anyone but himself, and fuck what basic logic had to say about it.
—
Chenle exited the board room behind Jisung, shut the door and leaned against it.
"We saved it."
"Yeah."
"We got the merger."
We. Jisung wondered what Chenle would say if he knew how exactly Jisung had pushed the operation along.
("If you don't say yes to the merger, I'll find you and make sure you can never say yes to anything ever again."
Bang swallowed, his adam's apple sliding under the blade at his throat. "M—my tongue?"
"Your tongue.")
"We fucking got it." To Jisung's horror, Chenle slid along the wall until he was bunched up in a ball on the floor. He looked around quickly, and saw that they had veered into a dead end, nothing but a janitor's closet at the end of the hallway.
Jisung counted three deep breaths on Chenle's part, and then the other sprang back up, smoothing down his jacket and grinning. "Well, we need to celebrate, don't we?" Jisung, positively taken aback, somehow shook his head and nodded at the same time.
"Indeed," reiterated Chenle.
"What does celebrating inspire?"
"A lot of champagne and some weed if I'm feeling particularly stupid. Come with?"
Don't say yes, you're an intern and a lightweight. Jisung shook his head internally, ready to refuse the offer. He opened his mouth: "Sure. Your quarters?"
"Mine," agreed Chenle, turning around quickly enough so that he didn't see Jisung punch his own arm. Why does my mouth suddenly have a mind of its own. I thought my brain was big enough for the both of us.
—
Jisung was wondering, finally, how far he would go in order to appease Zhong Chenle. Gaining his trust was essential to the plan — of course. He'd mastered the use of the smiley face, held a knife to the throat of SKS's CEO. And now, he sat on Zhong Chenle's couch, both of their ties and jackets abandoned somewhere near the kitchen, champagne sloshing around his stomach. And there was a rolled joint held loosely between his fingers.
"It's really sweet," egged Chenle, his own half exhausted, the air a bit thicker than it was ten minutes ago. "When I first had it, I don't know, it was the first time I'd ever smoked something. Well, no, once I'd stolen my father's cigarette... hm." His eyebrows furrowed. "My father... you know he's dead?"
Jisung paused for a second. I know the exact time, date, location and circumstances of his death, good sir. "Yeah, I've heard about it. It's tough, I'm sorry." Jisung sniffed slightly, wondering whether this was what other people had to do for the loved ones of his victims. Did they smoke weed and wonder and apologise for something they didn't do? Interesting.
It would be way more awkward if they were sober, of course.
"Yeah, he was a son of a bitch if I ever saw one," muttered Chenle matter-of-factly. "Never around, always had something to do. If he was ever talking to me it was either about how to run this wretched place or about my grades. He loved economics. Said I needed it. Fucking hated the s— the subject," Chenle halted slightly at the end, then took a long, long pull out of the blunt.
Jisung nodded, then tried to do the same — better then than ever, when he was feeling awkward and... stupid for the first time. Chenle started laughing at him, and he looked sideways quickly, raising it from his lips.
"Yoonso... you need to light it," he grinned, taking it from Jisung and snapping his lighter on, rotating it slowly at the end. "Surely, you've seen someone smoke a cig before, right? They do that in Korea?"
"Of course they do," huffed Jisung, feeling even stupider. "In fact, where I come from, they do it all the fucking time."
Chenle paused. "Where you come from? Don't all the interns pay a fee in order to come here? And you went to a really good school..." he trailed off. Jisung cursed himself again. Yoonso wasn't in a fucking gang.
"Had to walk through a couple of such neighbourhoods on the way to... college," Jisung slowed slightly, then shook his head and took a sip of champagne. Chenle nodded, looking amused.
"Y'know Yoonso, there's something about you," he started, but didn't finish, as he handed Jisung the cylindrical fun-stick, smouldering at the end. Jisung swallowed another mouthful of drink, and took it, barely daring to say the next words:
"What do you mean?"
