Chapter Text
♔ ACT I: LOLLIPOP (YOU’RE THE SUCKER) ♚
Not even a hundred years of faking it would have made the tight smile caught between Jisung’s cheeks from looking believable. Jisung hopes he could say the same of his husband, but he doesn’t even have to glance over at him to know he’s still looking as stone-faced as ever. The same, cloying, cheshire grin he’d laid eyes upon a long time ago. Their counselor, a nondescript woman pushing her fifties, stares back at them with blank eyes of little judgment. Not that it matters to Jisung — she’s the last person in this room he needs to impress.
“...So let’s just say that this is kind of, like, a car check-up? Get the tire pressure checked, a new seal for the hubcap, just a routine shop inspection when that check engine light comes on, y’know?” Jisung starts as he continues to fight the plasticky grin on his face. “There’s nothing wrong with our marriage…as far as I can tell.”
The counselor hums her placid agreement and adjusts her glasses before looking down at the clipboard sitting on her lap. “...Right. Why don’t we, uh, pop the hood then and check for any problems? I’m sure you wouldn’t have had any reason to come in today unless there’s some…underlying issues.”
“Right.”
“On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your marriage?”
“Seven,” Minho announces first without preamble, the only thing he’s said the entire session thus far other than the statutory hello, how are you when they walked in through the door. Jisung shoots him a glare before looking back at the counselor.
“Uh, hold up. Is this, like, one being terrible, and ten being magnificent? Or the other way around?”
“Just answer instinctively. There’s no right or wrong scale here.”
Jisung huffs and readjusts himself in his seat; he hasn’t realized until now that he’d slowly been sinking into the cushions. “Alright. Okay, sweetie, are you ready?” he asks of Minho, sparing his husband a glance.
“Mhm,” Minho answers curtly, still not offering him a glance. Jisung’s lips feel tighter.
“...I’ll give it…an eight — ”
“Seven,” reiterates Minho, lips curled back into that familiar cheshire grin of his. Jisung chokes back a scoff.
Their counselor levels them both, peering over the rim of her glasses before looking back down at her clipboard. “How about this question; do you two have sex often?”
“I don’t understand the question,” Minho answers immediately.
Jisung blinks and ruminates with the query for a few seconds. “...Is this, like, a one to ten question again? Because ten would be a lot, y’know — ”
“And zero would mean nothing.”
“How about…this week,” the counselor redirects, eyeing both of them individually.
“Do weekends count?” Jisung asks.
“Sure.”
A few more moments of silence hang in the air, stifling like a rotting diaper. Both husbands simply shake their heads.
“I see,” the counselor flaccidly replies, once again referring to her clipboard in lieu of lacking any substantial response from the two. “Why don’t you tell me about how you met? How long have you two been together?”
“Five years — ”
“Six.”
Jisung blinks away the astonishment forming on his brow, if only to try and rub it off on his husband instead. He remains motionless like a statue in his recliner, unperturbed by whatever venom might be seeping out of his own eyes at the moment. Minho’s still not looking at him, his beady eyes steadily trained on their counselor. His own efforts are in vain, and thus he relents.
“Six years ago. We met in, uh — ”
“Kyoto.”
“Japan.” I was getting there, if you’d like to stop interjecting — “Business trip.”
♔ FIVE (OR SIX) YEARS AGO ♚
…How many iterations of the words “fucking shit” can I scrap together to accurately describe my situation right now? Clearly not enough.
Ten minutes ago, a yakuza lord choked to death from acute neurotoxin poisoning — fugu, of course. Cooking mishap or deliberate attempt on his life? They’ll surely figure it out during his autopsy when they see how high of a dosage was slipped in, but alas, Minho doesn’t plan on sticking around long enough to find out. Or at least, that should be the case, except the streets are now flooding with a militia’s worth of Japanese gangsters, ready to off anyone who even looks remotely out of place — and that includes Minho himself.
It’s been raining all day, and yet it’s not raining hard enough to deter everyone from gallivanting tonight (and still not raining hard enough to mask the sound of his footsteps splashing on the concrete). He’s long since ditched the kitchen uniform he’d been donning inside the restaurant, swapping it for a much too thin windbreaker he’s tugging against himself for extra concealment. Not that it’d be of any help if he’s the one person scurrying through the backstreets right now following the untimely death of a local underground mobster.
Just a little bit further, Minho thinks, acutely aware of the scrambling and yelling at the far end of the alleyway he’d just ducked through. Just ten paces away is the bustling main street, lanterns aglow for the night crowd. Even in the rain, it’s packed enough like sardines that slipping in with the crowd would make his trail near-invisible. Failing that, there’s at least plenty of shops and restaurants for him to slip into.
Every step closer to the street and the sound of frantic yakuza underlings yelling behind him begins to fade under the combined bluster of the crowd and the pitter-pattering rain. Still, Minho maintains his brisk pace; quick enough to get onto the thoroughfare, but not fast enough that these gangsters could accuse him of something as heinous as assassinating their leader. Preposterous, isn’t it? He hopes that the sound of the rain continues to mask the splash of his feet on the puddles underfoot, and tries not to focus on what may or may not be the sensation of water seeping into his shoes.
Once he steps out onto the street, he immediately falls in line with the two-way flow of the river of bystanders, and yet his eyes and ears are still piqued. Minho makes a paltry four, perhaps five, steps down the cobble when he spots the first gangster sliding into the crowd a few umbrellas away. A discreet glance behind him reveals two, three more, all already staring right in his direction. Even if inciting violence in a crowd of innocents has never been his style, Minho’s fingers tingle for the pistol in his jacket. If anything, the knife tucked in his boot might prove more discreet.
…I could make a run for it, but that would reveal me point blank. That, and there’s too many people here for me to make a clean getaway. I could just let them converge on me and slip away then. Should be easy enough. That or —
“There you are!”
Minho stiffens as a foreign arm settles itself around his shoulders like a clasp, and it takes some self-restraint not to immediately flip over the stranger suddenly hanging off of him. Is it one of the gangsters? Maybe a drunk restaurant patron? Dampening his surprise, he glances at the owner of the limb, finding himself face to face with a young man, perhaps around his own age, beaming at him like they’d been best friends since Minho was scraping his knees on the playground.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you, dude! I told you the okonomiyaki place was on this street, not the other one.” The young man continues grinning with an earnest smile that displaces some of Minho’s unrest (albeit replacing them with mild confusion). It’s only upon seeing the flit of the other man’s eyes — at the small gathering of yakuza presumably staring them down from deeper in the crowd — that Minho realizes what fortune he’s gotten himself into.
