Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“Alright, what the fuck.” 

“Nice to see you too, Seungminnie.” Minho quips sarcastically, turning him over as he washes over his open wounds. Seungmin’s shoulder is bandaged up and hurts like a bitch every time he tries to move it. His arms and legs have bruises all over them and he keeps getting so many nosebleeds that he genuinely considers giving up on breathing. 

“No, not you.” Seungmin says, not present enough to roll his eyes. He turns to the boy seated uncomfortably on a chair, fingers fidgety and eyes turned down. Hyunjin looks up and averts his gaze again. “You have some explaining to do—ow! That fucking hurts, hyung—” 

Minho pushes him back on the stool he was sitting on, dabbing some stingy solvent onto his wounds. “Sit still, hero. You can talk to him later.” Minho leans down to wipe away at something and Seungmin hisses in pain. “You. Why didn’t you tell him who you were?” 

“I didn’t know who he was either.” Hyunjin says, his voice soft but a hint of defiance behind it. Seungmin subtly turns to look at him properly, but he avoids his eyes pointedly. Minho turns his head back again. “I still don’t, honestly. I don’t know who you are.” 

Minho dabs the cotton into his neck extra hard as if saying another brat. He falls into pointed silence and Seungmin doesn’t dare speak either. Minute by minute passes in stifled silence, the looming anticipation hanging over their head, dense and heavy. Finally, Minho deems it down and puts the tweezers and the bottle down onto the tray on the table. 

Then he walks out. 

Hyunjin’s still avoiding his eyes and he has no idea how to start talking. He gets put out of his dilemma when Hyunjin thankfully speaks up. “I’m sorry, Seungmin. I, I should’ve told you, but people usually don’t want to stay around after they learn how risky it is.” 

“How risky what is?” Seungmin frowns. “I still don’t know who you are. Just, just be honest with me, please. You already know that I don't care about risk. Like, look at me. I just got shot.” Seungmin wants him to come closer or at least look into his eyes, but he doesn’t ask. “Just tell me.” 

Minho comes back a few moments after Hyunjin’s just finished telling him everything. Seungmin sits on the stool, head reeling as a miniature sized Seungmin in his head beats the shit out of another miniature sized Seungmin. Minho notices his dazed expression and looks back from him to Hyunjin to the beat of some song he’d heard a while ago. “What.” 

“Hyung.” Seungmin breathes out. “Uh. I think I need to burn my entry.” 

“What.” Minho says again. “Oh, did you come clean? Alright tell me, I want to hear you too. I mean, if there’s someone Seungmin l—”

“Let him speak!” Seungmin shuts him up, scrambling around to throw something but groaning when a sharp pain shoots up his arm. He already knows what he's going to say, and that’d be twice as embarrassing for both him and Hyunjin. 

Hyunjin repeats what he’d told him to Minho again, a little more abridged. When he finishes talking, Minho walks over and takes a seat on one of the chairs facing him. “So what you’re telling me is—you’re under the SPM?” Hyunjin nods, eyes a little brighter now. SPM is the other big private police body in the city, one that Seungmin actually worked under for a while. 

“And you’ve been working undercover on the same thing as us for a while?” Minho asks, looking a little faint. Hyunjin nods again. “And you had no idea that Seungmin was in the police force as well?” 

“No.” Hyunjin says, glancing back at him, the shy Hyunjin he knows returning. “I really didn’t, promise. If I did, I wouldn't have lied to you. I’m sorry.” 

His whispered its fine gets lost in the flurry of questions Minho heaps on him. Hyunjin doesn’t back away, answering to his every inquiry eagerly and honestly. They—Hyunjin mentions some of his friends— have been working undercover on this for a while now, trying to string out the groups going around. He’s gotten himself right in the middle of a ring by pretending to be an information trader. He draws up their schedules for them and simultaneously comes to know where they are. He weeds them out slowly, one by one in case they get suspicious. 

“But why should we believe you?” Minho finally asks. Seungmin doesn’t facepalm like he normally would’ve, because it’s a completely valid question. Hyunjin peers up at him through his lashes, a small smile on his face. “Why would I lie? You can call SPM up. You can call the head up. You can talk to my colleagues and friends. I don’t have anything to hide now, do I?”

Minho nods, and then gets up. He promptly walks out and towards their office washroom. “Thank you for telling us.” Seungmin tells him over the clear resounding scream. Hyunjin looks alarmed, glancing back where Minho had disappeared. “Hyung gets like that sometimes, don’t worry.” 

“Is he—is he okay?” Hyunjin asks, giggling. In the middle of his office. On his chair. On a Tuesday afternoon. Seungmin blinks the lovesick film over his eyes and focuses back onto him. He’s still not looking at him and he can’t for the life of him understand why. 

“Why aren’t you looking at me?” It's only when Hyunjin tenses and his eyes widen that he realizes he’s said it out loud. Hyunjin flushes and slowly looks up at him. “Look, I'm sorry for not telling you too. And about having your name down in our records—we’ll remove them immediately. God, I’m so—”

“It’s not that.” Hyunjin says, smiling shyly. “I know, don’t worry. I, um.” he gets up from his seat and walks closer. Seungmin sucks in a sharp breath when his fingers reach out towards his shoulder. That’s when he realises he’s been shirtless all this while. He might not be the hottest model in the block but the way Hyunjin looks at him, eyes sweeping over his body—He abruptly realises why he hadn’t been looking at him. 

“Do you mind if I—?”

Seungmin shakes his head even though he has no idea what he’s asking for. He tenses when his fingers graze over the skin of his neck. Gentle fingers trail down to his shoulder, brushing over the bandages. Even with the pain in his arm and the layers between Hyunjin’s hand and his skin he can still feel the tingles under his skin clearly. Hyunjin breathes out, and oh god, he’s so close. “Wow. I've never gotten shot before.” 

To anyone it might sound a weird thing to say, especially if it’s out of context, but to Seungmin it feels like a normal conversation between two people who could’ve made their lives intersect earlier if they wanted to. He chuckles. “Trust me, you don’t want to. Nothing much would happen unless it went too deep or hit something important but the first time I genuinely thought I was going to die.”

“This isn’t your first time?” Hyunjin asks, genuine shock on his face. He breathes out, face way too close and eyes full of awe. Seungmin squirms under his gaze, eyes flickering away because his eyes start to water. “Woah. Cool. You were really h—uh, cool earlier. Really. I didn’t know if I could just fight them, but you! You just went all in, no hesitation.” 

Seungmin’s face feels so warm it’s a surprise Hyunjin can’t feel it. He doesn’t know what to say except an awkward ‘thank you’ and oh god, Hyunjin’s hands are still on his shoulder and oh god Hyunjin’s still looking down at him with a soft smile on his face, and Seungmin so badly wants the emotion in his eyes to be adoration that his hands tremble. 

His heart almost—no, he’s pretty sure his heart does stop beating when Hyunjin leans over. Seungmin lets out a stuttered breath as soft lips kiss the high rise of his cheek once before they pull away, lingering slightly. Hyunjin’s eyes have gentle stars in them and he watches him, heart beating so fast he can hear it in his head. 

Seungmin wills his gaze to remain steadfast on his eyes and not drop, because he won’t have any control over what he does next. And as much as he wants—as much as he wants to kiss him—he still wants to take their time into this. As insecure as he can get, he can’t just believe that Hyunjin isn’t doing all of this just because, so he wants to keep this side of Hyunjin around a little longer and get to know him even better.

“Thank you.” Hyunjin whispers into the suddenly skimmed down space between them. His thumb brushes over a bruise on his shoulder. “Thank you, Seungmin.” 

“—but that’s really dangerous.” Minho’s worried voice floats over through the open door as he approaches the office. Hyunjin’s been working with them for a few days now, having gotten permission from his agency to pool resources. Seungmin had been reluctant in letting him go alone but he’d reassured him that he’ll be fine so sweetly that he couldn’t hold his ground after that. 

“What’s dangerous?” Seungmin asks as he tears a cake package open. He hands it to Hyunjin to distribute among themselves. Minho accuses him of bias so he just gives it to Hyunjin to divide. From what he can tell, Minho’s taken a fond liking in Hyunjin as well. 

Minho hesitates. Seungmin narrows his eyes. “Hyung. What’s going on?” 

“Jisung called.” Minho sighs. “Well, Jisung called Changbin who called here. It’s too dangerous to directly call headquarters.” Seungmin waits for him to get to the point. “Remember you said they might be held hostage?” 

Seungmin swallows harshly as he nods, not daring to confirm his fears but not hoping for too good of a news either. “Well, they’re not held hostage. Yet. But they’re in a terrible place. Chan kept getting cornered, remember? They did their work well, but all in all, they know who the spies among them are. And let’s just say they don’t treat them very well.” 

“I got in through trading information.” Hyunjin speaks up. “I wasn’t in the deeper circles, but it still worked. Our group used that information to trace them back. But your friends…from what hyung’s told me, they’re in too deep to just abandon everything now. They’ll be in greater danger if they try to escape now.” 

“Great.” Seungmin mutters under his breath. “Just great. Do we have locations? Trails? Leads?” 

