Bloody Teeth

Skulls can host eclipses, too.

Taeil is just about fourty five kilometers above ground level when he finds out how.

His bare torso sags in on itself, air pressure contorting ink adorned shoulders against his seat as both of his eyes roll to the back of his cranium. Two eclipses happen at once, whites momentarily reaching for heaven. The longsword attached to the cold, hard mech of steel encased around his body slashes true and bright blue into the enemy unit that'd made it up with him. A last ditch effort that wins him the fight, before both their operating systems succumb to unresponsive pilots and their Cores begin their descent.

An infinite stretch of scorching red dust awaits him below. The unforgiving terrain stretching out dry as far as the eyes can see. Every now and again, large cracks in the ground adorn the bedrock like bleeding gashes across flesh-- some as great as ravines, fashioned as entrances and exits for manmade spacecrafts. If Taeil were to remain unconscious too long, perhaps he would be able to make a crate large enough to rival the awe of those sandy red chasms. Blood painting red on red.

But Hellhound is still running despite the syntax errors and partial disconnect with Taeil's spinal cord. Its peripheral scanner an erratic pendulum as it sways back and forth in search for the earliest signs of conscious eyes. All the while, the digital assistant's grating shrieks occupy the speakers.

Wake up, pilot. The Core is now 25 kilometers above ground. Probability of crashing at 60% and rising. Pilot, wake up. Hellhound is fast approaching 20 kilometers above ground. Pilot, wake up.

For a few agonizing seconds, all the urging and the beeping going on around him translate to a faint whirring in Taeil's ears. His brain and heart hit consecutive records of overdrive while he clambers to thrash less and finally reconnect with Hellhound. The only thing clear in the fuzz is a memory at the back of his head, something like a flashing mirage that doubles as a beacon of light. It's himself, seated on a bunk bed in the barracks back at the base. His bunkmate would've been there too, had he not been sent out to die the night before. Lucky him.

Disappear, thinks Taeil then and now. The only way to disappear from this hell is to die and never come back.

Oxygen floods his lungs first, slowly pouring from the back of his throat as he inches closer and closer to certain death. And then, it happens all at once; notably the system's rush for a generous deposit of adrenaline into his veins. The tubes connected to his forearms and obliques turn bright yellow.

The scanner holds his gaze again, reporting even a grainy moan and the curl of his toes when the new high blitzes past his brain stem.

Everything becomes too loud again. Too bright, too hot. Taeil grits his teeth so hard he tastes blood as he pulls Hellhound's reigns back into his purchase, just shy of Mars' barren surface. The thing sharply jerks upright in the air, crunching and groaning and smoking somewhere.

Two other Cores immediately find him below, one belonging to the squadron captain who's roaring through Taeil's speakers before any of them can land.

"Private Yu? Private Yu! Respond if you're still in there, son. You'd better fuckin' be in there."

"Yeah... yeah, I'm alive, cap. Still in here." Taeil reassures and deflects, just barely managing to steady his panting. Tattooed digits run through his sweatslicked hair so he wouldn't think about the thrashing in his chest.

"What's the situation looking like now?"

When the captain speaks this time, he sounds alarmingly apprehensive. Taeil turns to find the planet dust lifting and brushing past his jet black Core like a bad omen.

"A quick radial scan shows a hangar nearby and more enemy reinforcements approaching at twelve o'clock. Piloted. Got at least two augs amidst 'em. But we have lost all contact with our main base and more than half of our squadron to death in the process. And Yu..." A heavy sigh ends that sentence. "We can't keep fighting like this."

"No, I can keep going." Taeil hears the firm echo of his own voice vibrate through the comm speakers, fists simulating his bloating resolve as they tighten around Hellhound's steering handles. Disappear.

"And we're some of the best aug's out there. We can't just give up on our mission halfway."

Finally, the voice sealed within the third Core joins the conversation. "We weren't sent here to die either, dumbass."

A flicker of orange slices through the dust lingering between them, revealing Wenhan's longsword suddenly erect and pointing directly towards Hellhound's middle. A few good slashes of that could slice through an entire squad in seconds. And Wenhan never once missed the opportunity.

Upon careful inspection though, Taeil notices cracks embellishing the scorching blade. The message written in them crystal clear.