“Slick…I like it,” Minho mutters, a smirk already tugging at his cheeks.
“You can pay me back over drinks,” the young man counters, smiling as he leads Minho under the plastic awning of the nearest shop. The sound of rain is instantly muffled by the slate tiles overhead, the sound of sizzling batter, and the dense camaraderie shared over mugs of beer. “Let’s get a booth, and then we can talk. Your name?”
The young man slides off his jacket’s hood, revealing a messy mop of dark brown hair underneath, and a boyish countenance that only solidifies Minho’s assurance. He extends a hand in greeting, and only after confirming that none of the yakuza were going to follow them inside the shop does Minho take it. “...I’m Minho.”
He watches the man tilt his head in intrigue, firmly reciprocating Minho’s handshake. “Call me Jisung. Nice to meet you.”
♔ ⚔ ♚
“...So you’re telling me…you’ve been facetiming your roommate everyday for the past week, not because you’re in love with him or anything, but because he’s watching your cats and they won’t do anything they’re told to do unless it’s from you?”
“That is literally what I just said, but it seems you’re an apt listener.”
Minho earns a playful shove for that one, although he stays steadfast against Jisung’s efforts.
“...All three of them?”
“Yes, all three of them.”
“Must be nice…all I have is a scruffy little dog — y’know, those fluffy white ones that bark at everyone and then collapse from expending their energy too fast?”
“I would hate to be your neighbor, I just know it.” He gets another slap on the arm for that one, almost spilling the cup of hot sake in his hand. “...Here; to being devoted pet owners.”
Jisung smiles up at him, now sitting up from where he’d previously been stretched out on the tatami underneath them. It’s only a little bit past midnight, but the glitter of stray lamps and lanterns stretching down the neighborhood outside his window is enough glow for Minho’s hotel room. Jisung’s eyes twinkle as he raises his cup, gently clinking the rim against Minho’s own.
“To our beloved pets.”
The sake goes down warm and smooth, smoother than all the beer they’ve been imbibing since dinner at the okonomiyaki restaurant. It’s been a hot minute since he’s gotten drunk like this with someone willingly; the last time he can remember sitting down with the purpose of ingesting alcohol en masse, his poison tolerance was put to the test. (He survived, albeit at the expense of remaining bedridden for nearly two weeks while his liver sorted itself out. Perhaps he won’t be experiencing any of that around this stranger he’d met just a few hours ago.)
Jisung separates from his cup with a smack of his lips and a satisfied sigh; Minho’s eyes follow the curve of his bottom lip as he reaches up to wipe away a stray droplet with his thumb.
“Don’t think I don’t see you staring at me like that.”
And he isn’t lying. The other boy really is handsome in a wonderfully boyish way. Not to make little of Jisung’s natural charm; Minho doesn’t remember the last time anyone’s ever gotten him engaged in conversation for hours (and not conversation Minho has to make up on the fly to feign interest). Nevertheless, Minho scoffs and feigns ignorance, setting down his cup and redirecting his attention back out his open window. The rain is finally coming down harder, like a loud but unobtrusive wall of sound separating them from the outside world. If he wills it to be, it’s almost like they’re in their own pocket dimension, away from the thousands of people currently sleeping in the city.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Minho murmurs, even if the smirk on his lips betrays him. He keeps his knee hugged to his chest to the sound of Jisung straightening himself out next to him on the tatami.
“...I’ve never not slept with a man before.”
How direct. I’d been waiting for him to get right out with it.
“Now…what makes you think I was propositioning you for sex, Mr. Han?”
The rain continues roaring outside, certainly loud enough to muffle their conversation past these paper walls, but not loud enough that Minho doesn’t hear Jisung speaking into the space on his shoulder.
“Not everyday a handsome stranger offers to take me back to their hotel room after I treat them to dinner.”
“...You might be onto something. Besides…the rain is pouring quite hard right now. You’d be soaking before you make it back to your hostel…if there’s even room left for you because of this weather.”
A chaste laugh and more sounds of shuffling fabric. “Ever been told how much of a tease you are?”
“Don’t worry,” Minho whispers as a smile stretches at the corners of his lips. “You wouldn’t be the first to say that.”
Jisung’s mouth presses firm on his own the moment he turns to face him, and he reciprocates with little resistance, letting the other man scoot forward and drape his arms on Minho’s shoulders. The remnants of sake remain on his lips, and the taste of strawberries and powdered sugar lay faint on his tongue. He’d almost be chilly, if not for Jisung’s hot hands already snaking around his body and slipping under the hem of his shirt.
“Someone’s impatient,” Minho murmurs in between kisses, smiling to himself when Jisung is all too eager to replace his mouth on his.
“...Talk too much…clothes off…”
They disconnect with just enough grace and finesse to clamber onto their feet, toeing off their socks on the short way over to the bed. Not too long after is Minho falling backwards onto the plush sheets, strained between tugging Jisung’s clothes off him and mashing their incisors back together.
“Who’s impatient now?” Jisung goads as he kneels above Minho, knees trapping one of his thighs whilst tossing his jacket behind him haphazardly.
“Move any slower and you’re going to get goosebumps,” Minho counters, noting the damp breeze floating in from their window.
“I’ll show you goosebumps, babe.”
Another fit of laughter and once again, their lips are crushed, hot hands grasping at fabric and flesh, bodies glued if just for abating the chill of the room.
Minho nearly loses himself, teeth clamped on the meat of his forearm as Jisung remains between his thighs, tongue licking and laving over him like a popsicle in summer. Brought to the edge and nearly shoved right over, Jisung only relents to the rhythm of Minho’s thighs when they tremble, and the fingers grasping tight at the hair on the back of his head. Not long after does Jisung finally breach him, punching a dead gasp straight out of Minho and painting a cocky grin on the other man’s face.
Minho would have easily punched the look off of him if the image itself wasn’t so distracting.
His urges get the best of him, however, and he’s all too easily shoving Jisung onto his back, before sinking down onto him with revenge in his eyes. Now, it’s Minho’s turn to regale him with a gaze of contempt, all too pleased with the disaster forming on Jisung’s face.
When they both unravel minutes later, the last thing Minho sees before succumbing to the slumber is Jisung’s flushed cheeks, smushed between the mop of his hair and the white pillows beneath them.