“We have locations.” Minho says, turning back to his computer. “It’s intentional. It’s a trap. They want us to send people to get them out of there. Don’t even think about it.” he adds quietly without turning back, even though Seungmin’s hasn’t said anything. “It’s too dangerous. They’ll kill one of them if we try to sneak up to them.” 

“What are we supposed to do then? Don’t tell me you’re going to sit and wait. I’m not going to do that.” Seungmin keeps his eyes focused on Minho in front of him, trying to get him to turn around. “They’ll kill them anyway! I’m going in.” 

“I said don’t think about it.” Minho says, voice deadly calm. In other situations Seungmin would’ve hurried to obey immediately, but this time all he feels is anger. 

“I am thinking about it.” Seungmin bites out. “Why can’t we just go in and pour onto them? We have enough manpower for it.” his voice becomes whiny, almost. After facing those men he doesn't doubt that they’ll kill off either one of them just to prove that they can. They’ll probably also add money to their heads. “You’ve seen them. They won’t be able to do much if the police blast in.” 

“They’ll be killed either way.” Minho snaps, voice turning louder. “Don’t you get it? That’s what they want! They’ll kill them even if we back off. Blasting in is the worst thing we can do right now. Do you have any idea how big their circle is? You won’t be able to take down security by yourself.” 

“That’s why I'm asking you to help!” He feels so frustrated that Minho doesn’t want to understand him. And it’s worse because Minho used to be the one making these kinds of suggestions. He supposes it’s Chan and Jisung’s addition to the case that makes him tread so carefully. “I don’t get it. Why can’t—”

“We can’t.” 

“Yeah, sit around waiting for your Jisung to appear magically.” Seungmin says bitterly. “They’ll get killed either way, you said it yourself. Why can’t we try to get them out? I don’t believe that you , of all people, are asking me to sit back and wait for it to cool down. These things don’t cool down.” 

“Seungmin.” Hyunjin's warning voice sounds over his own and he realizes how loud they had been talking. Minho gets up and walks out, shutting the door. It’s not particularly hard, but Hyunjin still flinches. Seungmin glances at him, suddenly feeling guilty for yelling at Minho. “Fuck. Sorry. It’s just—”

“It’s okay, I understand.” Hyunjin assures. “Also, for what it’s worth, I don't think hyung’s going to sit around waiting. Obviously you know him better than I do, but there’s something… he has a plan and he’s still formulating it. That's why he’s not telling you anything. That hyung likes perfection, doesn't he?”

Seungmin stares, the pieces falling into place quickly. Of course Minho won’t sit back and watch. It’s Chan and Jisung on the line for god's sake! Minho’s known them since forever. They’re basically family. Seungmin absolutely refuses to believe any of the bullshit Minho had just spewed.

“Hyunjin, holy shit.” Seungmin manages to say. “You're right. You’re so right. I’m not thinking clearly. But you know what I'm worried about? Minho trying to take on the whole of them by himself. He overestimates how much he can take." He thinks over it, Hyunjin watching him silently. “I think I know what he’s going to do. This is bad.” 

He tells Hyunjin about his deduction, and he nods thoughtfully. “He might. But we’ll have to wait till tomorrow to know if he’s going to or not.” 

Seungmin nods, grimacing. “Yeah. That's the catch. If Minho doesn’t do anything, then I'm going to.” Hyunjin sits across from him and grins up at him, a lovely downward crinkle at the corners of his eyes. 

“I’m coming with you.” 

Seungmin doesn’t get much sleep that night. He stayed up half of it talking to Hyunjin, just casually trying to set up a plan and several backups for it while somehow slipping back into old conversations and jokes. Talking with Hyunjin is easy, even more so now that the final barrier between them has been lifted. Hyunjin is eager to learn and talk to him, and he genuinely seems to like talking to Seungmin as well. 

Hyunjin says he fears this turning into a rescue-turned-suicide mission. He’d said that what they were working with was bigger than their records said and far more dangerous. Hyunjin’s watched people being killed for absolutely no reason other than the fact that they pissed someone off. Hyunjin had to walk on eggshells all the time to not drive himself into the same fate as them. 

Seungmin will say, he’s still a little surprised Hyunjin trusted him as easily as he did. He’s not dared to bring it up—another heavy burden on the already weighed basket of worries they’re trying to balance. Seungmin will say he understands it to some extent, having wondered the same for himself. He still wonders how he trusted Hyunjin so easily. Trust in other forms—not in revealing each other’s actual lives—but letting each other peak into the world of their own mind. 

Seungmin had been absolutely smitten by him but now—now it reaches a whole new level. Most of the time Seungmin tries to ignore the sheer magnitude of feelings thumping through his chest, but he’s pretty sure Minho sees through him easily. He likes to think he separates his personal feelings from his work pretty well, but sometimes he’ll steal a glance at Hyunjin between jotting notes down and then he’ll be embarrassingly close to writing down Hyunjin over and over again in his notebook. 

It’s fine right now. They can freely joke around now that they discover just how largely their worlds overlap. Hyunjin practically works in their office now, taking over Jisung’s desk after much reluctance. Minho was the one who'd suggested it after all, and Hyunjin had asked about Minho and Jisung over their lunch. 

“Jisung is Hyung's boyfriend, right?” Hyunjin asks, looking a little embarrassed to ask it. “Will it be okay if I take his space?” 

Seungmin has to laugh, and like. Aside from the fact that he himself is in love with him, this is why he grew on Minho as well. More than twice he’s found his hyung bringing in food for Hyunjin—because he often forgets to eat when he gets super focused—and it just shocked him so much that he pulled Minho to a corner and asked him about it, utterly betrayed. 

(“You’ve never done that for me!” Seungmin whisper yells, shaking him by the shoulders. “I’m so hurt. Hyung, how could you, huh? You’ve known me since forever, and you—” 

Minho had just rolled his eyes fondly and stuffed a packet into his hand. “Brat.” )

They’re sitting on their desks, elbows brushed against each other. It’s like the many mornings he’s spent in this same place with two differences: Minho's not here, and it’s Hyunjin who sits beside him, pen scratching against the fine paper. The usual smell of coffee and residual smell of cigarettes lingers through the air, chocolate and warm cakes breaching through it. 

He should be working. He should be worrying about how Minho could be doing something incredibly impulsive and reckless right now, something that would put him in major danger and something that Seungmin needs to have enough liability to stop. But all he can do is steal glances at the morning sunlight bathed boy beside him and consciously force his thoughts away from anywhere near the way his lips hover over the edge of his coffee cup. 

If Hyunjin notices, he doesn’t comment on it. Instead he sends soft smiles his way, blissfully unaware of the itch in Seungmin’s hands to swivel his chair forward and take his face in his hands and yell that he’s absolutely enamoured by him. 

“—still, we should probably check.” Hyunjin’s voice stops speaking as he belatedly snaps out of his daze. He’s looking at him expectantly like he’s waiting for something and Seungmin has never felt so embarrassed. There’s an amused frown on Hyunjin's face. “Are you listening?”

“Uh-h. yeah. Of course. What were you saying?” Seungmin stammers out, a little gone under his gaze. Hyunjin smiles and repeats his question of whether they should call Minho up. It’s still not past the time he usually comes to office, but it makes sense that Hyunjin is worried. 

They do end up calling Minho, who curses out a whole storm at them before realizing who it was. His voice is groggy, and it sounds like he’s just crawled out of bed. When he realises that it was Seungmin calling, he proceeds to curse him out even more, till Seungmin just sighs and puts the phone away from his ear. When he finishes and asks an annoyed ‘what the fuck you want’, Seungmin in turn asks when he’s coming to work today. 

“I’m not.” Minho says. “I feel sick. See ya.” 

The line hangs up with a sharp click, and Seungmin lowers the phone, staring straight at Hyunjin in worry. Hyunjin has a similar expression even though he points out that he did sound sick. Seungmin doesn’t buy it all that quickly. Minho can get moody and despondent when situations such as this occur. Group projects used to drive him crazy to the point he’d get close to taking them out with his gun. Seungmin recounts a particularly memorable incident where he’d thrown a telephone—wire and all—at Jisung. 

“The locations.” Seungmin says to him. “Pull them up. Thank god for satellite cams.” 

Hyunjin does so. They sit in front of the computer for a while, nothing particularly interesting on screen except for the pitbull who tried to chew a piece of his owner’s ass. It’s completely silent, Hyunjin absentmindedly fidgeting with the cover of his phone—lodging and dislodging it till it pings out his fingers. Seungmin catches it for him and hands it to him while he’s trying to find a way to access any security cameras in the area of the warehouse they have their sights on. 

He does find one, but it takes him quite the time. He manages to access two of them (Hyunjin whispering ‘cool!’ in his ear excitedly) and all he sees is a jet black car parked right in front of it. He has no doubt that it’s done intentionally to block off the view it can access. He also has no doubt that the guys are smart enough to not go about their business in front of it in broad daylight. 

“This is useless.” Seungmin mutters, glancing at his watch to find two hours passed. Even Hyunjin looks bored—and that’s saying something because that boy finds filling water bottles entertaining. He’s yawning beside him, eyes watery as he covers his hand with his mouth. He nods when he finds Seungmin looking at him. “Alright, this is fucking boring .”