Chenle looked at him sideways, suddenly his eyes were clear as day, and the smoky room had nothing on him. He was too used to alcohol, to accustomed to the high. Jisung realised suddenly that right now Chenle was the most high-functioning and sensible of the two. The raindrops sliding down the window pain bore witness to one of the most humiliating moments of Park Jisung's life.
"You're hiding something." It was a fact, and it was true. Jisung was speechless. He should have seen this coming, he should have known that his countless blunders and stupid weird panging chest would give him away. He knew he'd failed to hide behind Han Yoonso. He'd underestimated Chenle's bored, observant eyes. They were glinting now, off the high and having figured something out.
His cheeks were flushed off the champagne, and there was white smoky rivulets pushing his lips open, up and out. He looked entirely too carefree for what he had just said. Jisung wanted someone to paint him again. He could almost imagine the strokes that would colour his cheeks, the tiny hazel flecks in his eyes.
"I'm not hiding anything — what do I have to hide?" replied Jisung, suddenly moving the joint to his lips and taking his first shaky lungful. It was a tangible, piny weight in his body. He puffed it out slowly and it seemed to draw Chenle's attention. He hesitated on the inside, but externally quickly went to pull another pall from the joint, and as he breathed out curly white smoke, he realised suddenly the effect it was having on Chenle.
He'd definitely heard of his colleagues doing this before, though he'd never done it himself. People said killing someone of the opposite sex was usually easier, since all you to do was attract them and then set up a delayed bomb in their house or a car crash the morning after. It had always disgusted him, not just because he was so much younger than them, but because it mocked the art of killing. Taking a businesswoman into her house on those terms and killing her there... it was absurd.
And yet, here he was, distracting his target from an epiphany by smoking weed. Turns out you didn't even need someone of the opposite sex to do that. And he had the stupid, stupid hunch that he wouldn't be going through with this if Chenle was a businesswoman. It's the weed talking, he thought dumbly, watching Chenle's eyes dilate after he blinked. I don't feel attraction, and I definitely can't fall in love.
"Who cares if you're hiding something," breathed Chenle suddenly. Jisung nearly dropped the blunt. It had worked! He'd taken it off his mind, and since Chenle was high right now, maybe he wouldn't remember his realisation, or just write it off as a strange, drug-induced thought. He hadn't had to go any further after all, because this was definitely something he'd never been interested in pulling off. Although, now that he thought about it, it was kind of artful. Thank god it was... over...
Jisung paused in his tracks. Chenle had definitely not been that near Jisung's face a minute ago. "No, I don't care," continued Chenle, his eyes closing, "Nah, I just hope this works out."
And far too suddenly, far too soon, he placed his lips on Jisung's and breathed crystal white smoke into the younger's very being. Jisung froze for a second, but slowly, as if in a trance, he was almost guided into returning whatever was happening back to Chenle. There was a rush of air as Chenle sighed in relief, and Jisung wondered suddenly if he was going to stop, pull away, and punch him or something. But then he was back, and for fuck's sake Jisung had no idea why he was reciprocating any of this when he knew that he really couldn't be making out with this guy without any knowledge on the subject.
But no problem. Chenle tilted his head slightly and then there was a newer flavour in Jisung's mouth, and an unfamiliar heat had poked his lips apart, and Jisung's brain just shut down.
He still had no idea what was going on, only that he wanted more where it came from. Stupidly, stupidly, stupidly, he leaned forward and in, until they both lost their balance and Chenle's back hit the seat of the sofa, Jisung's shaky arms the only things keeping him from collapsing on top of him.
Jisung broke off suddenly, breathing quick and shallow, and he dared not look down because he had a feeling that if he did, he would just do the same thing all over again.
And, for fuck's sake, he looked down and did the same thing all over again. How could he not, with the other boy's lips putting every fucking rose to shame, his eyes finally a bit brighter than how empty they always looked, and the sheer sensation of Chenle's fingers in his hair and his breath on his cheek.
Fuck.
I've fucked it all up.