He’s not at all surprised that Jisung remains asleep when he finally returns to the room, though he can surmise that he’d woken up just to pull the covers over his head now that sunlight instead of rain is streaming in through his bedroom window. Minho stifles a laugh and settles on the bed sheets, alongside the canned iced coffee and chocolate pastry he’d copped from the vending machines just outside.
“...Wakey, wakey. I’ll have you know you’re not the one paying for this hotel room.”
Sure enough, the human-shaped lump buried underneath the blankets begins to rouse, followed by the groan of someone not too pleased with being awoken.
“You couldn’t let me take advantage of this nice bed for just a little longer…?” Jisung groans, eventually peeking out from under the blanket. The mop of hair sitting on his head has doubled in size, framing his round face like a cloud. Minho chuckles and scoots closer.
“It’s half past ten if you were aiming to go and get breakfast with me. Barring that, at least, I’ve just gotten you some coffee and bread from the vending machines outside.”
Jisung sniffles and sits up anyway, blindly reaching for the can of iced coffee with one hand while rubbing his eyes with the other. “Good enough. Give me another hour or two and I’ll be up and ready to get lunch.”
“Oh, so we’re getting lunch now?”
Jisung tilts his head at him while cracking open the coffee can. “You’re not disagreeing. …Aaand you haven’t kicked me out of your hotel room.” He has a point, Minho ponders for a second as he watches the other man shimmy closer to him, sheets still wrapped around his body like a toga.
“Consider yourself lucky then,” Minho chuckles, leaning in and answering Jisung’s expectant kiss. He feels the other boy smile on his lips before pulling away. “...And since you’re offering, I’m craving donburi by the way.”
♔ ⚔ ♚
“...I think I’m gonna marry him.”
The room swells with the combined cacophony of groans, gasps, and other noises of utter confusion, before being drowned out by the crunchy, punching sounds emanating from the tv across the room. Jisung’s cheeks are already turning red, but he keeps his eyes trained on the screen, where Jeongin’s character is raining blows uninterrupted onto its computer-controlled opponent.
“You’re nuts. You’ve known this guy for, like, what — seven weeks?”
“Two months as of yesterday,” Jisung answers tersely, before unceremoniously shoving a handful of chips into his mouth. Changbin continues staring him down as if he’d just announced the cure for multiple sclerosis.
“My sister didn’t answer to her husband for two years — two whole years after he’d first proposed. And you know how much of a stubborn mule my sister is.”
“Yeah, she’s pretty scary,” Jeongin answers, eyes still glued to the screen. Jisung scoffs and rolls his eyes.
“Well, I’m not your sister. And I think I’m old enough to make my own grown ass decisions, thank you very much,” Jisung grumbles, now replacing the handful of chips with a sip of his soda instead.
“Yeah, but why this guy? You’ve gone on dates with all sorts of people but you’ve never been infatuated with anyone like — ”
“It is not infatuation,” he interjects, shooting Changbin a very pointed look. “If it was infatuation I’d have gotten over him a week after I returned from Kyoto.” Jisung huffs and falls silent for a few seconds, crossing his arms tight over his chest as he sinks into the couch cushions. “He just…he gets me. And I get him. He’s witty and funny, I’m silly and stupid. He laughs at my jokes and he keeps up with my rambling. He’s just that kinda guy…y’know?” Not to mention handsome as hell.
He recalls one of their recent dates — a stroll on the boardwalk in Santa Cruz. It was your typical third or fourth date affair: cotton candy, root beer floats, freshly fried corn dogs, and one heaping plate of strawberries-and-cream-topped funnel cake. Plus, all the midway games he and Minho could afford to blow enough cash on.
One particular incident sticks out in his mind; a shooting gallery where he tried to impress the other man to win him a teddy bear. Mind you — Jisung, in all his feigned grace, tried to fake a few misses on the targets, gunning down just enough points to get Minho a teddy bear the size of a newborn infant. Minho, in his competitive nature, took it as a sign to knock down ten targets in a row, winning himself a fluffy white tiger the size of an eleven-year-old.
Beginner’s luck, I guess?
Silence greets Jisung once the memory fades, and one glance to his left shows the quiet, judgmental reactions of his fellow agents. Jeongin has even paused his game just to gawk at him.
“...You have never been this down bad. It’s almost pitiful — I’m almost scared for you.”
“Can you shut up?” Jisung half-yells and half-laughs, grabbing the nearest object (a copy of Reader’s Digest sitting on the coffee table) to slap him in the bicep with.
Changbin shrugs off the attack with impunity, holding back a laugh as he takes a sip from his own can. “And how exactly are you gonna be able to write off all your sudden disappearances if you two get hitched? You know that’s the hardest part about maintaining relations, period.”
Jisung inhales deeply and settles in an aura that screams well, actually. “He’s a network consultant for some IT company, so we only see each other like once a week, if that. It’s perfect, actually.” Jisung hums in self-satisfaction, already imagining the whens, the whats, and the hows. He’s got enough money lying around for a decent ring and a decent ceremony — he can’t imagine Minho would be that much of a stickler about it but also he’s not about to raise suspicion about his own expenses. As far as anyone’s concerned, Mr. Han is simply a marketing coordinator, working with his silly little powerpoints and data spreadsheets. Nothing more, nothing less.
Changbin snorts. “...You know what, do what you wanna do. I give it like six months. One of you is going to crack sooner or later, and for your sake I hope it’s you.”
Jisung huffs and shoots him a smirk. “Is that supposed to be your blessing, my brother?”
“It’s my warning,” Changbin reiterates, clapping one of Jisung’s shoulders before standing up from the couch. “I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear this sappy little conversation and get my next briefing from Boss.”
“I hope he assigns you on recon again!” Jisung calls out after him, to which Changbin wordlessly answers by flipping him the bird. Seconds later, he remembers Jeongin is still in the room and poses him a question instead; Jeongin preemptively shrinks into the couch upon witnessing Jisung’s scrutiny. “...If I ask him to marry me, you think he’ll say yes?”
The young man blinks twice before responding with a lame shrug. “Dunno. I don’t even know what this guy looks like yet.”
Jisung sighs deeply. “...Figures.”
♔ FIVE (OR SIX) YEARS LATER ♚
At some point in his life, Minho did consider marriage a serious contender for the Next Step into his grown-up, adult life. He hadn’t even considered a reality — a possibility — until he ran into That Man in Kyoto that rainy evening. (And perhaps saved him from the trouble of having to fight his way out of a yakuza compound…or worse. Jisung doesn’t need to know about that part.)