“It is.” Hyunjin agrees after a while. “Why don’t we just pull up at the warehouse?” 

Seungmin turns the idea over in his head, thinking just how irrational and dangerous that is. They don’t have permit to go round them up yet, nevermind the fact that they’re helplessly overpowered both in strength and number. “We could.” he says slowly. “But we shouldn’t.” 

“We shouldn’t.” Hyunjin agrees, but there’s a mischievous glint in his eyes. “But we could.” his hands reach up and tug at his wrist and he loses his breath, this stuttery exhale leaving his mouth in a puff. “You’re thinking about it.” 

“I am.” Seungmin confesses honestly. He is. They could do that. Just, he’s still not so sure how well that would go. The chance of getting in there and making it out alive with Chan and Jisung is probably at 10 percent. Not a very promising number. But if they sit here like this, even that chance numbers up to zero. 

Hyunjin’s wide eyes turn at him. And he thinks, the way he’s so ready to give absolutely anything to those eyes should be unhealthy. But it isn’t, and Seungmin feels nothing but love when he looks at him. “They’re going to kill them anyway. You said it yourself. What’s the chance we actually do it?”

“We’re overpowered.” Seungmin tries to explain even though he’s fighting a losing game right now. “They have more resources. Infinite revolver supply. Ammunition. Fucking time bombs. We’ll probably die.” 

“Probably.” Hyunjin shrugs, and shit, recklessness should not be as hot on anyone as it is on Hyunjin. “With skills like yours though? I doubt that.” he says it through a pretty flutter of his eyelashes and a curl of the right corner of his lips, and Seungmin would deduce that he was flirting if they weren’t talking about walking to their death right now. 

“Flattery done nicely.” Seungmin appraises. “You’re setting me up for failure.”

Hyunjin hums, seemingly considering the comment. Then he smiles, wide and beautiful, hint of white between coral pink lips. And if Seungmin feels all plausible deniability slowly slipping away, he ignores it. If Seungmin goes a little weak in the knees at how intense Hyunjin’s gaze is, he ignores it because he doesn’t know what he’ll do if he pays attention to that. “And if I am? I haven’t done anything like this in some time. You’ll let me, Seungminnie, won’t you?” 

Seungmin swallows as his eyes flit all over his face—falling down to his lips for one hopeful moment—and then fix on him again. Something more intense under the obvious flirting, and Seungmin slowly feels himself get pulled into him. “If you fail, I'll be right there with you. Police school was bullshit but at least I got to write die trying on my graduation cap.” 

Seungmin vaguely wonders how many more sides to Hyunjin he’ll be able to discover before he burns up into flames, and he thinks it’ll be worth it if he does.

Gravel and dried leaves crunch under his feet as he walks, crouched down and ears perked up in alert. His hand stays permanently fixed on the revolver stuck into his back pocket—large enough to easily accommodate another one. There are two extras stuffed into the neck of his shoes under the shielded cargo pants, and a knife slipped under his belt. He can feel the hard wood of the handle digging into his skin everytime he moves. 

He straightens up and looks around, taking off the face covering he was wearing. It’s way too hot to be comfortable wearing it and it’s too big of a fashion statement either. He tucks it into his pocket and breathes out, pulling up the blueprint Hyunjin had sent him on his phone. 

He’s in a secluded corner of the warehouse they were supposed to be in. He'd got in by slicing through the backdoor with one of the instruments Jiwoo had lent him. He’s now in a shaded courtyard, abandoned rooms with concrete squares for windows all around him. A worthy hiding place, he’ll admit. It doesn’t mention in the blueprint that they were abandoned quarters, but Hyunjin has been here enough times to lend him that useful information. 

The shriek he lets out is muffled as a hand reaches out to cover his mouth firmly. He immediately pushes himself off his feet and puts all his weight back onto his perpetrator so that they both go down on the ground and he can take advantage of the moment of confusion to elbow him in the face, and plans his next line of action as possibly shooting a bullet into his hand to refrain movement. 

“Nice to see you remember your moves.” Minho groans as Seungmin rolls off him, hands clenched around his gun. He lets them relax and almost punches him in the face for sneaking up on him out of nowhere. “What the fuck are you doing here?” 

“ Me ?” Seungmin asks indignantly. “What the fuck are you doing here? What happened to staying on the low?”

Minho stares. “Nah, don’t tell me you actually bought that shit.” of fucking course. How did Hyunjin know? He glances down at the gun in his hands, and looks up at him. “Are you here alone?”

“Are you crazy?” Seungmin says, dusting his pants off and standing up. “Matthew’s team is here. And Hyunjin. Brian’s looking it over from the quarters and Felix is up in the air in his little helicopter in case it gets really bad.” Minho nods, and he hopes he sees the impressed look on his face correctly. “Don’t worry, Jiwoo’s here. She’s going to get in there and blast them to pieces in seconds. You know what she’s like.” 

“I’m not worrying.” Minho says, and then gives a little start. “Where’s Hyunjin?” 

“Oh! He—” Seungmin goes red; he can’t believe he forgot his position. “He’s opening the attack. He’s known by almost all the others in the gang, the plan is to coax into it slowly. He was the one who came up with the plan actually. He’s a great leader. Matthew said that nobody could play the role of charming them into it better than him.” 

“He’s right.” Minho says. He’s refiling his gun, and they’ve crept along to a broken wall along the edge of the fence. Seungmin’s sitting beside him, leaning back against it and watching him put his weapons in their respective strategic places. “He’s charming, that one. He’s already got you wrapped around his finger.” 

“He does not have me wrapped around his finger.” Seungmin protests, even though it’s kind of true. He just doesn’t like the way it sounds, like Hyunjin’s using him. “We’re friends. I’m not wrapped around his finger. That’s really mean.” 

Minho pats him on his back, seemingly sensing that the phrasing made him upset. “Sorry, Minnie. I didn’t mean it like that. I don’t know how much this helps, but he really likes you, you know.” Seungmin jerks his head up at him. “You should see the way he looks at you. I drop him off at his building sometimes. He doesn’t shut up about you, like, it’s always Seungminnie this and Seungminnie that .” 

“Why do I have a hard time believing you?” Seungmin mutters. 

“I know you like him. If we get out of this alive, you should try telling him what you feel. He’s pretty obvious with the heart eyes.” Seungmin looks away, face burning, he can’t believe he’s receiving love advice at the brink of a potential life or death situation from the guy who’d told his friend turned boyfriend that he didn’t want to talk to him because he was too cute. “And I swear, if I hear one more ‘Seungminnie!’ I'm going to cut your boyfriend’s head off.” Minho shakes his head. 

“He’s not my—” 

“Duck!” Minho yells at him, and he’s about to look around to see what duck would be here when a resounding bang almost blasts him out of his senses. A bullet hits the wall behind them and explodes, powdery white smithereens on his black clothes. Sigh. Minho’s arms drag him through the overgrown grass and pull him behind the safety of the wall. 

Minho’s fierce eyes turn back to him. “Make that joke and I'll shoot you myself.” Seungmin raises his hands in mock surrender, knowing that he will probably go as far as decking him if he refuses to listen. Minho’s arm sprawled across his chest pushes his back flat against the wall. Minho peeks around the corner, trying to see the attacker. 

“Get your other gun out.” Minho quietly tells Seungmin. He does so, cocking it. He’s trying to listen for any crunch of leaves, the ones that had made cracker sounds when he had walked here. There’s none, but there’s no doubt that there’s definitely someone there. “Seungmin. I want you to shoot the guy in the leg from—” he points to the opposite side, at a hollow behind a particularly prickly bush. “—there.”

Seungmin recognizes a challenge when he sees one. He nods. Minho loosens the arm on his chest and they exchange their positions in a quick swift motion. “He’ll shoot if he sees me.” Seungmin whispers. “I’m just gonna—” he props his hand and folds his wrist to a ninety degree. He lets the gun go off, the bullet ricocheting off the fence right behind the wall behind which he assumes their attacker to be hiding. 

He takes the split second between the settling of the echo to roll forward to the opposite side, behind the bush. He nods at Minho, and ducks when another loud bang goes off. The bullet skits off the edge of his thorny shield, a couple branches cracking and falling on his boot. 

From here he can see the figure moving in the distance. He holds out his gun, squinting in the harsh sunlight, as he tries to pinpoint a spot. The person seems to be rummaging through something. Seungmin knows he waits too long when the object in his hands flies out and lands between the trees, a few feet away from them. He realises what it was and pulls the trigger onto the person immediately, revelling in the groan of pain it draws out from him. 

The bomb sitting between them doesn’t go off. Instead it sits nice and pretty, till Seungmin steps out of his place in confusion. Minho beats him to it, going up to it. “—don’t!” Seungmin yells out as Minho raises his leg. He kicks it. It goes over to where its owner is now writhing on the ground, trying to aim his gun at Seungmin. Minho snorts.

 “Decoy.” he says to Seungmin, and kicks the arm of the man in which he’s holding his gun to dislodge it. He moves to him and punches him square in the face. He repeats it again, and then holds him up by his collar. “How many of you are here?” 