His lips find a soft frown, "So what? I have about 10% of fuel left, and oxygen doesn't really matter. And there's still three of us. We can take 'em if we're fast enough and worst case scenario, at least one of us can--"

"No. The edge seems to be gettin' to your head already, kid." Their captain steps in the middle, hoarse and hasty, "We retreat, now. Come on."

All ally Cores locked on by approaching enemy units. You are heavily damaged and outnumbered. Retreat advised.

"Hear that? Too late, cap!" Disappear. Orders mean nothing anymore. Taeil abruptly rips through the air towards the oncoming barrage of missiles, sweat building thickly on his browbone and cupid's bow. "They're already on us!"

"Oi, I just fuckin said--!"

The blaring around him swells densely enough for Wenhan's shouting to barely fit through the comm speakers, "I'm going to make sure you live so I can kill you myself after this."

Except Wenhan would never get that chance. Not now.

Together, Hellhound and Taeil's central nervous system impressively withstand two and a half rapid-pace engagements, aggressively fighting on the offensive as he's quickly running out of time to stay alive. Sometime after dropping to two percentage of fuel, his tongue grows heavy with an apology at the tip. One he spares no courage or oxygen reserves to say out loud.

All the mourning of what'll be lost to him has been done already, after all.

The emergency system kicks in a second after Hellhound falls to enemy blades. Flashing lights bathe Taeil in blood red as the battle suddenly turns inward. Inside the Core, with himself. Crashing a certain distance away from the still ongoing fight, he can only make out blurry, flashing lights-- the vibrant orange colour of Wenhan's Core's longblade keeping his eyes from rolling back into his skull far too fast.

........System rebooting in emergency mode.... All modifications in place.... Autopilot activated.... Destination: [Redacted].

—

Titan. 10 lightyears from Mars, 14 lightyears from Earth. 31 years post the Great Destruction on Earth. 2 years since the second war ended. 6 years after death.

Titan is known as the vampire planet. Home to one of the most neglected and ungoverned human populations to have ever colonized the galaxy post cataclysm, people usually come here for trouble or to pass on.

With the planet being largely uninhabitable because of the unceasing snowfall, and the terrain too dead to yield anything other than grave and junkyards, the locals have turned perpetually bitter and angry. Though not at each other. To them, every outsider is a red herring.

Frost solidifies the blood in Taeil's fingertips for ripping a poster off the bar door on the way in. He tightly crumples and pockets his own face, pace steady yet stiff as he brushes shoulders with warmth bathed in club lights and the strong, pungent stench of ale. A corpse doesn't belong on a wanted poster. Neither a bar hidden amidst a raging blizzard, though he's more than willing to debate on that front with any friendly drunk. If they existed.

The bartender expresses distaste at first, chin cocking upwards and nostrils flaring bright purple in the bar headlights. His gaze wanders, assessing for inferiority under a patched jacket until the total opposite is found. The outer corner of Taeil's left eye, where a series of glowing numbers that should've never been there glare right back at him. He visibly scrambles for Taeil's order, or perhaps a gun.

Taeil remains calm, dull nail scraping the worn bartop. Surprisingly, he's simply met with stinkeye and a tall glass of pale ale.

While highly possible that everyone in here has recently seen the face in his pocket somewhere, it's even more possible that everyone in here is merely pretending not to notice their target retreating to the bleakest corner with his head held down. Maybe he's too dumb to not be afraid, to sit there and not touch his drink or utter a word once.

If gone entirely unnoticed, the pager in his pocket will be the only thing that could get him up again. Or his right arm. But that's just the ideal; almost always just a wish.

The beer shivers and curdles to the music blasting through the speakers, foam disappearing as quickly as the whispers begin. Taeil compresses his lips tightly together, stare on the glass hard enough for him to believe he could rupture it.

What's an aug doin' in a place like this? I thought those guys were scarce nowadays... Should be. Corp's huntin' 'em down to the last of their corpses... Glorified half-robot junkies... Wanted.

Ten minutes pass, murmurs of hearsay making a proper round around the room before two men eventually approach Taeil's corner. They don't forget their blatant hostility on the way over, let alone the stench of booze. The one who speaks first clumsily draws his blade mid-sentence.

"Oi, you. You got business to take care of 'round here? How 'bout you take that hood off 'n let us see that pretty face of yours, eh?"