Yet of course, this is reality. And the reality of marriage is bleaker now, some even-odd years after that whimsical evening. He’s not sure when the magic began to dry up, when their conversations of folly and fondness leading up to the crack to the dawn have devolved into what are you making for dinner and what time are you coming home or did you remember that the Johnsons invited us for dinner next weekend? Don’t forget! (Minho doesn’t even like the Johnsons; their conversations are always so vapid and their snotty little brat won’t stop asking them stupid questions, specifically pertaining to being the first same-sex couple that’s moved into their gated community since its inception in the early seventies.)
These days, Minho’s too busy letting off steam during his assignments, because there’s more excitement to be had pressing the detonator on a C4 than there is to spend an entire dinner in near silence with his husband. (A recent gig had him struggling to maintain his self-control, only to walk out of a cartel hideout drenched in everyone else’s blood. It was not pretty, especially for him, but the outlet was too convenient.) Failing that, he’ll just crack open one of his thousand stray cookbooks (Jisung berated him for buying his latest one, saying they’ll have to reorganize their study just to fit all of them; Minho paid him no mind) to try out some new recipe that his husband will be too picky to try. Hunting the correct animal for the dish is the cherry on top — if he’s given the opportunity, that is.
Tonight, dinner is an eclectic beef bourguignon, with the hog itself being sourced by his pals at the Company. He’s been at it for nearly four hours, not including the driving between grocery stores across town just to see which one had the right sized onions he’s been looking for. But after half a bottle of zinfandel and some white noise simmering in the back of his mind, the rest is…easy as pie. I mean — who knew precision surgical skill with a knife could be a transferable skill?
The pouring rain this evening provides him with an extra blanket of focus as he continues slicing carrots for the last phase of the stew, and it’s only then that the sound of an engine running up the driveway catches Minho’s focus. On instinct, he pauses, wordlessly reversing the grip on his knife whilst looking out the windows of his kitchen, watching and waiting to see who’s parking in his driveway at this time of night. Moments pass once the engine goes quiet, and only upon hearing the jingle of keys in the back door does he reverse his knife grip again.
“...Welcome home, sweetie,” Minho calmly announces to the intruder, resuming his assault on the carrots before him.
“Hello, baby,” Jisung responds plainly, setting his coat down by the nearby rack and approaching Minho to give him a customary greeting peck on the cheek.
“Did you…”
“Grab the butter? Yes.” He punctuates his sentence by plopping the blue-lined box right on the cutting board, disturbing the tidy arrangement of sliced carrots. Jisung briefly pauses at the sight of the orange vegetables. “Smells…great.”
“It’s not done yet, but it will be soon.” Minho flashes him a chaste smile, before looking down at the package of butter sitting in front of him. …I asked him for unsalted butter. He swallows a sigh of regret and reformats the thin smile on his face. “...So how was work?”
“So-so,” his husband coolly replies before stopping in front of a mirror in the hallway to adjust his shirt collar. (Jisung curses; there’s a blood stain blooming on the corner of the pale yellow fabric. Minho won’t see it, thankfully.)
Minho huffs inwardly at his husband’s lack of interest in the conversation, and thus redirects to a new topic. “...Oh, remember that we planned to stop by Home Depot this weekend to get a can of paint for the fence.”
“...Did we plan that? Because I don’t remember planning that.”
He swallows thickly and consciously loosens the grip on his knife. Looking up from the cutting board again, Minho locks eyes with Jisung coming back in from the hallway, now idly clinking ice and whiskey in a glass.
“The fence? Our white picket fence with the paint that’s been chipping away for over a year now. That fence. We talked about this.”
Jisung clicks his tongue and grimaces. “Do you really think we’ll be able to repaint that in one weekend? Us, and our busy schedules?”
“Well, it’s worth a try at the very least. If we don’t get started on it now, we’re never going to get to it and the paint’s just gonna continue chipping away.”
“Which is why we should wait until we both have some time off to sit down and repaint it. The fence isn’t going anywhere.” Jisung continues staring at him, slyly smiling over the rim of his glass before taking a sip. Minho won’t let it show on his face, but he’s certain Jisung won’t entertain this conversation any further.
“...Honey, why don’t you go ahead and set the table? The stew’s just about ready anyway,” Minho replies, acquiescing to their silent agreement about the fence with a saccharine smile. He finishes the sentence with a particularly crunchy chop of the last chunk of carrot.
♔ ⚔ ♚
“...Alright, I admittedly was not expecting you back so soon but also…you came back alone. Why did you come back this time?” The counselor tucks a graying lock of hair behind her ear before peering over the frame of her glasses.
Jisung scrunches his nose and roams his eyes over the interior of the office, letting his brain buffer with a reason for the visit. “...Dunno, actually. I think I just need someone to, like…word vomit to, if that makes sense.”
“Uh huh,” she blandly replies.
He huffs and adjusts in his seat, smoothing his hands over the front of his jeans before focusing on the counselor again. “Let me be frank: I love my husband, adore him, cherish him. Want nothing but the best and would never wish the worst on him.”
When Jisung pauses to take a breath and center his thoughts, she quietly nods for him to continue, already sensing the ‘but’ in his statement. Jisung instantly senses her anticipation and immediately grimaces.
“...It’s just that there’s times where I want to just…hoo boy…um.” A tight, forced smile forms on Jisung’s cheeks, and he has to glare at the ceiling so as to not let his wordless frustration shoot straight at the counselor.
“Take your time,” she replies, clicking her pen and bringing it down onto her clipboard.
(Jisung recounts a few ‘minor’ events; wanting — needing — to go to sleep and having to stay up for another forty minutes because Minho decided then and there to start answering a few emails on his iPad. An instance where Jisung was left to fend for himself against the Johnsons during their annual summer barbecue, all because Minho had to dip to check up on a server failure at a tech startup downtown. Coming home one night to find their drawers and shelves completely ‘tidied up’ and rearranged, with Jisung failing to parse through his belongings for nearly two weeks.)
“...Y’know, it never used to be like this,” Minho begins, pausing to suck in his lips while his thoughts fall into place. “It feels like there’s this void between us. And it just keeps getting bigger because we’re filling it with the things we want to say to each other, but aren’t. What do you call that?”
“Marriage,” replies the counselor. Minho bats his eyelashes politely. “What don’t you want to say to each other?”
“...Uhh. Hm.” Minho puffs up his cheeks and continues twisting the white gold band on his left ring finger.
“...That new movie, the one with Ryan Reynolds in it…it’s got decent reviews. Maybe we should go see it sometime.”