Seungmin stands behind him, keeping watch, as Minho draws answers out of the man. When he finally finishes grilling him, he moves to Seungmin with a grimace on his face that tells him his answers were not what he wanted to hear. Minho tells him that if what he’s saying is true then apparently the entire group is there, and they are not happy. Apparently one of the hostages tried to pick a fight with one of them. 

“How much do you wanna bet that it’s Jisung?” Seungmin asks as they move over the corner and round around it. He jabs a thumb back towards the man. “Shouldn’t we have kept him restrained or something?”

Minho shakes his head decidedly, steadily walking forward so fast Seungmin has trouble keeping up with him. “Nah. they already know we’re here.” Minho says calmly. They turn another corner. There’s a soft crumbling of rocks somewhere, but before he can raise his gun, Minho's already pulling the trigger. 

The upper wall of a window collapses, coughing resounding through the loud crash. “Let’s go.” Minho says when Seungmin stalls and looks back at the man emerging from the bone crushing ceiling fall. “Seungmin, take care of him for me.” Seungmin nods and follows what he did, making the wall crumble even more. He walks upto the quarter when he’s sure the man won’t be able to attack anymore, and kicks his gun out of his hands. 

The door to the warehouse is opened up, like Mathew’s team had planned. Seungmin quietly shuts the door behind him and advances forward, gun held up. Minho looks relaxed, sweeping his hair back with the same kind of practised ease he acquires when he’s trying to make his morning coffee. His gun hangs limp at his sides and Seungmin has half a mind to tell him to be more alert—but then again Minho has been through rougher missions than this. 

There’s a loud shout in the distance. Minho tenses immediately, and he doesn’t realize why until he’s whispering a ‘Jisung’ under his breath. Seungmin won’t be surprised if Jisung argued away with the people holding them all this while; he knows he has enough guts to. Minho advances forward, turning along doors and corridors while Seungmin follows behind, ears perked up. 

The noises get louder as they advance. They meet two more guys along the way and Minho throws his gun at one and Seungmin takes them out with a few punches while he gives time to Minho to move forward. Once he’s done, he stands up and brushes the dust off his clothes, coughing at all the displaced dust in the alleyway. 

He can’t see Minho anymore—and while he’s confident enough in his own skills to pass through the house, he can’t help but be worried. Minho did say that they would be fine even if they split up, what with Felix tracking each and every person and Minho having the blueprint memorized—but the place is a fucking maze, with twisty corridors and doors leading nowhere. 

Seungmin feels almost worried as he takes a turn and all the sounds mute out, like he’s underwater. All he can hear is the pounding of his heartbeat in his ears as he turns corner after corner, the sound of his footsteps echoing loudly in the empty space. 

Another pair of footsteps greet his own. He freezes in place, hesitantly pulling his gun up. The other sound stops as well, and then resumes again. Seungmin backs himself against a wall and strains his ears to try to hear the direction they were walking in from. He vaguely deduces it to be from the right aisle, and stays against the wall, guns pointed at both crossways. 

The footsteps speed up, and he barely has a second’s notice before a man comes hurtling round the corner. He ducks down—precaution in case he decides to fire—and aims straight for the man’s leg, shooting him and then tackling him to the ground. The man swings a fist at him and he aims one back, knees holding him firm in place while he plays defense for a short while, knowing he'll run out soon. 

He jams his gun into both his sides simultaneously and digs an elbow over his ribs. For good measure, he punches him in the face a few times till the man slumps back against the powder wood floor, weak and unconscious. He dusts his hands off again as he stands up, taking a good look at the man’s face, and then turns the corner. 

He wonders if he really should pull up the blueprint of the place on his phone or ask for directions, but they’d agreed to do that only if it came to desperate measures. Besides, they’d agreed to take out the members keeping watch all over the house—except for Jiwoo and Minho, who’d advance to the centre, decided after an impromptu call after he discovered Minho there. 

Deliberate footsteps greet his ears. He doubles back around to meet up with whoever was walking around, his own footsteps colliding with the other’s. The other’s sound loud, confident, and for a moment Seungmin wonders if he’s in trouble. While he can fight out a trained professional to some degree, he’ll only be able to detain someone three times heavier and well versed in fighting than him for a few moments. 

He passes a corner and catches a flash of long black hair. He makes a turn into the aisle immediately, having seen the visual too many times to mistake it. He doesn’t want to call out, and give his position away to any other hidden gang members, so instead he slips out his phone and switches to Hyunjin’s chat log. 

In a few moments, Hyunjin turns back to him. Then he’s hurrying over to him with a small wave, and he’s sidling in closer to him. “Oh, thank god. This place is a fucking maze, I was with J but some of them found us and we had to split up.” 

Seungmin nods, lowering his voice, and informing him that Minho's here. He also tells them that he and Minho had to split up as well. Hyunjin says that he knows in a whisper. “Felix told me! See, I was right about hyung.”

“Yeah.” Seungmin says distractedly, pulling up the blueprint on his phone. They’ve been walking aimlessly for quite a while now, Hyunjin’s muttering loud through the empty walls. The whole place looks so unmaintained that he wonders just why they picked this place. The whole place is eerily quiet, except for the occasional footsteps or noises, and it's really giving him the creeps. He’s glad Hyunjin’s here. 

His phone vibrates in his hand. He glances at the banner message from Matthew that reads: stay out. Bomb. and reads it out loud to Hyunjin, who immediately grasps onto the implied meaning with surprisingly quick understanding. 

“I thought it would happen,” he admits. “They didn’t choose a crumbling building like this for nothing. We’d better stay at the periphery in case something goes off before we expect.”

Hyunjin looks worried. “What about the others?” 

Seungmin slides down the rugged wall, chippered fading concrete crumbling along the motion. He doesn’t reply, loading up his guns and discarding off the used cartridges. Hyunjin slides down beside him for a while, both of them silent. Hyunjin watches him shift the position of his weapons, and as he slides a covered knife into the sleeves of his shirt. 

“I don’t know if this is the best time but—” Hyunjin hesitantly begins. “About that day. Sorry I ran, I guess. You didn’t even think of avoiding them and you didn’t care about identity being revealed and—” he pauses and sniffles. Seungmin sighs. 

“Hyunjin.” 

“And I should've told you. I can’t imagine how betrayed you felt. Especially since you were working on this case, and you told me that you—you found me on camera. That doesn’t sound so nice, to think that you might have to arrest the guy you’re eating cakes with.” 

“Hyunjin, I—” 

“Why did you do that, by the way?” Hyunjin now looks up at him. The area is dimly lit from the evening glow through the windows, and he sees him as though for the first time. “I’ve always wanted to ask. Why did you keep hanging around with me? Like you didn’t even know my name for the first few weeks, and yet—”

“Why did you ?'' Seungmin asks, and maybe it’s bone conduction that seemingly makes his voice tremble. To hear the answer he so desperately wants, to hear it outright and honest from Hyunjin and have confirmation that he wasn’t imagining the soft glow in Hyunjin’s eyes whenever he looks at him. 

Hyunjin shrugs, but there’s a small glint in his eyes. That same curious glint he’d spent months obsessing over, the one that haunts his dreams and days. Hwang Hyunjin is dangerous for even someone like Seungmin—who’s spent his life fighting dangers. A different kind, a softer kind. If Hyunjin wants, he could tear Seungmin down and leave him a crumbling mess on the floor, if he wants. He could walk away and leave Seungmin choking over petals of his own feelings—and what’s scarier is that Seungmin will never feel a modicum of resentment for him. 

“You know why.” Hyunjin says, averting eyes, but then glancing back at him again. Seungmin wants the answer to be the same as his own, but he’s so scared of ruining everything with that one word. He knows he shouldn’t be using that word to describe his feelings for Hyunjin so soon, shouldn’t be using any word starting with the letter L, but god, he can’t help it. He always falls hard and fast and Hyunjin is perfect. Hyunjin makes him feel warm, makes him feel like he means something other than insignificance. Hyunjin, whose smiles make him feel so alive and make him get high on life. 

Seungmin doesn’t reply, and Hyunjin keeps looking at him. Expectant, eyes wide. Then he reaches out and Seungmin starts out of his thoughts as his fingers brush over the skin of his cheek. Hyunjin leans forward, anchoring the movement to Seungmin and places a chaste kiss to the puff of his cheeks. Seungmin lets out a surprised gasp, and his hands automatically fly up and land on top of the hand still holding his cheek. 

“Don’t you?” Hyunjin murmurs in the small gap between them. Seungmin is simultaneously shying away from his touch and leaning into him all at once, and he’s trying to plan an acceptable ratio between holding eye contact with him and looking away, and he’s focusing all remaining strength into his brain to not look down; don’t look down, don’t look down, don’t —

“You’re thinking too much.” Hyunjin says, chiding him gently. And really he’d have apologized and given him the answer he wants had Hyunjin not leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek again. All thought fizzles out of his head as the second wave of tingles sweep through his body, rooting out from the spot Hyunjin had kissed in stretching branches of blue band electricity. His heart distinctly stops for a small second there. “Do you have your answer yet?” 

“Hyunjin.” Seungmin whispers, a prayer and plea mixed into one. “Hyunjin.” 

