—a legion of dust

Routine wasn’t a word that graced Alex’s vocabulary very often. Most of his days were a series of events that no one could ever foresee of or plan, may it be a meeting, a conference or a new bo, it all seemed to differ. But Sunmi, had broken that sort of, unrelenting spell. Both seemingly addicted to the things the finer life could grace them with, Alex couldn’t find himself giving anyone but her his time and his presence on a schedule. Call him shallow and obsolete, but it wouldn’t be the first time.

He took his time getting ready, no matter what she’d be waiting, wouldn’t miss a day of pillaging through the most expensive shops in boutiques to feed their hunger, to satisfy and unbelievable expensive taste that he was sure was quite unhealthy. But still, even as he shooed last night’s screw out of his bed, false promises of meeting up once more, some romantic comedy in Alex’s mind. Maybe routine wasn’t so far from his trope, after all, feeding the same lines of ‘Oh honey, don’t miss me too much I’ll see you again,’ like clockwork to men smitten by a large ass and thick lips, not that Alex was complaining.

The blonde strutted into the restaurant as if he owned it, though he may as well had, he was sure their tickets were helping pay some sort of bill, too many commas for a moderate brunch and he was never too shabby to place the black card on the table and continue the conversation so nonchalantly. His smile was smug as he approached, just as he thought, his waiting specimen, though a good friend of his, “Good morning sweetheart,” He answered, honey on his tongue as he sat, crossing his leg over the other. “I suppose,” answering with only a shrug on his shoulder, and a raise to his eyebrow, his mimosa settling on the table just as he got comfortable, and he shooed the waiter off in the midst of taking off his sunglasses, “how are you darling?”

“Doing quite well, I would say. The sun is out, I have the promise of good food and a hopefully successful shopping trip on the horizon.” Sumi replied, the smile settling on her face one that was far from an act. She was no stranger to finding comfort in the materialistic. In fact, she quite liked making home in it—pretty things, pretty promises. Kept their lives interesting, didn’t it? “And you? You’re looking particularly bright-eyed this morning, I must say.” Though it was true, Alex was always a visage of honeyed smiles and gleaming eyes whenever she saw him. It made him the perfect companion for excursions like this. And well, Sumi couldn’t say in good conscience that she didn’t love this routine they had made theirs. ( Routine often meant making home, and Sumi had never had one of those long enough to wish for it. Stability was as enticing as it was terrifying to the likes of her—so she enjoyed these weekly meet-ups of theirs for the only & very materialistic purpose they held. ) “Why may that be, hmm? Is it that blonde you were toting around on your arm last week?” She remembered the younger man who’d dropped him off the last time they’d met. He’d seemed particularly smitten with Alex—Sumi could see why, her friend sure had his undeniable charms.

She had already scanned the menu for what she wanted to order, so she let it rest in front of her before taking another sip of her water. Though the mimosa he was nursing looked delicious, she needed a clear head about her—she had a mission lined up for later this evening. And yes, that left plenty of hours in the middle for her to not need the caution, but Sumi thought it best to steer all too clear. ( She was still very much making sure the Im Mon Doo were sold on her as a newly acquired agent—Sumi had no plans on breaking her spotless streak of successful mission any time soon. )

Settling to lean in some, Sumi crossed her legs, a brow cocking as she continued to speak--as if, conspiratorially. “You know...I think I saw you somewhere this past week. Somewhere I really, for the life of me, wouldn’t have thought to see you.”

the inspector hummed fairly. sepia tinges scrutinize the artistic constituents, the amount of crimson and ruby adorning the subject’s environment is truly breathtaking and is similar to yeon’s life as a whole—career, specifically but the career has taken over his life—his sole heir to attention; focus twenty-four  /  seven. not that he minded, it is what he truly signed up for, what he attended college for, and what he’s risking his existence for. maybe that is why yeon is so gravitating towards park min-joon’s pieces. they’re beautiful, no doubt, and there is nothing wrong with splurging your own money. 

perhaps yeon sees himself as the subject, the man with a bow and arrow; reminded of tragic greek times. mythology, even but yeon doubts what park min-joon was going for but art is open to different ideals, and interpretations. yeon just so happens to make it about himself—he wonders if that speaks louder than the personal analysis. 