“Mm,” Minho hums, sipping wine from his glass as Jisung begins plating food onto his own dish.
“...Ah. What are we having for — ”
“Seafood paella.” A thin smile forms on Minho’s lips. “I just wanted to try something a little adventurous tonight.” He waits for further praises, but continues watching his husband blink down at his plate.
“This red stuff. This is…?”
“Bell peppers. Seafood paella has bell pepper in it.”
Jisung blinks at him, then back down at his plate. “...You know I don’t like bell peppers.”
Minho pretends not to hear it. “Hm? Did you say something, sweetheart?”
As he predicts, Jisung shakes his head and feigns nicety. “Nothing, dear. Can you pass me the salt?”
“It’s sitting in between us,” he replies, before scooping a generous amount of rice into his mouth.
“What? Where?”
Minho continues chewing, nods over at the salt shaker situated a casual reach away from Jisung’s plate, and smiles.
“Ah…right. Thanks.”
The counselor clicks her pen again. “How honest are you with him?”
“I mean…it’s not like I lie to him,” Minho admits. “We just… I have my secrets. He probably has his own skeletons in the closet, too. It’s not my business until he makes it my business, and vice versa. That’s all.” Minho bats his eyelashes again, smiling politely back at the counselor.
♔ ⚔ ♚
“Excuse me, sorry, coming through, really urgent business today, ya know? Hehe…”
Hurried feet scurry on marbled floors, like the march of a drum line except they’re marching on train tracks and the 5:00 transit from Sacramento is running late. They go click, clack, click, clack, clickclackclickclack —
“And where do you think you’re going, sir?”
The man stops, a cold sweat already accumulated on his hairline, and looks down at the small, tea kettle of a lady seated at the receptionist’s desk.
“S-Sorry. I just — I got a notice from the big guy, and he says he has an assignment for me, and I’ve never gotten an assignment from him before, and I’m already running late so it’s imperative that I see him now — ”
“Can you slow down? He can see you right now.”
“Well, yeah, that’s why I’m trying to get on the elevator — ”
“No,” the woman pointedly reiterates, scooting away from her desktop computer to jab a fountain pen in a direction right behind him. “He can see you right now.”
“What are you…?” His voice trails softly behind him as he finally spots what she’s pointed the pen at; a standard surveillance camera stares blankly back at him. He sheepishly laughs and waves a small hand. “H-Hello, sir…!”
“Rookies…” the receptionist mutters, before sorting through a small stack of files on her desk, finally pulling out a thin folder and handing it to the man. “Here is your assignment; read it over and confirm.”
He nods and opens the folder immediately, discovering a single sheet of paper within. He scrunches his face and looks back between it and the receptionist. “...This isn’t it, is it?”
“Read and confirm, please.”
“Right, yes, on it.” The paper itself has very little writing on it, and thus he reads and rereads and rereads the writing again within the span of twenty seconds. “...Okay? Okay. Yes. I will do it.”
“Thank you for confirming,” the woman impatiently answers as she goes right back to typing away on her keyboard, perhaps drafting a response to the big boss or whatever. The man opens his mouth with intent to ask more questions, but she immediately cuts him off. “You are free to go. Go on.”
“...Right.” He swallows the rest of his word vomit and heads off, still rattling the same words written in the file within his brain.
♔ ⚔ ♚
baby: where are you?
The message bubble sits starkly in the center of his lockscreen, conveniently placed where he and Minho’s faces would have been in a picture of them at the beach…from years ago. Jisung understands why Minho would be texting him this now — and already has a preplanned answer that will get him away mostly scot-free — but before he can even swipe and reply, another message bubble has already replaced it.
baby: it is 6pm
baby: the johnsons’ dinner party is in an hour
baby: remember?
Jisung blows hot air out his nostrils and swipes his tongue over his incisors, before finally swiping at the bubble and letting his thumbs fly over the keyboard.
sweetheart: sorry babe, forgot to tell you
sweetheart: was in a hurry
sweetheart: one of the guys’ computers just crashed before the project deadline tonight and im the closest person with access to a physical backup
sweetheart: dw i will be home soon i didnt forget!!!
He waits one, two moments for the read receipts to go through, and a few seconds after that to confirm that Minho won’t be texting him back anytime soon. Minho does not, and Jisung promptly shoves his phone back into his coat pocket. Jisung gives himself one last once-over in this visor mirror before exiting his car, cursing under his breath upon realizing he’d stepped right into a puddle. He forces back his mild dissatisfaction and trudges on, his boots crunching on the gravel and concrete beneath as he walks down the alleyway and keeps an eye out for the neon-lined sidewalk just ahead.
If it were up to him, Jisung would happily let his husband deal with the Johnsons himself, but that is unfortunately not the case. Tonight, the Agency’s settled him with a one-and-done kind of case: Hungarian arms dealer and backstreet heap of garbage, Lukas “Lucky” Barta. Lucky himself has escaped detection too many times (as befitting of his name), but pushing one’s luck can only mean so much if it doesn’t exist to begin with. And lucky enough for the Agency, they’ve been able to track down his whereabouts on this particularly gloomy November evening, bumming it out in the basement of some seedy club with his ‘business associates’ before disappearing off the face of the planet for another six to twelve weeks. Jisung was chosen to make that disappearance permanent — with a small bonus included for every single one of his associates also picked off.
“Cake,” Jisung mutters to himself as he flattens against the nearest brick wall, eyes still peeled for both exits of the alleyway. Hard, pounding bass rumbles underneath the bricks as he creeps ever closer to the club’s side entrance. If the steadily growing cluster of people on the sidewalk wasn’t already a sign, then perhaps Jisung should take a page out of his oft-forgotten book on stealth and try for a…subtler approach tonight. His iron is cold where it sits inside his other coat pocket, but there’s nothing a silenced pistol and a little bit of aiming won’t fix.
Back turned to the street and properly concealing anyone’s view of the singular door on the side of the building, Jisung tests the door handle with a light jiggle, just to see how much effort he’s going to need to rig it open. Undoubtedly, the door is locked, although the loose give of the handle clues Jisung to the fact that the club is sorely lacking in maintenance. With his back to the street and one last glance at both ends of the alleyway, Jisung gives the handle a swift kick with his boot — and the handle snaps off almost cleanly.
“Yep…still got it.” Jisung wiggles his head in light praise and nudges the door ajar, before slipping in like a ghost.