“We can talk about it later if you want.” Hyunjin smiles, and he knows that it’s all fine, that his inability to speak won’t affect their understanding of this—whatever this is. “Okay? When we get out of here. Let’s go to that countryside shop you mentioned. I never got the time.” 

“Okay.” Seungmin says. He snakes his hand through the dust and tugs at Hyunjin’s hand, suddenly desperate to let him know that he has the right idea. He pulls his hand up while Hyunjin stares and kisses the back of his hand. “We can do that.” 

“We can.” Hyunjin echoes back, face distinctly flushed. Seungmin grins at him as he pulls back, the effect he was going for dulled by the twin blush he sports. Hyunjin looks up, and the corner of his lips quirk up slowly, a beautiful smile on his face. Seungmin feels giddy, thinking he was the one who made him smile like that and he swears if he dies right here it’d be so fucking worth it. 

“Seungmin, I—” Hyunjin doesn’t get to finish whatever he was going to say as the wall to the right of them blasts open. Seungmin lunges forward and covers Hyunjin by instinct, a shower of crumbling plaster drowning them together. Hyunjin’s arms wrap around him through it, and Seungmin presses his head into the safety of his embrace. Loud footsteps echo around them, and Seungmin lets go of him when the shower slows down to a trickle. 

He swings back, pulling both his gun and knife together and bracing himself for a possible hit. He quickly scans the position of the man in front of him, and uses the handle of his knife to dig into his side. He fires his gun into his thigh at the same time and takes advantage of the moment of confusion to slap the guns off his hands. They fall to the floor with a loud clattering noise and slide through the dust to settle at Hyunjin’s feet. Seungmin sees him pick them up from his periphery, and he turns back.

Seungmin walks forward and Hyunjin’s eyes fix on him, the fire back in his eyes. He hears shuffling behind him and the cocking of his gun, but from the look on Hyunjin’s face he knows he doesn’t need to move a hair. Hyunjin calmly raises his gun and fires away, Seungmin subconsciously flinching even though he knows it poses no danger to him. 

Hyunjin tugs at his wrist, a seemingly cute action even though they’re both holding guns, and smiles at him. His eyes have swiftly gone from all that soft emotion to becoming a dark abyss and—Seungmin wants. “Personally, I think we should head to the main area and get everyone out before whatever bomb they planted goes off.” 

Seungmin doesn’t think that's up for any discussion right now. He’s grateful Hyunjin voices out his thoughts before he can, because there’s no way he’s staying at the periphery waiting for a fight with the likes of this throughout the whole time while Minho is out there getting all the good action. Hyunjin seems to convey the same sentiment, pulling him along as their steps quicken over the ashen floor.

He’s pulled up the blueprint he has, not even bothered about the glow anymore. He tells Hyunjin to call Felix up to get them on line and keep them updated in case they’re thinking of walking right into the mouth of danger. He does so, Felix answering almost immediately. He brings them up to code as they’re fast walking towards the main. The noises keep getting louder and Seungmin is positive he heard Jiwoo’s yells a few times. 

Felix tells them that the chance that they’re in trouble is highly likely and that he hasn’t received any new information since when Matthew informed them of the bomb. Felix had immediately taken it upon himself to take the necessary precautions and organized everything to get them out as fast as possible, but he really can’t move till he gets some sort of a green light. 

“Left turn.” Seungmin calls out. “Okay, we should be—” as if on cue, a loud shout and a bang echoes off through the walls. Hyunjin turns to look at him, and nods. They slow down to the pace of a stroll, consciously keeping the sound of the feet in check. They turn a few more corners and breach through a room till flooding torchlight spills out from one of the rooms, also the one where a brawl was seemingly going on. 

Hyunjin turns back to him when he reaches the rectangular hollow in the wall that could be dubbed as a door. He looks as confused as he feels, because the yells are majorly from their own side, continuous repetition of ‘where the fuck are they?’ by a voice that sounds an awful lot like Minho. “Stay out here.” Seungmin tells Hyunjin quietly, and slips in. 

Seungmin enters the room and throws a punch because the man holding Minho up was near enough and he just couldn’t resist it. He gets docked in the jaw almost immediately but it’s still worth it to hear the grunt of pain from the man. He takes a surreptitious glance around the room and finds that it’s just Jiwoo and Minho, and deduces that Matthew, J and Somin might be hung up elsewhere. Jiwoo’s locked in a death glare contest with one the burliest men in the room, the total being—Seungmin counts in his head—shit, eight. 

“Another one?” the man bites out. Minho looks a pretty bad shape and he feels a little worried even though he knows this is nothing close to what he can take. Jiwoo isn’t faring that well, blood seeped into the shirt she wears in big dark splotches. Seungmin makes a mental count of the number of revolvers he has and deems it enough. If Hyunjin stands outside and wards off perpetrators by himself long enough to alert a call to the others, they’ll be an easy fix. 

There’s a shove to his back and he goes along with it, not too keen on starting a meaningless fight. Minho’s completely cornered, crouched down, even though everyone in this room would probably be dead and on their way to hell by now if looks could kill. 

He gets backed up into a wall by the big guy who had greeted him. Rough fingers grip his face and make him look up, and Seungmin forces his face to remain stoic. “How many of you are here? Those guys you’re looking for aren’t here. It’s not so easy being gullible, is it?” 

Seungmin, in fact, knows they’re there. Somin had tracked them down using one of the accessories Chan used when they happened to be in the same team. Chan’s location had been known all the time. Jisung had to forgo tracking because of the nature of his job, but now that they’re together it hadn’t been that hard for Somin to access the tracker Chan had with him again. 

He doesn’t reply, instead stares back at his nasty little eyes. He lets go of him and rounds up Jiwoo again. Seungmin slips his left hand behind his back and angles the knife for better ease of access even though he won’t be using it till they’re locked in desperate close combat. He still has his guns to go by, and Hyunjin has his backup ready with him. 

He’s about to speak when the guy falls forward with a loud grunt, and then swings back at the person who’d dared to hit him in the first place. Minho would never go down without a fight, and he conveys that sentiment when he grits his teeth and pulls the man away from Seungmin. 

He sees Jiwoo make the first move from the corner of his eyes—she lunges forward and in one swift motion sends the man who had been trying to pin her down to the floor. Minho’s face is bloodied and it’s apparent they had been locked in battle before Seungmin made his way here in the weakened hits he throws. 

His head hits the wall behind him as he gets forced back along with Minho and Jiwoo. The man holding him pushes him into the wall and he punches him back just because he’s so annoyed at the unasked pain at the back of his head. A stifled silence hangs through the air; Seungmin stares back at the men and bites his rising anger down. 

Minho coughs once, and then tumbles to the floor. Seungmin hurries to his side with a rushed ‘hyung!’ and feels the barrel of a gun getting pressed to his neck. He ignores it in favour of gently shaking his shoulder, folding an arm under his chest to support him up. “Are you okay?”

“Fine.” Minho says through gritted teeth. He takes Seungmin’s help and uses his arm as leverage to stand back up. Then, lowering his voice, he ushers Seungmin in, “I wish they’d hurry.” 

“Who—?” before he can get the question out, there’s a loud bang of a gun going off. By instinct, Seungmin launches forward to shield Minho, and then he realizes that it’s Jiwoo causing the commotion. He fights back the urge to roll his eyes—like, he knew the girl was impulsive but he didn’t expect her to still be as reckless as ever. He doesn’t doubt that she’s perfectly capable of handling them all by herself, but having to drag two people out of the house would be a real bummer. Not to mention the unwanted tetanus they’ll surely acquire if that dust seeps into their body. 

He trips the man who had just made to bash in her head. Jiwoo shoots him a quick thumbs up and punches a man in the head, using her elbow to crush him against the wall. Seungmin idly wonders when they’ll realize that they can just kill them because they pose no apparent importance. Even though they don’t seem so intent on outright on killing them off—or maybe they’re just stupid. He bashes a guy’s head into a wall and everything around him erupts in chaos. He’s a little worried about Minho, but he knows he can fight back. 

Around him, someone’s voice sounds over the ensued chaos—before he gets the chance to try and make out the words, there’s a harsh hand digging into his back and pushing him. He almost pushes it off and takes on a fight with them, but then Jiwoo’s panicked face comes into view. She’s pushing him into the direction of the door, and she hisses under her breath, “Go! Get out of here!” 

“What—” Seungmin pushes her hand off just as a bang echoes around the room, so loud that he almost falls over. Who the fuck is firing guns here, he think, and Jiwoo takes that moment of confusion to pull him to a corner, hand still pushing at him. “They got a kill order. Jisung’s taking too long. You need to get out of here, they probably won’t kill the both of us together. They’ll hold someone hostage, so get out of here and take the others with you.” 

“Felix—can’t he get you two out?” Seungmin desperately asks. Probably isn’t enough, he needs to know that they won’t die. Jiwoo hears the words but doesn’t seem to process it because she’s still talking fast under her breath and clearing the way for him. Seungmin flinches as she growls in annoyance and shoves a man out of the way. “Wait, did you say Jisung?” 