Within an instant the rest of the bar falls drastically silent, drunken chatter replaced by a mix of expectant stares leaving only the dull humdrum of background music.

Taeil's table jerks back and forth from the sheer force the man slams his pocket knife onto its edge with, intentions as clear as day. Were he any other ordinary man, Taeil thinks that would've been enough intimidation to subdue.

Yet the cloak of stillness he becomes while the blade man's friend puts out his burning cigarette on his left hand says entirely otherwise.

Inhale. Taeil counts to ten before finally raising his gaze for the first time in an hour. As it is in the poster, the serial number tented on the soft crest of his cheek twinkles to life. In tandem with the rage now blazing in his eyes though, it probably appears entirely irrelevant.

Exhale. The cigarette man's wrist is snapped backwards before he goes down with Taeil's pint of beer smashed to bits in his jaw.

"Satisfied?"

Knife man is surprisingly agile for a man in his predicament. Red rimmed eyes wide and swings swift despite him being obviously weighed down by arrogance and however many pints he's got sloshing in his belly. He matches Taeil's pace for half a heartbeat before all his coordination takes a backseat in favour of brute force. Nonetheless, Taeil is the much bigger beast. And that's with him hardly making use of his right arm.

Crossing limbs, atmospheric music and their synchronized panting momentarily turns their scuffle into a waltz on the dance floor, with Taeil in the lead and the one responsible for ending it all. Knife man all but sticks to the wall on the other far end of the bar when Taeil finally gets a good grip on him. Lucky ones duck in time while the less fortunate spill their drinks, or even find themselves pushed to the ground as the body flies.

A final, wispy grunt of defeat precedes the crowd's eruption into a rowdy bristle, though Taeil faces some trouble with solving who's mad at him specifically and who's more furious with the idiots who'd picked a fight with a monster and lost.

Naturally, just as Taeil's pager begins to vibrate in his pants, a third man emerges from the chaos. A phoenix out of fire.

First thing Taeil notices is that he's likely sober, or at least his steps are steadier and certain, like there's real purpose behind his intent. He's dressed differently-- proper for the cold, but his drapes fall smooth and gracefully on his frame.

Like he already knows what to expect, he instantly engages on the offense without speaking a single word. Much too hasty for Taeil's squinting to graze across his face, to check for digits that might reflect his own. Easily far quicker than the first two, he successfully throws Taeil's rhythm off, defense forcing him to barely tiptoe around the stranger's onslaught.

A familiar tingle begins in the back of Taeil's head, like the slow blossoming of a flower after winter. They clash like two bulls heavily on edge, neither seeing red yet but equally as determined to win. The bar is reduced almost to half capacity in the process, throng of bar-goers squashed against the walls as they shove around their drinks and cheer. Sweat builds so quickly underneath the layers Taeil is wearing that it almost feels like the beginning of drowning--

Third guy finds his nape and Taeil finally understands how burgeoning feels. Then he sees stars.

—

Same night, just four (?) hours later.

Taeil comes to amidst competing qualities of silence and darkness. Dizzy and temporarily stripped of his senses, a furious panic immediately slithers into his chest, so persistent it squeezes around his heart until he can feel the erratic leaps beating behind his teeth. Closing his eyes, he grits his jaw against his pulse until it hurts, so as to still the frenzy before he's not the only one in these shadows who can hear it.

In what feels like this tiny room, occupied mostly by the bed he's in and the nightstand next to it, Taeil meets eye to eye with fear for the first time in many lightyears.

The unfamiliar air sliding off the walls feels coarse in his throat and lungs, every breath more uncomfortable to draw on than the last. There's something abandoned about the way it tastes on the back of his tongue, like this cycle of air has been stuck in this same room for many centuries before him.

But Taeil endures for a moment longer, waiting for the moving shadows his dread conjures in the corners to pounce and tear his flesh open. Listening, specifically for the clicking of a gun.

Maybe the blizzard outside might even whisper to him his current coordinates, or tell a sweet lie about how the night will end.

Instead of any sound, comes a smell. Taeil shoots upright in the creaking bed as he recognizes that smell and the new layer of horror it sneaks between his sore ribs. Antiseptics and the tacky, strange odour of old bandages.

He lifts his right arm and though it responds by signaling a shard of pain to his brain, Taeil empties his lungs and does not inhale anymore. Thickset fingers stroke across his bicep, tracing what does not feel like the same haphazard technique he'd used to cover it up much earlier in the day. Tracing where there should be a small chip surgically installed beneath his flesh-- where it no longer is.