Sheesh…couldn’t they at least afford some lighting, though? I know it’s a nightclub, but god, does it have to be the literal backrooms back here?
If the schematics he was provided with are accurate, then Jisung should be a corridor or two away from the main security office. One trip there (assuming they’ll even have a decent surveillance system, although of that, Jisung is a little apprehensive) and he’ll likely discern the whereabouts of his target. He reneges and decides to trust his instincts. But first — a glass of something hard.
“...On God, I might actually castrate that man if he’s sending me to the wolves all by myself.”
Minho snarls at himself in the mirror; his tie is still crooked and the more he keeps fixing it, the less confident he is about its color actually matching his shirt. He clicks his tongue in annoyance and promptly tugs off the tie, tossing it behind him haphazardly out of frustration. Pausing to look back at his reflection and fixing his collar, the buzz of his phone on the countertop quickly snatches his attention. A smidgen of hope springs in Minho’s chest as he picks it up, fantasizing for a second that it’s his husband telling him he’s on his way home and even picked up a nice cake from Safeway or something to bring to the dinner.
If only, Minho immediately concludes with a roll of his eyes. “Let’s see, what is this…ah.” …The Company. Perfect, goddamned timing as always.
He ruminates on the decision for exactly three seconds, and is grabbing his car keys and heading downstairs on the fourth.
…Well, if I’m going to be out, I might as well be the one getting a cake from Safeway.
Sometimes, Jisung doesn’t understand how he gets away with the things that he does on a daily basis. Surely, there’s got to be some higher power out there that’s waiting to mollywhop him with the sum of his karmic debt when it’s finally his time to make a bid for the pearly white gates up top. Indiscriminate contract killings, not being stuffy about pineapple on pizza, and sometimes forgetting to add fabric softener to the load when his husband asks him to run the laundry once in a blue moon.
The Agency’s information comes up short, and what he originally expected to be ‘one or two corridors away’ actually turns out to be an entire dance floor between the north and south wings of the nightclub. Jisung battens down the hatches and slips into the crowd with ease, keeping his wits about him as he’s bombarded with strobe lights and hard bass. He manages the ebb and flow of the crowded dance floor with little difficulty, letting the crowd push him here and there while scoping out every other exit other than the one he’d just entered through. At least six security guards, he notes to himself whilst slipping a towel off the tray of a passing call girl and folding it half to lay across his arm. Four along the front perimeter, one near the restrooms, and another right by the dj booth.
He rides the flow of the room closer to one of singular booths, managing to swipe a bottle of whatever off some drunk patron’s table without anyone the wiser. In the striking dim of the room, Jisung peers down at the bottle he’s taken. Casamigos Blanco, eh? Not his personal favorite, although if it were him he’d have picked something from his early college days; something that tastes like Robitussin with enough alcohol to knock out a horse.
Alas, tonight is not a party for him. He wonders what kind of guy Lucky Barta is, if he’s already coked out and surrounded by prostitutes somewhere in this building or if he’s sampling some liqueurs over a nice little game of poker. Maybe he’s a Smash Bros kinda guy, who knows. The music begins to muffle and fade into the distance the deeper he goes into the back corridors, his boots padding softly on the dirty, sticky red carpet lining the floor. There’s only a handful of doors back here, but he’d rather not go around knocking on every single one like he’s playing whack-a-mole. Jisung picks the second one on his right, and with his hand neatly wrapped around the neck of the tequila bottle, he moves to open the door with the other.
“Hello, room service?”
Minho tries to sound as palatable as can be, even when his getup is suffocating at best and he’s in no particular mood to play nice with anyone. Regrettably, a job is a job, and there’s a reason why that message from the Company was sent to him first. He stands in front of the door for the next ten seconds in utter silence, still maintaining composure under what invisible scrutiny could be placed on him at the moment. He idly wonders if he’s even gotten the right room, and subtly glances down the hallway for any further anomalies. It’s only when he hears the door in front of him opening that Minho snaps right back into character.
“...Mr. Nakatchawan isn’t expecting any guests tonight — ” The guard immediately pauses upon laying his eyes on Minho.
He bats his eyelashes oh so coyly, even tilting his head one millimeter to the side to drive in his point. The guard posted at the door has a moment of realization, and quietly motions for Minho to present the satchel on his person. Minho unclasps the single fastener on the front and holds it open for the man to inspect.
“...A silk handkerchief, handcuffs, and is that a — ”
“A riding crop?”
The guard grunts and steps aside for him. “Mr. Nakatchawan is waiting in the room on the far left. You have an hour before we leave for our flight.”
“Don’t worry; I’ll be swift.” He bats his eyelashes again and flashes the guard a plasticky smile, the image itself a stone’s throw from the tight leather ensemble sitting underneath his coat. Good leather is difficult to come by, and good leather he can fight in is even harder to acquire. He tugs at the belt holding his coat together, a minor action more designed to try and adjust the corset he’s wearing underneath, which has begun digging uncomfortably into his ribs.
As Minho crosses the threshold into the penthouse with the guard escorting him, he lets his eyes wander around the vicinity, committing to memory every potential exit point he can reach as well as the exact amount of other bodyguards he may have to fight through if things get a little…nasty tonight. Everything is as he expects of a penthouse of one of the ritzier hotels downtown, regardless of it being one of the older establishments. Tall, deep burgundy walls with rich bronze molding and seashell-shaped wall sconces, plush furs for rugs with accompanying velvet blue loveseats, and dark marble tables and countertops for as far as he can see. A gold-and-crystal chandelier hangs forebodingly in the center of the suite, and Minho idly thinks of a few ways he could use such an imposing structure to his advantage.
The bodyguards sitting in the living area hardly pay him any attention, their eyes too distracted by the game show airing on the tv hanging on the wall across the room.
‘The variation of a Provençal dish, consisting of seasoned, sliced round vegetables prepared in various different manners, most famously utilized in an animated film from 2007,’ the game show host on the television explains.
Confit byaldi, Minho thinks to himself just as he reaches the bedroom at the far end of the hallway. He nods his reassurance to his guard escort before entering the room and locking the door right behind him.
“Ah…you must be the room service I ordered.”
Minho calmly turns to look at his mark; a stout, portly man with a hairline that looks like a California river in July and glasses with lenses that could pass for telescopes. Enter Anuman “Arun” Nakatchawan, Thai underground narcotics mogul. He tries his best not to shrink under the other man’s hungry gaze and straightens out his leather gloves, all while discreetly continuing to survey the master bedroom. Four balcony windows on the six o’clock side, a master bathroom with another balcony window beside the bathtub.