The earth around them shakes. Seungmin sways in place, looking around in panic as Jiwoo looks up at the ceiling, now crumbling and showering concrete all around them. Jiwoo says something into her earpiece, and then she’s pulling Seungmin away from the room. She pushes him hard, and he falls over, sliding just out of the room. Jiwoo runs back into the room, and then the whole room erupts in thick white smoke. 

Seungmin coughs and coughs and coughs as the smoke fills his eyes and lungs. He tries to wave it away, and then figures he should take this moment to alert Hyunjin of the development, and tell him to have Felix on the ready because they’ll probably need to be pulled out. He joins his phone to his earpiece and waits for someone to connect. 

The smog screen clears and he sees Jiwoo off in the side, hunched over Minho on the floor. And then he sees the black clad figure at the centre of the room, flashing him a brilliant smile and a salute. Jisung calmly shoots two guys, fights his way across the room and greets them. “Konnichiwa, motherfuckers.” 

“Konnichiwa yourself, asshole!” Minho yells from across the room, holding onto Jiwoo as he stands up. He’d thought he was out of strength, but he magically decks three men as he swiftly goes across the room. Seungmin flinches as he yells at someone to get out of his way and punches their nose.

 “Dumbass! Idiot! What the fuck took so long? Do you—” he keeps spewing out one insult after the other as Seungmin watches them from the doorway, but Minho’s smiling weakly and Jisung’s grinning back at him so he assumes they just missed each other. 

“Yeah, yeah.” Jisung pats his hand. “Put that down, sweetheart.” he cocks his head at the guy who’d picked his gun up and was now pointing it at them. “It won’t do you much good, you’d better put that down if you—” Jiwoo jams her elbow to the side of the man’s head. “—oops. Thanks.” 

“Seungminnie!” Jisung greets cheerily, one arm snaking around Minho’s waist to hold him up. He leads them forward, and Seungmin blinks as he realizes Jiwoo had crept up behind everyone of them and had taken it upon herself to shoot them down. Some of them are probably dead. “Long time no see. How’ve you been, bestie?” 

Seungmin barely mumbles a good, and he’s about to tell him that they need to get out before Jiwoo does it for him. She yells out, “That’s it, lovebirds! There’s a fucking bomb here, in case you haven’t noticed, so I need you to shut up and follow me.” Jisung throws a salutation at her. “Yes, ma’am, of course.” 

Jiwoo rolls her eyes but ruffles his hair as they stumble forward. Minho looks halfway between pulling away and saying he can do it himself and falling asleep right there. Seungmin’s so going to get back at him with this later on, but now they just decide to file out of the glass windows because it leads to a backyard where felix can pick them up. 

“The others aren’t out yet.'' Seungmin informs them as Felix speaks into his earpiece. He freezes. “Felix, is Hyunjin with you?” 

Felix answers in negative and Seungmin feels a sinking feeling in his gut. He mumbles the coordinates to Felix and tells him their exact position, all the while feeling increasingly worried for Hyunjin. The last thing he wants is him getting lost in the maze of corridors—logically, he knows that Hyunjin will be fine and is smart enough to get out of the house in time. He has the blueprint as well, but Seungmin can’t help but worry at his lack of knowledge of the recent development of the yes to kill. The second worrying thing is the alleged bomb somewhere in the house, ticking away. 

“Seungmin, I'm sure he met up with the others.” Felix says, but his voice sounds a bit unsure. He tells him that Hyunjin was the one keeping him switched on all the while. He then adds in a contradictory worried voice that he hasn’t heard from him ever since he switched off when he got into a fight. 

Seungmin pulls his phone out and calls him, while also trying to connect to his earpiece. Minho notices him lingering back, and glances at his phone. He doesn’t say anything, only looks up at him with a warning look in his eyes, one that Seungmin usually sees before he makes an incredibly hot headed decision that usually completely contradicts his entire existence. “I’ll be back.” 

He hears Jisung calling his name behind him, and he ignores it in favour of dialling Hyunjin over and over again. The earpiece remains stubbornly disconnected, and worry seeps deep into his chest as he makes it further back into the house. He breaks into a run which morphs into a sprint as more time goes by. Panic starts gripping him when there’s absolutely no sign of him, absolutely no noise that’d give him any indication of someone being there except his own loud footsteps. 

“Hyung.” he pants into the empty air. “Can you ask the others about him?” Minho affirms into his ear and he switches off for a moment. He yells a loud call of his name, “Hyunjin? Are you there? Can you hear me—Hyunjin, are you—please, can you hear me?” 

No answer. He ignores how deep in the house he is by now, ignores the burning in his lungs from lack of oxygen and the way he keeps slipping on the dusty floor. He still hasn’t heard back from Minho, and he’s panicking because why is he taking so long? The others have to be safe, right? 

Or was it all a trap, getting the main members to the main area and weakening them so that everyone could be held down together? The fact that the people sent here by the gang aren’t as important is apparent, and Seungmin wonders, was this a mistake? Even though they’ve succeeded in getting Jisung—and Chan too, he assumes—back, he can’t help but wonder, were they too reckless? But Minho would’ve died if they hadn’t—and Minho has been twice as hasty as them, more reckless than the idea Hyunjin gave him—

“The others are out.” Minho's voice sounds in his ear. “Except J and Hyunjin. They were together, weren’t they? I’m sure—oh!” Minho pauses and another voice joins the line. “J, location.” 

J rattles off their location while Seungmin frantically asks if they’re okay. He tells him that they’re a bit injured, but that’s all, and that they had a run in with one of the more important members. “I don’t think he’s anywhere near being leader, but he’s definitely important and was in charge of this stunt today. It was Hyunjin’s idea, actually. We had to let our guy go because—oh! Hyunjin managed to put a tracker on him. Catching him now won’t be too difficult.” 

Seungmin breathes out a loud sigh of relief and runs off to the place Minho tells him. He guides him—left, left, right, straight on—and he hears a loud shout as he nears the place he was heading towards. He reaches a junction and finds J against a wall, Hyunjin on the floor, arms folded over his stomach. 

“Fucking hell, are you okay?” Seungmin asks first thing when he reaches them, quickly squatting down to touch his arm gently. Hyunjin nods, his face pale. He winces as he pushes a leg out and tries to stand up. Suengmin hooks his arm around his waist and hoists him up, ignoring the need to be gentle because they need to get out of there. 

Seungmin quickly informs him that he’s going to carry him, and doesn’t wait for his reply before he pulls Hyunjin up on his back with J’s help, who’s muttering directions into his earpiece. Seungmin staggers slightly under his weight, and he’s generally taller than him. Not to mention his body’s completely limp against his own, limbs drained of any strength, and he’d have been terribly worried about him had there not been a more pressing matter in their hands at the moment. 

J is limping slightly, and he belatedly notices the blood on the front of his clothes. He thinks back, and oh, Hyunjin has blood on him as well. Did they get shot anywhere? If Hyunjin was the one who got shot—and his current state makes a bit more sense now—he thinks back to his pale face, and oh shit, they’ll have to patch him up fast. 

“Window!” J points, running up the left corridor and stopping in front of the jagged glass window. He uses his gun to break it down further and clear away the splinters. He quickly climbs through it, and waves upwards to what he presumes is the others. Seungmin slowly shifts a completely weak Hyunjin down, his eyes closed and breathing shallow. 

“Hyunjin, hey.” Seungmin shakes him by the shoulders. “Hey. A little more. Open your eyes for me, please.” Hyunjin’s eyes flutter open, blinking slowly. It looks like it hurts to even do that, and Seungmin feels bad for asking him to stay awake for him. But carrying him asleep over a broken glass window would be one of the worst decisions he would make, and that’s saying a lot. 

So he gently ushers Hyunjin through the window, trying to be mindful of the broken pieces of glass. He notices the deep splotch of blood against his stomach, a large spot of darkened black over his clothes. However careful he tries to be, the glass still scratches against his skin. Hyunjin wakes up again halfway through, and helps out by crawling through the frame and into J’s arms. 

Seungmin follows after him, glass cutting through his skin. In his hurry he puts his hand on the frame for leverage. He realises that he’s cut his palm only when he feels the blood trickling down his arm. He stares at the rope that hovers down from the loud whirring helicopter, the backyard around them cleared out with the gusts of loud wind it blows out. Shit, how do they get Hyunjin up that?

“Go ahead,” Seungmin yells at J over the sound of the helicopter, who’s glancing back at him as if sensing his dilemma. “I’ll do it, don’t worry.” 

J doesn’t argue with him because he knows he sounds like he’s made his mind up. He sweeps Hyunjin up off the ground and hoists him up against himself, holding him bridal style. J presses his foot to the ledge of the rope and pulls himself up in expert movements. When he’s halfway up and through, Seungmin twists the rope around his left arm, while he holds Hyunjin up with his knee and his other hand. 

His hand strains against the rope, the rough fibre cutting into his palm and stinging blindingly against this already deepened cut. He pulls himself and Hyunjin up inch by inch, movement greatly restricted. He suddenly realizes that he won’t be able to make it to the top in time. He’s not that high off the ground, and he’s already shaking all over.

Such a testament to his stamina. Maybe he’ll join Minho at the gym from now on. 