The bedroom door creaks open to the silhouette of a man who never makes it fully inside the room. Adrenaline and the inherent desperation for survival turn Taeil into an angry bull; lethal spring in his step and brunt of his physique prompting their crashing into the hall wall within a singular breath.

The other man, recognized by Taeil by all but his face, squares his shoulders and braces for impact with his arms protecting his torso. Effectively softening the impact of the punches aimed at his lower ribs.

Like this, they exchange the roles they both held back in the bar-- Taeil taking the offense and head start this time.

Somewhat larger and heavier than his opponent, he wields it to his advantage. Actively pinning his body up against the thick stench of cigarettes to keep those arms from getting loose or any slinking away from the corner they're in. His mechanically altered left leg locks into place behind him as it tanks the oscillation between them as a buoy would the sea.

"Not killing me is about to cost you your own fucking life."

"If you're trying to crush my nuts, you could at least start with some foreplay."

Taeil suddenly freezes in place like a stag caught in the headlights. That voice, a bullet to his temple. Last time he'd heard it this clearly was the night before he died, and that was over six years ago.

A sharp intake of breath is the only response he can manage as that tingle at the back of his skull from earlier returns at full, blinding force. It opens the floodgates on memories he'd only dreamt all these years of unearthing again. Lodges a roulette of words-- of a name on his tongue he believed he'd never get to taste again.

Wenhan tugs down the scarf that'd been concealing the lower half of his face. His lower lip is freshly split and barely clean. A keepsake Taeil must've given him during their first tussle.

"Do you want to kill me now?"

The open invitation draws Taeil's thumb from Wenhan's throat to his upper right cheekbone, where his serial number glows faintly in the dark. A habit he'd lost to time and self-afflicted loss. Tenderly, the finger ghosts over it as he echoes the numbers committed to memory in his head, as though caressing the sharp edge of a knife.

Wenhan doesn't flinch or protest. He never once did.

"Should've known..." Taeil finally chokes on the heart in his throat, usual rasp exacerbated by exhaustion and the poor air quality. Tension melts from his tone all the same. "But why the fuck did you have to punch me that hard?"

The corners of Wenhan's mouth twitch with fleeting amusement. "Why do you think? That was for ghosting me almost seven years ago. Asshole."

"You were counting?"

Wenhan's blinks slowly. A crease forming between brushstroke brows. When he opens his mouth again, the inflections unique to his voice change. Sounding crisp, and somehow more honest. "What can I say? I'm a slut for grudges."

Taeil realizes he's now speaking in Mandarin only after he's already rummaging in the next room.

The bedroom hall is barely existent, living room and main entrance arranged just a stride beyond it. Similar to the bedroom, the most tangible presence in the room is an anomalous, possibly planet-borne gloom. Akin to a phantasm lingering at the tips of the fingers, always and never present simultaneously. It settles uncomfortably on top of Taeil's shoulders when he breaches the space.

He chooses the dilapidated couch somewhere in the center and sits on the arm's edge, not risking hinderance nor disruption. From the kitchen, Wenhan produces a sweater out of what feels like thin air for him. It smells faintly of cigarette butts, the sleeves too short to cover Taeil's distinctively tattooed hands.

Wenhan had seen numerous corpses in his life before. Spent countless nights afloat within the darkest nooks of his skull, teetering dangerously close to the edge of haunting. Cigarette smoke had never been good at warding off ghosts from the backs of his eyelids. Though he never stayed long, Taeil's had been the most persistent one. Appearing as inconsequential shapes in the distance, or a flash over his shoulder in the steamed bathroom mirror. Interrupting Wenhan's nightmares like a torch in the dark.

But no burning or blood ever came of it, not like tonight.

Harsh, frost bitten stinging spreads throughout Wenhan's bottom lip and jaw as he swipes his tongue across the gash for crusted blood. Entirely eclipsing the comfort he finds within the icy lick of a loaded gun on the pads of his fingers. The wound throbs and tastes alive, like a kiss full of teeth.

So this is real. Carefully hovering beyond the kitchen counters isn't just a few grams of liquified atomic mass stuck in his brain stem. Corpses and ghosts don't look so warm while shivering in the cold, or ask questions Wenhan can't quite answer.