“Good evening, Mr. Nakatchawan. If you’d like to take a seat and get comfortable, we can get started as soon as possible.”
“Oh, y-yes…! Absolutely.”
“But first…” He tries not to grimace at the glow of Nakatchawan’s eyes once he sheds his coat, revealing the tight, fishnet-and-leather ensemble covering him from the neck down. “While I freshen up in the bathroom, why don’t you go ahead and pick out a safeword for me, hm?”
“Haha! ….ha?”
The room, emptier than the bottom of a wine barrel, stares back at him in its musty, decrepit, poor-excuse-of-a-private-room glory. Jisung winces and lightly scratches at the center of his forehead.
“...Ah, fuck it,” he mutters, and immediately unscrews the tequila bottle to take a hefty swig. The initial gulp goes down smoother than he’s expecting, but it’s the seconds after that hits him with delayed heft. He pauses to let the warmth bloom in his chest, reveling in the gradual heat like a cat sitting on a heater vent. “...Oookay. Now it’s go time.”
The next two rooms have him interfering with two individuals about to engage in coitus (complete with resplendent screaming and profuse apologizing on his behalf) and a group of stoners too zoned out to understand he’d just barged in on them with a loaded gun. He mutters a short apology and sees himself out, only hearing them seconds later discussing amongst themselves ‘what that sound was’. Jisung snorts and moves on to the next door.
Jisung doesn’t think much of the next doorknob he twists open, already committed to the half-assed plan he’s put together just fifteen minutes ago (and has yet to actually pull off, successfully or not). He’s still holding onto the tequila bottle although he’s long since dropped any pretenses of feigning culinary servitude. If it were up to him, he’d have taken more swigs of the bottle by now, but the last time he’d completed a job absolutely sloshed it was also one of the worse experiences he’s had working for the Agency.
“Did someone order bottle service?” Jisung tries to put on his most convincing smile, regardless of his current lack of decorum and the half-empty bottle of tequila in his hand. The denizens of the room, four grown men sitting around a table halfway through their card game, stare him down with disbelief. The one closest to him turns all the way around to level him with a particularly icy glare.
“Who the fuck are you? We didn’t order any goddamn bottle service,” the man replies in a distinctly eastern European accent, and it’s like a lightbulb flashes in Jisung’s brain.
“Uh…it’s on the house! A gift from management.” Jisung’s smile grows more unconvincing the longer they stare at him and the half-empty tequila bottle. The man sitting farthest away from him, a fellow nursing a thick cigar with a wispy combover and the cheesiest pair of amber sunglasses, moves his hand down to a glint of gunmetal sitting at his waist. The prickly silence that follows is undercut only by the drone of the old television in the background, playing some AMC western that Jisung’s never seen before.
“...Y’know what, just put down the damn bottle and get out before we change our minds,” he growls in accented English, and the formula comes together neatly in his mind.
“Oh…okay then,” Jisung replies before taking a few steps closer to their little poker table, still holding the tequila bottle firmly by the neck. “Oh, and one last thing?”
Lucky Barta blows a puff of smoke and narrows his eyes at Jisung. “What?”
“...Duck.”
It takes one swing of the tequila bottle to knock the nearest man clean out of his chair, for the whole room to descend into chaos. As the man scrambles onto the floor yelping in pain, the other three move to brandish their iron, but Jisung already has his silencer out and loaded. It takes three clean shots for Jisung to dispatch the rest of them, like shooting down targets at the midway. One final shot to the writhing man on the floor and the room finally returns to silence, once again disrupted by the spaghetti western playing on the tv, and the distant groan of the dance floor. Content, Jisung blows his bangs out of his face and smooths his hands down his coat.
“...Ah shit, I spilled tequila on myself.”
Crack!
“A-Ack!”
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t quite hear that. Can you say it a little louder for me?”
Minho’s voice drips with the slightest bite, but Nakatchawan is quick to whine and acquiesce beneath him. “Y-Yes, I’m a good boy, Arun is a good boy — ”
Another clash of the riding crop on pink flesh, and Nakatchawan squeals and writhes against his restraints. “When did I say you were a good boy?”
“I-I’m sorry, Arun is a bad boy, Arun’s been very bad…!”
Minho glowers at him, eyes narrowing as Nakatchawan squirms uncomfortably in the chair that’s two sizes too small for him. He reaches down and gently presses a gloved hand underneath the swell of Nakatchawan’s chin, faintly reading the other man’s steadily rising pulse.
“Bad boys need to be punished, don’t they?” Minho hisses, pressing his fingers just a little more firmly on Nakatchawan’s pulse.
“Y-Yes, they do…!”
“...And do you know what happens to bad men who smuggle narcotics out of the country to peddle in third world countries?”
Minho barely hears the gasp of realization wheeze out of him before his hands have locked around his thick neck like a vise, snapping it with a crunch so satisfying, one would think he’d just activated a glowstick. Nakatchawan tumbles out of the chair in a sweaty heap, and Minho takes a moment to shrug off his persona in disgust before refocusing on his exit plan. Minho has only made a single step over Nakatchawan’s limp body when an urgent knocking on the door rattles him.
“...Mr. Nakatchawan, we are leaving in fifteen minutes,” a voice announces from the bedroom door. Minho swallows thickly whilst refastening his coat, already striding towards the balcony as the knocking returns louder. “Mr. Nakatchawan, sir, are you there?!”
“Sorry boys, it seems our session is over.” Minho announces to himself as he steps out onto the balcony, the wind blowing through his hair and letting his coat fly behind him. He momentarily peers over the edge and takes in the sight of the cars lined up in traffic like tetris blocks and fellow skyscrapers rising from the ground like stalagmites. Minho clears his throat and grunts, before reaching within a nearby potted plant and tugging something out of the dirt. “...I could have settled for a second or third floor escape, but I guess this will suffice,” he mutters, brushing the dirt off of what appears to be a grappling gun. “Thank you, Company.”
When Nakatchawan’s agents finally bust the door down and discover their boss, Minho is already turning the corner down the street from the hotel.
♔ ⚔ ♚
The house is deathly silent when Jisung enters through the kitchen side door, taking note of the lack of his husband’s car parked in the garage where it normally is. Regardless, there’s not much time to investigate Minho’s curious absence, and he immediately runs upstairs to change out of his tequila-soaked clothes and into something more appropriate for the Johnsons’ house party. He’s halfway through aligning his necktie when the familiar purr of his husband’s engine rolls into the driveway, followed shortly by the sound of the same downstairs side door opening and closing.