“Tell them to go up!” he yells as loud as he can. J glances down at him and he repeats it back to the higher ups in the sky. Minho then repeats the order back, and Jisung’s yelling something along the lines of ‘higher, higher, higher baby!’ and it’s all such a thrill in itself that Seungmin laughs out loud to himself, hugging Hyunjin closer. 

He wonders if he’ll freak if he wakes up and finds himself floating in the middle of the sky. But he looks like he’s passed out completely—though his grip is vice-like on his forearm—and he thinks, ah yes, the wonders of the subconscious. Now all Seungmin needs to do is hold him close and not focus on the blood staining the ropes or the sting in his hand that is making his eyes water, along with the cool wind that is leaving goosebumps along his skin. 

Felix skillfully manoeuvres the aircraft away from the building. Seungmin lets out a sigh as he begins to relax into the exceedingly uncomfortable position. He almost drops Hyunjin when there’s a loud noise, and a certain building in the distance blows up. Seungmin laughs as he spots the smoke and flames firing off from the place they’ve just gotten out from. 

Above him, he can hear loud arguing of ‘that was so lame. Who even uses smoke screens anymore—Han Jisung, I will literally push you off.’ and J laughs and makes another married couple bickering comment at Jisung and Minho to which he receives two very different reactions—Jisung’s aw, right, hyung just loves me so much and Minho’s your position isn’t very ideal right now. 

Seungmin tightens his grip on Hyunjin and watches his dozing face with a smile. 

The first thing Hyunjin does on waking up is stare up at Seungmin’s face and burst into tears. Seungmin feels a little confused as he watches the tears slip down his cheeks, but he lets him have the benefit of the doubt and just sits beside him on the bed, silently watching. 

Hyunjin’s hand reaches up and he touches his face, feeling the skin of his cheeks, and then he slowly pulls himself up to sit on the bed. Seungmin places a hand flat on his back and helps him up, offering him a warm smile to let him know that he didn’t die and was well and alive. 

It does the opposite, when Hyunjin takes one look at his face and starts sniffing loudly, a small hiccough making its way through. Seungmin feels a little confused, but he understands. He realizes how overwhelming it must’ve been to deal with a gunshot wound for so long and not knowing whether you’re going to die or not. He understands, so he takes his hand in his and caresses the pad of his thumb over his knuckles soothingly. 

“You’re—” Hyunjin sniffs out, trying to get rid of the tears flowing down his cheeks and ultimately failing. “You’re okay?” 

Now Seungmin feels utterly confused. He frowns slightly, motions of his hand unchanging, and waits for Hyunjin to stop crying so that can actually listen to him. “I’m okay, Jinnie. How do you feel?” he pauses, the sudden need to let him know that Hyunjin did a great job flaring up within him from origins unknown. “You did so well. I’m so proud of you.” 

He wonders if he sounds too condescending, but Hyunjin’s eyes light up into a whole galaxy and if he had ears they’d have been perked up right now. He visibly brightens and a miniature Seungmin in his head rolls around the floor, screaming because oh god, he’s so cute. Hyunjin fllushes, a shy smile on his face. “Thank you.” he mumbles. Then, peering up at Seungmin, “I got shot!” 

Seungmin laughs out loud at how someone could be so eager at getting shot. It’s probably a testament of his training, even more than any badges or medals.

Seungmin certainly remembers his first time—the dizzying rush of adrenaline and the aftershocks, trying hard to keep his eyes open but it felt like someone was dragging him  back from moving. Minho carrying him all the way to the hospital and yelling for a doctor standing in the lounge—that was at a time his and Minho’s relationship had been precariously perched on a rock. Minho took a course on how to treat basic wounds and tend to people who get shot after that happened. Needless to say, he and Minho got along a lot better after that. 

“You did.” Seungmin says softly, not able to look away from how his eyes shine. It’s a very Hyunjin thing, he realizes. To be excited about the smallest and strangest things and making the most out of the mundane. He loves how his eyes shine, how two very different variables—a promise to hang out after work and the opportunity to get shot—both draw the same reaction from him. 

He loves that he remains the kind and gentle Hyunjin he knew, the soft boy who coos at puppies at the park and wears ribbons in his hair is the same person as the one who loves danger and the rush that comes with it, who’s headstrong and determined once he’s set his mind on something. How he’s the same Hyunjin who gets scared at the smallest things and then goes and proposes reckless ideas, all the very ready to carry them out too. It feels fitting of him, of Hwang Hyunjin, and Seungmin honestly has never found anyone whose character complexity has awed him more. 

Hyunjin starts telling him about the details of what happened after he left, and he’s talking while waving his hands around and Seungmin is watching his changing facial expressions and nodding along with a sort of lovesick smile on his face. It’s not a new revelation by any means, but the force with which his heart now beats surprises him—his cardiograph forming something along the lines of ilovethisboy. 

He doesn’t realize when Hyunjin stops speaking, but it doesn’t matter because they’re closer than ever and he can count every eyelash on him by now. It doesn’t help that Hyunjin’s lips are quirked up in a small smile, as if he already knows that if he asks for it, Seungmin would readily give him everything he wants. 

“Why’re you looking at me like that?” Hyunjin asks, and it’s cruel because he already knows the answer. He wants to make Seungmin say it, and well. He can’t blame him for that. They’ve been dancing around the topic for such a long time, and Seungmin feels like it’s time to address whatever this is between them. 

“Like what?” Seungmin responds with a question of his own. He unsubtly shifts closer, and reaches up to fix Hyunjin’s collar, even though he’s practically laying in bed right now. He catches his breath hitch and he smiles, studying his eyes. They hold still in the narrowed down space between them, and Seungmin can feel his heart pounding in his ears. 

“Like—” he sees the exact moment Hyunjin inches closer, eyes fluttering. “—like you want to kiss me.” he sighs when Seungmin wordlessly cups his cheek and he nuzzles into his hand, and god. Seungmin is approximately 2.54 seconds away from combusting. “Seungmin, will you kiss me if I ask nicely?” 

“Yes.” is the only response he can find in himself to breathe out without making a fool out of himself. And Hyunjin thinks it enough, because he smiles small, and tucks a piece of hair behind his ear. Seungmin unknowingly reaches up and follows through the action. His brain to mouth filter crashes when Hyunjin’s eyes scrunch up and he’s suddenly on the receiving end of a shy smile, blurting out, “you’re so beautiful.” 

“Seungmin, kiss me.” Hyunjin whispers, eyes slipping shut and a seemingly blissful look in his drawn together brows. “Won’t you please kiss me?” 

“Yes.” Seungmin promises, before he pulls him closer with a hand on the nape of his neck, pressing their lips together. The last thing he remembers thinking is calculating the angle he needs to dive in to not accidentally bump their noses together because pure white static overcomes his entire brain. A tiny text at the corner of the screen floats around: oh god, oh god, oh god. 

Hyunjin melts into him, curving himself into him, fitting against him. His hands brush from the front of his shirt back up to the top once, twice, and then they tighten on his collar, tugging him impossibly closer. Seungmin leans into him, moving their lips together in a slow, languid kiss, his feelings laid bare and open on his lips and ready for Hyunjin to grasp onto and keep them safe. Hyunjin’s hands move to the back of his neck till he’s hugging him, and Seungmin stumbles when he pulls him towards him. 

Seungmin breaks away to breath, but doesn't get much of the needed air when Hyunjin dives back in for another kiss. Seungmin moves their mouths together slowly, feeling Hyunjin give up complete reign. So he takes it upon himself to deepen the kiss, slotting their lips together and tongues barely shy of each other. Hyunjin lets out a small gasp when Seungmin leans over and climbs up into the bed beside him, not pulling away but pulling closer till Seungmin feels completely dizzy with the butterflies flocking around in his stomach in swarms. 

Hyunjin is the first to pull away, panting heavily. He can’t meet his eyes, instead keeping his gaze fixed on his mouth. His lips are stained a pretty red, face flushed and eyes dilated. Seungmin has never felt more ecstatic than he does at this very moment, to finally be able to kiss Hyunjin like he’s always dreamed about. To feel him so close to him, to smell and feel and breathe Hyunjin till he’s completely encompassed in sticky love that runs along the cracks of his heart in honey rivulets. 

“God.” Hyunjin breathes out, his voice all sorts of desperate. “God, Seungmin, please—” 

Seungmin doesn’t need to be told twice. 

Seungmin downs a glass of whatever he’d been handed when he entered the officeroom-turned-club. Now he stands with his hip attached to the corner of a wooden desk, watching Jisung take over the dancefloor (the empty area they’d procured by pushing away the desks) and Somin’s crude attempt at pole dancing against J.

Jisung is performing a heart aching rendition of the cheery pop song going on in the speakers, and the original song seems to be Minho's thing, who keep yelling the lyrics and trying to drown Jisung’s version out. Someone is passed out on the floor and he’d have told people to stop stepping on them if he’d ever seen that person before. As it is, he takes mildly concerned glances at them, vaguely concerned for their face. 

They had thrown in a sort of party in celebration of finally catching their long time target(s). The whole office had quite literally bowed down to Hyunjin as it was he who had made the final move to get everything into place. Chan and Jisung were back as healthy as ever, and the small period Jisung was held hostage did nothing to dampen his ever cheerful mood. 