"So are you going to tell me where we are?"

Wenhan's tongue curls back with the truth in his mouth. His silence palpable and howling across the walls until it's the loudest thing in the room, second to Taeil's swelling impatience. That shift in the rhythm of Taeil's breathing narrowly escaping his notice, approaching footsteps hastening Wenhan's working hands. He knows.

Taeil, albeit warily, closes the distance Wenhan had so keenly been trying to keep between them a second time. Shadow-esque, he towers at the rear of Wenhan's heels, his smoking breath so close it tickles hair coiled at the back of the other man's neck. Wenhan grits his teeth at the sound of his name.

"Wenhan," escapes Taeil's lungs through a whisper-plea. He continues in stern Mandarin, "You're making it really hard for me to trust you tonight... Tell me what you know."

Wenhan's idea of a proper reply is to press a gun into Taeil's palms the same way he would a helping of barley tea. An all too casual quip follows, "Coffins used to be smaller than this. Hide that in your pants. Shoot your dick off and I'm killing you."

Taeil wastes no time baring his fangs in Wenhan's face, exhales cool grimy air on his eyelashes. "So you took it. You brought me here and thought you could soften me up with your bullshit and get away with it."

"Relax. I put it somewhere safer than under your foreskin. Now be quiet unless you want the worst of evil on our asses, because unfortunately, I'm not the villain you think I am--"

But the more he speaks, the more impenetrable of a fortress Taeil becomes. Rationality sinks too far beyond his reach as he cocks the gun in his hand and sandwiches it between their hips. He presses the tip against the softest tissue he remembers on Wenhan's lower belly, nostrils and warm eyes flaring with abandon.

"Give me the fucking chip back. Or this place will soon become a coffin for two."

Wenhan languidly curls a palm to rest around Taeil's thick wrist and finds no reason to doubt that he'd pull the trigger. Part of him even wishes they had the time for it.

"Idiot." He tries instead, "I'm trying to fucking protect you. I'm on your side."

"Bullshit! This is so much fucking bigger than me faking my death and all the other fucked up shit that's been happening, don't you get it? That chip and it's copies have lead so much peril into the lives of many innocents, thanks to the corp." He erratically points to the permanent serial number tented on his cheek, "By our kind. But if you just give it back, I can help rectify--"

"They'll kill you."

"And so many others after me if you don't--"

The front apartment door standing just a few feet away from the argument suddenly erupts inward into infinite splinters. The gaping clearing allowing safe passage to a group of thugs-- no, government officiated soldiers trained specifically for hunting.

"Kill both traitors on the spot and take that fuckin' chip!"

Wenhan jerks violently in motion; that grip he's just had on Taeil's wrist tightening significantly for the sake of hauling them both as far away from the threat as possible. This is not how he'd expected them to get caught-- at least not this soon. But he'd count his losses later.

"Here. Jump off and turn left, and don't you fucking dare stop running."

Taeil doesn't question it. Blood and adrenaline beat hot and hefty like a second heart in his ears as he finds and flings himself out of the nearest window, just shy of when the rain of bullets begin.

Falling for four agonizing stories with a wild, hungering blizzard slapping and pounding against his skin until it's chipped and cracked by ice and frost would've killed just about any man. Had he been any more injured even now or still housed regular lungs inside him, he wouldn't have made it either.

But he's desperately wheezing upon landing--alive, though briefly blinded by a whitehot bolt of pain shooting up his right arm. The blood curdling scream he indulges is something he can't help, not while this vulnerable and exhausted beyond all possible measure. Burning in his nostrils makes it impossible for him to smell the fresh blood thickly soaking up his bandages, ruining Wenhan's sweater.

Panic and dread are his two lifelines, keeping him warm and alert. A few deep breaths later force him up onto knees that buckle and protest against the unforgiving snow. In two steps he realizes an oddity with the spinal plates underneath his skin-- the stuff that hold his nervous system together feeling dented, or just broken. Defining the beginning of a very long trek.

One he may never emerge from.

Go left and never stop. Wenhan's voice echoes in his head and like some sort of clockwork reaction, Taeil defies instruction to look up and check if he could find any signs of the other man's escape.

Nothing in sight suggests the presence of Wenhan's silhouette, but he is met with a timely blast of glass, metals, rags and flying body parts. Four stories above, the storm tastes fire.