❛  have you ever heard of the greek legend orion? yes, it’s a constellation but i mean to the man himself. ❜   yeon sneaks a glance towards the curator, if that’s her job—nonetheless, a gorgeous woman. an elfin smirk graces his mouth, yet vanishes rapidly.  ❛  he was a hunter. a very good one, at that. he was the son of poseidon and had the gift of walking on water due to his father. there are many different versions of his death but one version that reminds me of these paintings is the version of he had fallen in love with artemis, the goddess of hunt. ❜

yeon pointed towards the bow and arrow the unknown man was holding in the painting and continued his story, ❛  she felt the same way for him, but apollo, her brother, the god of the sun, disapproved of this relationship. while he was swimming in a lake, apollo challenged his sister as an archer. apollo told artemis to hit the back of a man’s head. unbeknownst to her, it was orion. she killed her own lover. ❜

yeon finally made eye-contact to the woman. his shoulders broad but relaxed, an expressionless expression presented on his handsome visage. ❛  that’s what i see when i look at this piece. how much?  ❜

Sumi observed silence as she listened to him speak, his voice painting musings that brought her back to how this all started. When she had first hustled her way into joining what was now her imprisoned crew, it had been for a life of thrill-- -a life of meaning, of luxury, of having all that she had been stripped of having as deemed by an uncontrollable fate itself ( or so she had thought, then )- --it had grown into some appreciation for the treasures they stole. She couldn’t have spent her years conducting heists of art pieces upon art pieces and not developed a love for it. ( It was something so pure, from a woman so far from—she often overlooked it, true as it was. ) The versatility of the emotions an artist could evoke through their pieces was only highlighted as the man spoke, her gaze drawing to him as he explained the narrative of the myth. She assessed him in her silence, as she did all people, situation, things:

                ( she noted the way his spine was straight—a man of discipline. the army, law enforcement, perhaps?                  she noted the way his face remained impassive, as if he was trained for it. or, maybe it was the burdens of a long day, and whatever the root cause was of this chosen story to bloom from.               she would have noted what his eyes had to say about why, of all the myths woven around Orion—the esteemed hunter, the honorable & brave—he would choose the one where he met his untimely end at the hands of a lover. and though she couldn’t see his eyes from where they were trained on the paintings, sumi only needed instinct to tell her perhaps it was because there was some trouble in his own paradise. a lover scorned; he wouldn’t be the first. )

“Maybe Artemis was never fated for a lover.” She offered in return even though his question remained hanging between them. “She was the goddess of the hunt, protector of maidenhood. The virginal goddess.” Sumi knew the myth as she knew many things—in the ways of a storyteller paying homage, and with a reverence. That’s all she was, after all. A woman god at storytelling, armed with a thousand masks. ( Her current one read: curator. ) “The myth says it was her brother’s protectiveness that led to her lover’s untimely death, but perhaps the gods would tell you it was what the fates had wished.” Even Zeus himself knew to bow to fate, greek mythology said. It was a heavy theme in not only the myths that had survived, but the gods that ruled those stories.

Sumi wonders, offhandedly, if the handsome stranger sees himself as—Orion, the legendary hunter or Orion, the scorned lover. Curious, wasn’t it?

[Incoming ; 8:09 PM] shipment is here [Incoming ; 8:11 PM] loading?

The illuminating screen of the phone catches her eye, her own typed out message in reply blinking at her-- -unsent. Her gaze rises to where the man stands, hands folded behind him as they have been for the past twenty minutes that he’s been here. With a finger tapping the side of her phone screen, she wonders how long to barter on him staying, wonders if she can keep the men ( im mon doo assigned, of course ) waiting with whatever drop they were facilitating on site this time. ( They used the gallery as a drop location at times—it was still to an hour before the gallery was supposed to close, but weekdays were often not busy days for them. Thus, the early arrival. )

She’s poised behind the reception of the gallery, her hands hidden from view behind where the pristine, white marble counter swells and sits. Her gaze is still marking its way from phone to the man’s back when his voice cuts through—

“take a picture, it’ll last longer.”

--well, Sumi supposes. He’s just made her decision for her. For now, they muse bide their time.

[Outgoing ; 8:12 PM] hold. stay in garage

Nimble fingers turning the phone face down and sliding it to rest on the counter, when Sumi’s gaze rises, it’s already stitched with an amused smile—set of her shoulders lax. Arms folding behind her in a gesture mimicking said visitor’s, she steps out from behind the counter and makes her way to where he stands, pace leisurely. “I’m afraid we’re not allowed to take pictures of the art.” She replies, voice smooth, even though there’s something inherently lackluster about the line she’s used as her reply. ( You won’t miss it, the undertone of humor she laces in her words; all too self-aware. )

Her gaze sets itself on the art piece he’s been observing for a few moments now, dark brown eyes making their assessment along the curves of it. “Fandango—triptych.” She starts, naming the piece as she inhales a light breath. “Park Min-Joon.” Turning to glance at the man, Sumi in turn, the sharp slopes of his face, before continuing. “It’s a newer piece. Only six years old.” Pray tell, her mind intones, what a man comes looking for to a gallery at this hour. ( Her mind also provides her the answer most aware: perhaps, it’s simply art, to put the mind at ease—the apparent truth is, in fact, hard to slander even in a web of lies. )

Silver winks at her, her gaze drawn taught as she catches an eyeful down the barrel of the gun pointed at her.