The original group—Chan, Minho, Jisung and Seungmin—had been reunited thanks to Hyunjin, and Seungmin feels so grateful. Changbin is still away but well, that can’t be helped. They spent time together working together on the rest of the parts left, and tying up the loose ends. Jisung and Chan got equally close to Hyunjin as well, and he discovers how he usually becomes much more loud with Jisung and treats Chan with a kind of brotherly respect even though he doesn’t know him well enough for that. 

His own relationship with Hyunjin is completely fine—dare he say—better than ever. They still make sure to remain formal and friendly with each other inside their workplaces, but if Seungmin sometimes zones out in work staring at him then that’s no one’s business but his own. 

He and Hyunjin are dating now. Kinda, sorta. Whatever, they don’t really talk about it, more focused on other things to talk about on their many many dates that they go on for two weeks. Seungmin thinks it’s perfect, they don’t need to discuss their relationship in detail, and they can just naturally progress along getting to know each other more intimately. Hyunjin makes him forget all his words by just existing, anyway. He doesn’t even need to kiss him to shut him up. 

“Hey,” Hyunjin's soft voice floats into his ear as he pops up behind him. He supports himself by holding onto his shoulder, fingers automatically fidgeting with his crisp shirt. He has a soft blush on his cheeks and he’s stumbling, tipsy from the drinks he’d seen him downing. Hyunjin’s eyes rake all over his chest and open tie neck and finally upto his face, eyes fluttering. “Hey, handsome.” 

His tone is flirtatious, and Seungmin brushes back his hair fondly. “Yeah?” 

“What’s a handsome man like you doing here all alone?” Hyunjin’s eyes never stay fixed to the same spot, constantly flitting in and out—the most obvious sign that he’s drunk. He gets all cute and fidgeting after one too many drinks, clinging onto Seungmin like his life depends on it. Seungmin feels a little embarrassed at the amused glance he receives from Jiwoo, and he wonders if he can safely get Hyunjin out of here. 

Hyunjin inches closer, fingers fidgeting against his collar and pulling it wider apart under the guise of fixing it for him. He loops the loosened tie into his fingers and plays with it, a giddy smile on his face like he’s having the time of his life. It’s only when Hyunjin’s touches get a little bolder, trailing up the side of his neck and trying to dip inside the wide necked collar, that Seungmin stops him with a gentle hand on his. “Waiting for my boyfriend, of course.” 

Hyunjin gasps, and he can’t tell if he’s acting or he’s genuinely that drunk. “You have a boyfriend!” 

“Yeah,” Seungmin laughs. “Yeah, I do. He’s the sweetest person on earth, you know.” he watches Hyunjin take in the shocking information with wide eyes. His fingers resume their motion over his collar, but he looks a little confused. “We’re pretty serious.” 

Hyunjin pouts. “That’s too bad. You look like my boyfriend, you know?” Seungmin widens his eyes in faux surprise and mirrors the expression Hyunjin had asssumed. 

“Is that a pick up line you’re using, Mr. Boyfriend?” Hyunjin shakes his head and cutely explains that he actually does look like his boyfriend. “Aw, is that so? Then I suppose he won’t mind if I kissed his pretty boyfriend?” 

Hyunjin flushes red on top of the already present blush. Slowly, so slow that Seungmin himself doesn’t notice it, Hyunjin pushes closer and scrunches his eyes up at him. Seungmin has long since accepted the possibility of him dying from spiked blood pressure whenever this happens, and he wonders if being an officer and dying from cardiac arrest was too detrimental to his honour. “Hello, boyfriend.” 

“Not that drunk, then.” Seungmin laughs quietly and lets himself get pulled into a soft kiss by him. Hyunjin leans down and folds into him—he loves how Hyunjin always seems to gravitate towards and automatically wants to be closer to him even if it is something as simple as sitting side by side. He loves it so much. He can’t believe Hyunjin wants him as much as he does him. 

He loves him.

The thought stays firmly rooted in his heart all the time, even though he’s never said it out loud. He might have let it slip once when Hyunjin came over to his apartment. He’d sleepily whispered it into his hair, tugging him as close as he can to himself. He panicked the next morning, and watched him carefully to try and know if he’d heard it. He probably hadn’t, is what his conclusion was, Hyunjin not acting any differently and placing a sleepy kiss on his cheek when he comes out of the shower. 

“You wanna get out of here?” Hyunjin asks, grinning dopily at him. Seungmin looks around at the other people lost in their world—he pauses in confusion when he sees Chan doing pushups with Jisung on his back—and he nods back to him. He’s getting a bit stuffy here, if he says so himself, and getting out of here is what he definitely wants to do. 

They head down to the lobby and walk out, Seungmin holding onto his boyfriend tightly in case he falls. He makes a mental note to buy hangover medicine on the way back. They’re going to walk back home anyway, seeing that it’s just a 20 minutes walk from the place. Hyunjin usually stays over at his place anyway, and it’d be a waste of money to call for a taxi. 

Hyunjin drapes over him, sleepy as they walk. He mumbles some song under his breath and Seungmin listens in, trying to decipher what it was. Whenever he recognizes a song, he’ll ask him if he gets the title right and Hyunjin will clap loudly and give him a point. He’ll then sing along with him till he decides to tune into the next radio. 

They play this game, stolen pecks between them throughout the time. Seungmin’s just speed humming a song under his breath to try to get to the chorus, when Hyunjin suddenly freezes beside him. Seungmin turns back sharply, eyes raking over the road in front of them and suddenly alert. “What is it, baby?”

Hyunjin turns back to him with a cute smile, the one he’s reserved for when Seungmin calls him cute names. He quickly discovered Hyunie to be one of his favourites, closely followed by Jinnie and baby. Hyunjin shakes his head, but his eyes stay fixed to the closed shop on the other end. He smiles to himself, and then drags Seungmin along with him to keep walking.

“You can tell me, you know.” Seungmin says gently, not wanting to push now that he’s sure that they weren’t in any kind of danger. They probably should not be walking home alone at night, but being a trained officer has perks, it seems. Seungmin never really drinks that much, and on the days he does, Hyunjin forgoes it just so they can get back home in a whole breathing and walking piece. 

“That’s where we first met.” Hyunjin lets slip shyly, pointing at the road in front of them, the decorated flower shop beside it. He chews on his lip, contemplating whether to continue, so he glances at him. Seungmin is pretty sure his face is surprised right now. “I was running late for my course and you were there, taking a picture of the shop. I bumped into you. You were—it’s probably weird, but I thought you were really pretty.” 

Seungmin remembers that day, of course. He’s been standing outside the shop, admiring the decorations. There were bouquets displayed, the names of each written in pretty cursive handwriting, and a leaflet with basic Victorian era meanings printed on them. He remembers this really beautiful boy bumping into him and dropping his bag, he remembers having his breath taken away from him when he locked eyes with Hyunjin for the first time. He can’t believe Hyunjin remembers. 

“You remember.” he breathes out in lieu of reply, and Hyunjin nods, shifting on the balls of his feet. He nods again, a little forcefully, as if saying of course I remember. I love you Seungmin and oh god, he’s never wanted to hear it from someone else so badly ever before. He’s never wanted the emotion in someone else’s eyes to be love before this badly before. “That means a lot to me.” 

Hyunjin suddenly stops, turning around to face him. He makes Seungmin stop with a hand on his chest as well, and Seungmin feels confused. Hyunjin tells him to wait there, and places a kiss on his cheek, before he’s bounding backwards. When he’s put a considerable amount of distance between them, he yells out, “Okay, now face that way—towards the shop…yes! Perfect! Now pretend to read.” 

Seungmin laughs loudly, the sound carrying through the open night sky. He smiles wide and bright, like a lovesick fool, and pretends to divert his attention into the nonexistent display in front of him. He hears Hyunjin’s approaching footsteps, and he stifles a laugh when he clumsily bumps into him. 

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry—” Hyunjin scrambles around on the ground, trying to gather his invisible files. Seungmin can see him biting the inside of his cheek to prevent himself from breaking into laughter. “Ah, I'm so clumsy—” he dusts his shirt off and straightens up. He pretends to check his notes. “Ah, Kim Seungmin, isn’t that right?” 

“That’s me.” 

Hyunjin adjusts his scholar glasses and squints at his palm. Then he looks up at him with a bright smile. “I’m Hwang Hyunjin, and I’m from the future. I’m here to inform you that you’re going to get a boyfriend soon, and that boyfriend will be me!” 

Seungmin gasps in surprise and moves closer. He plays up his confused frown and his blatant staring. “No way.” he finally says. “A pretty boy like you, my boyfriend? No way. You must’ve made a mistake, Hyunjin-ssi.” Hyunjn dismisses that stubbornly. “There’s no mistake. You’re very beautiful too, if I do say so myself.” 

“Well in that case—” Seungmin smiles cheekily, taking his hand. “Fancy seeing you here, Hyunjin-ssi.” 

Further apart, the closer that we are
I'll keep you far away from me like a star
Hard not to fall for you, I gave you all my heart
Further apart, the closer, the closer, the closer that we are