“Honey, is that you?” Jisung calls out cautiously, peering out from their walk-in closet.
“Of course, who else would it be?” his husband answers in that familiar, snarky tone. Jisung rolls his eyes and heads downstairs; from the sound of it, it no longer seems as if Minho’s holding a grudge against him for dipping right before their neighbors’ dinner.
“Hi, sweetie. How was your coworker’s little dilemma?” Minho asks once Jisung enters the kitchen, tie still half-done and unaligned. The black leather coat tied tight around his husband’s figure briefly piques Jisung’s curiosity, but any word out of him is silenced the moment Minho crosses over and finishes tightening his tie, if a little forcefully.
“Well, I, uh…we got lucky.” Jisung wiggles his brows before craning his head to glance at himself in the nearby hallway mirror. “We were able to get his computer up and running again, and we even discovered that there was a previous auto-backup from a few minutes before his computer shut down. So…he’s gonna be just fine.”
“That sounds quite fortuitous,” Minho replies nonchalantly, before returning to the plastic grocery bag on their kitchen island. Jisung lets his eyes linger as Minho unravels the belt at his waist and shrugs off the leather coat…revealing a creamsicle-colored sweater underneath with a neatly pressed pinstriped shirt to match. As if sensing Jisung’s ogling, the other man looks up and meets his eyes, before flashing him a polite smile. “What are you looking at?”
“I...well, where did you go? I didn’t realize you were going to be doing some last minute grocery shopping.”
Minho smiles wider and gently pats the sides of the grocery bag on the counter. “Well, I remembered they’re selling that seasonal carrot cake at Safeway and thought it would be a…nice gift to bring over to the Johnsons. You know how much their little kid loves carrots.”
The little Johnson boy does not enjoy eating his carrots, Jisung instantly remembers, and he nearly snorts at his husband’s idea of a joke. And just for show, Minho slides the plastic bag down, revealing the modestly sized carrot cake sitting in its paper-and-plastic decorative box.
“This was actually the last one they had sitting on the shelf. Almost had to fight another bumbling husband for it.”
“Uh huh,” Jisung mutters. “Well…I suppose we’re all set to head over to the Johnsons, then?”
“I suppose we are.”
“Mhm…” Once again, a strange but brief silence falls over the room as Jisung continues surveying his husband. Minho watches him carefully, keeping a demure smile painted over his features.
“You’ve been staring at me ever since you got home. Is something the matter?”
Jisung clears his throat and clicks his tongue. “...No. That’s, um, a nice sweater. Is it new?”
“...No. It’s just been sitting in the back of the closet, gathering cobwebs. Decided I’d wear it tonight.”
“Uh huh.”
♔ ⚔ ♚
Minho presses down on the lapels of his coat as he passes the threshold of the main lobby, eyes briefly passing over a directory on his left as his shoes clack on the marble floors beneath. Welcome to Thunderbolt Security — otherwise known as The Company — operating efficiently and exclusively on the 48th floor of the Santos Building downtown. She has a wonderful view of the surrounding high rises, as well as the pier and waterfront just down the boulevard. If hiding in plain sight were an art form, Mr. Minho Lee likes to think that they’ve mastered it.
Much like every other standard fare office employee in the building, Minho joins them in the elevator like the last sardine in a can, and rides the elevator as high as it goes while the crowd gradually thins. Reaching the 48th floor, he politely nods at the only other person in the elevator (an older, silver gentleman that routinely does janitorial work on this floor) before making for the receptionist’s desk.
“Good morning, Kai,” Minho says as soon as the receptionist comes into sight.
The young man smiles back at him. “Good morning, Mr. Lee. Go ahead and enter the scanner; Ms. Park will brief you on your upcoming assignment.”
“Thank you, Kai. Oh, and nice tie, by the way.”
The young man nods politely and gestures towards the unassuming glass door just a few steps behind the reception desk. With one last tug on his lapels, Minho makes for the door and is met with a saline, sterile void where a corridor should have been. But to Minho, this is just standard procedure.
“Good morning, Director,” Minho announces to the darkness, a simple smile adorning his face.
“Good morning to you too, Mr. Lee.”
The void brightens and awakens with a hum, the floor beneath him shuddering and shifting forward — it’s a conveyor belt. The endless black walls vanish, revealing a glass corridor swathed with holographic blue projections, if not speaking of the countless cubicles just beyond, revealing the true business of the 48th floor. Minho looks up at one screen staying in cadence with him as the conveyor belt pushes him along; Director Park watches him unflinchingly, her short, neat, black bob still the same as Minho remembers it, day after day.
“I’m sure you’re aware I normally don’t talk to you directly like this, Mr. Lee,” Director Park monologues, her eyes trained on something just off-screen. “But considering your track record, I need someone like you to handle this. Quick, clean, efficiently.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Minho replies curtly.
“Sending you the details now.”
“And what’s the deal with this guy, exactly?”
Jisung takes a sip of his coffee, coughs, and leans back in his chair to listen to the rest of Boss’s debriefing. In the back of his mind, he laments the decision to delay installing the soundproofing on his office, because Changbin’s ranting over his latest mission gone wrong is still too audible during his meeting with the Boss. Nevertheless, he continues listening.
“Seonghwa Park; alias: Dozer,” Boss announces, before clearing his throat. “He’s a notorious anti-government hacker who recently made some very significant progress on his infiltration on the Pentagon. Sadly, he was ‘caught’ — and I say that with air quotations because the detainment unit he’s been placed under is actually on the way to a federal facility south of the Mexican border…where he’ll understandably be interrogated on government secrets before swiftly disappearing under mysterious circumstances.”
Jisung grunts and takes another sip from his mug. “Swanky; I like it. The name is kinda stupid.”
“And that’s where you come in,” Boss replies, the bass of his voice resounding unflatteringly with the digitizer on Jisung’s receiver. “There is a four mile stretch of land just south of the border that presents itself as the only point of vulnerability on Dozer’s route; it’s almost like a gift horse, or however the saying goes. After that, Dozer’s attachment will rendezvous with a helicopter at an abandoned airstrip. This is our one chance to strike. Can you make it happen, Han?”
Jisung sips from his drink again and feigns hesitation, although Boss knows his silence usually indicates the myriad strings of cause and effect he’s going to be anticipating — as is standard for any and most of Jisung’s operations.
His lips curl into a languid smile. “...Sounds fun. I’m in.”