( And she’s thought herself something of a favorite of the fates that rope red strings into premonitions and truths—because look at her, alive still, after all these years. She’s cheated death one too many times, yes, but this can’t be the way she is meant to go. )

Sumi raises her hands in surrender, parted mauve lips inhaling a short breath that sounds sandpaper heavy along the silence after his words that is so close to shattering. It’s with conscious effort that she lifts her gaze from the weapon to the man boy holding it. She searches for an explanation, for the truth behind the threat that’s been extended from him to her. He is her client—Sumi is only obliging as he had requested. In his eyes, though, she finds no answers. Hooded under the curving wink of a lid that makes him look all too cat-like, there is nothing there for her to read other than the panicked anger that seems to lace in the way his threat was spit out. 

“I have the files you wanted.” She starts, voice smoothed over like silk—appeasing by nature. ( A thief is good at making herself invisible to the searching eye; it makes her fluent in the act of stitching on a skin that the eye of the beholder wishes to see. ) “I’m just delivering them to you personally.” A pause, she swallows only to spare the dryness she feels itching at the walls of her throat. “Like you asked.”

“I was let in.” Sumi continues, parceling fact after fact in precise and clear explanations. She does not know what kind of rage clouds him into this anger, but she can only hope to pierce it so. “I’m not armed.” It’s a bold-faced lie, but it will keep her alive. She feels the cool metal kiss of where her own glock sits by her back, the pressed fold of a blade strapped to her leg. All too far from reach to save her now. For now, she only has her sharpest weapon—her tongue and the words it says.

“I don’t know Kiss, it’s your office.”

She has thirty minutes.

There’s a distinct click as she locks the door, fingers moving with purpose even if the rest of her stance is relaxed around the corners—hesitant, almost. ( Oh, how Sumi plays her roles with precision. ) She has thirty minutes until Sanha calls to interrupt the little tirade she’s planned here. It’s just enough time ( she hopes ) to get what she needs from him. There’s something mischievous in her gaze that isn’t all painted on for pretenses when she turns on her heel and back to where he’s standing, here, in the middle of some stowaway corner office at the station. “And you’re sure no one saw us?” In truth, she knows they didn’t. The hallways curves enough that the feed didn’t catch them going in—she knows that as the thief she is by night, but Sumi the curator is not supposed to have an inkling of it. So, she asks him anyways. ( The confirmation doesn’t hurt. He is the cop here, after all. )

Sumi’s learned it’s good to have a friend or two in your corner. Better yet, a friend or two that’s a cop by profession, now that she has two on her tail—breathing down her neck.

Meeting Kisung was happenstance. He came to the gallery, this or that. It would make her sound like a smarter thief if she said she spotted his badge and concocted this plan. ( Never mind that it would also make her sound far more soulless, hollow-driven, than she actually is. The mask is, after all, a mask—tiring, heavy, skin deep so tight that it stings with its weight. ) It hadn’t been about his badge—he was attractive, Sumi was attracted. The badge was a bonus. A heavy, heavy bonus. The bonus reason why she was here. Sumi needed to know what the cops were on her tail for, how much information they had on her, how bad it was. She knew there were no loopholes big enough to land her in jail because she’d obsessed over it before making her escape—but the paranoia was easy to succumb to with the constant attention she was getting. Kisung had a badge to the station, one that let him enter and exit as he needed. She had a RFID duplicator ( a niche purchase; she hadn’t needed one at this frequency for any missions beforehand ) that she just needed to set close enough in proximity to his entry card that her device could copy its signature. This would grant her access to police records after dark, as she pleased. Not that she planned on thoroughly abusing the privilege—but maybe abusing it just enough to snoop on whatever files on her were making their rounds around the office. Now all that was left was to get her hands on him long enough to swipe the card and set it near enough to the duplicator in her jacket; keeping him distracted, she figured, was a less arduous task.

It’s not necessarily that Sumi requires more clothes to fashion the visage she’s been carrying as her truth. ( That is: curator by day, thief by night. ) It’s that she wants them. ( And the chance to spend a day off in town with the aim of finding pretty things to fill her echoing apartment with. ) There were not many contacts on her phone with the purposes of pleasure over purpose, but Alex’s number was one of them. The texts they exchanged were routine enough for them to serve an almost quick, perfunctory focus. They came to each other for these getaways often. He was a familiar face with familiar tastes, and a penchant for indulging. That was exactly what Sumi needed on a day like this.

She was the first to arrive at the restaurant they had picked as their brunch spot, the following day lining up for a rouse around designer shops and the likes. You know, the kind of pastime that came when you had plenty of time and money to spare. It was rare for her to have an agenda of talks to strike with him ahead of time, but Sumi had a few topics to broach in questioning today. Namely, the fact that she had very definitely seen him in the garage of the drop location secured for those who carried the crest of the im mon doo on their debts.

( And yes, she can’t blame him for missing that passing query-- -but truly, what a small world this is. )

She’d met Alex in some boutique, when she’d first been filling her wardrobe with choices catered towards this identity of ‘Sumi.’ He’d simply been another customer in the store, but in passing Sumi had been sure to tell him he looked better in the blue blouse he was holding than the yellow. Him gracing her gallery with a companion in tow—and the blue blouse she had referred to before, yes—had been some sealed fate. It was sign enough for these frequent passes to become intentional, routine. Soon enough, these brunches and trips ( so grossly flippant, commonplace—as if on purpose, given what the truth of her life consisted of ) became regular, just like Alex’s company. With the menu pulled up to her, Sumi waited, eyeing her choices. She heard his footsteps before she lifted her gaze to greet him, the upturn of her mouthends pulling up into something welcoming even if there was a gleam to those eyes of hers. “Good morning to you.” She quipped, hand reaching to help herself to her water glass as she let him settle in before setting up her own offense. Leaning in as she placed the glass down on the table, Sumi cocked a brow. “We’ve got a lot to discuss today, haven’t we darling?” 

@52sumi 

the night’s growing slow for a friday. with one hand, her fingers absently run against the grain of the wooden bar. its finish worn down, she wonders, with a drink in the opposite hand, when this bar began to begin with. the drink anchors her against haughty customers, less her patience wears too thin. 

soojin thinks about all the things she can be relieved of after her shift, namely the man sitting in the booth who continues to eye her. the fantasy of relaxation crumbles when the door chime draws her attention. ( thank god it’s a girl ), because she’s outnumbered often. she has the front end of the bar, of which her male counterpart has no interest in given it means greeting every customer. but somehow, he comes running forward at the sight of this girl. ( the girl is really pretty! ) her hand, before he can even reach her, extends out. her fingers wave him away, as to shoo him. the last thing the girl needs is soojin’s lame coworker breathing down her existence. 

quickly, she casts her drink aside, hidden behind the bar. “welcome to alibi. how can i help you?” her eyes meet the stranger’s, both hands against the bar and spread apart.

The day has been exhaustively long, and Sumi wants the weight of it off her shoulders. It’s not often she has nights to herself. Once she’s done with the gallery—she often spends a good portion of the night working jobs for either her benefactors or personal clients. And it’s good, sure. For the greedy, none of it is ever enough. She’s come to leech off of the taste of adrenaline on her tongue. ( --Like an addict unwilling to let go of the high because it’s become necessary. ) Days without it leave her feeling exhausted by the weight of the pretenses she’s stitched onto herself. That is, days like today.

She hasn’t even made it to the counter before some faceless man’s voice starts piping at her, and she doesn’t bother sparing him a glance before she shoos him away. Sumi spends her entire days entertaining those she otherwise wouldn’t care too, she doesn’t have any wish to do the same in her off-hours. The other bartender seems a steady choice, squared as she stands behind the bar and asks for her order. Sumi all but sinks into the bar stool, the grace bleeding off of her limbs until her stance speaks of nothing but a kind of bone deep exhaustion—not the kind you make a show of, but the kind you can’t seem to shake off. ( It’s because she knows she’ll return home to a lavishly furnished apartment and blank four walls that stare back at someone who doesn’t quite know who to be when she isn’t spending so much time being Sumi. )

“Well-- -if you could start off by getting my boss to ease up, you’d be a miracle worker.” She replies, an echo of a laugh following her words. And even the statement is a platitude, her complaint about a shitty boss another commonplace lie that flies so seamlessly on her lips. ( The sentiment behind it isn’t exactly untrue, but there’s nothing valid in the statement either. ) “An order of your favorite whisky, please. On the rocks.” She replies, setting her crossed arms on the counter. She hasn’t been to this particular bar before, and she figures it’s safest to ask for a recommendation of choice when picking her poison of the night.