“And it appears Wenhan would also be there-“

“Wenhan?” She pauses her tracks, “as in, the Wenhan I know-?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Tell him no—“

“I believe it’s personal d—“

“Personal duties— right.” Knowing she won’t win an argument, she huffs annoyance before adding another request. “I’d like extra security when we get there, please.”

She was assisted in the vehicle, being taken to a meeting along with other underground heads. They were the current holders of their own family’s secret business, with a few visitors and new faces. This month, she was walking on ports in Incheon, which didn’t particularly have a good memory for her. Four guards made an entrance with her as most men and women looked at the Choi’s new head. They all wanted a piece, considering the power they held when it came to weaponry.

“You could’ve waited for me,” his voice hushed next to her, earning a jolt.

“I thought it was personal duties?” she sighs, a slight pout on her lips. “Why are you here anyway?”

“An invitation—“ his hands tuck behind his back, looking on at others their way. He was polite and courteous, opposing Minseo’s hard-faced exterior. “I guess maybe they could see me valuable.”

“You know it’s too dangerous. What if it’s a set up? You already know what your father could do.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

For the night, the two were in each other’s reach. The rumor mill had been working for quite a few moments now that some attempt to keep him out of reach. Although it was a game of business, they can reject or follow suit to any offers. As the night goes on, so did her patience with the matter. It wasn't that she hated everyone she spoke, but Minseo absolutely hated when they begin their conversations with fake formalities as if they have never voiced out their concerns for her company when she took over. It was great doubt and uncertainty that fueled offers to take Choir Resorts away from her hands.

Minseo watches Wenhan speak to a man, the two appeared as if they knew each other beforehand. His eyes gaze in her direction, before he flashes her a grin. It definitely threw her off, considering the fact that Wenhan rarely shows any kind of emotion when it came to situations such as this.

He begins to head for the door, and in between the sea of socialites and business parties, Minseo had trouble catching up that it appeared as if he vanished in thin air. The next thing she finds was another man in front of her, gun pointing to her direction.

Her reflex was to drop down, as a guard skillfully aims the gun to the ceiling. A shot rings the air as everyone follows suit with avoiding all directions to a possible stray bullet. Men and women with weapons strike fear to others, but the rest just made sure they made it out alive of the hanger. Was it cops? Were we caught? Do we fight or run?

Another shot rings in the air as the man who attempted on her life falls dead. Panic quickly sets in, Minseo being pulled away from the scene with the crowd. She fights her way with the guards, stealing a gun and manages to instruct them to find Wenhan. Focused to the direction he went, she was only greeted by stacks of shipping boxes and freight containers that went on in aisles. Faint grunts can be heard in the distance as she follows the noise. The closer she got inside, the faster her heart beat.

Wenhan pops out from one of the halls— it was as if he just moved swiftly out of thin air. He was in a hurry, and somewhat in shock. There was unnoticed blood in his hands while he grabs her arm and was pulling her away from what he didn’t want her to see.

“Wenhan—!” She attempted to break free but it didn’t stop. “Tell me what’s going on—! Who was that—!”

“Don’t make this difficult for your father any longer… come out— it’ll be quick— if you surrender now, we wont let him know right away...“

Several footsteps echo in this particular hangar. The sudden faint noise of running has disappeared from the other. What was a moment of silence turned in to a hail of bullets ricocheting near their wanted exit. They quickly ducked behind a few shipping containers, Minseo only then realizing that he was mildly injured. One of his knuckles were bloodied only in assumption he must’ve taken down one man.

“You need to go— “ he was set with his decision, whatever it was. “I need you to call your guards—“

“No—“

“Minseo! I'm not arguing—“

“No—“

“Minseo—!”

“I SAID NO—!!”

She huffs out in fear and worry. It left him stunned. Wenhan notices the grip on his hands, Minseo holding tight.

“I’m not leaving without you,” she attempted to stop her emotions from coming out, blanketing it with plain anger fuming at the thought she will leave him there. “It’s my choice, and I’ll protect you whether you like it or not.” More bullets distract their inconvenient argument, himself instinctively protecting her head.

“You’re so stubborn….” He mumbles at the thought, although he was a little irritated. The last thing he wanted was someone dying as collateral from something intended for him.

The bullets stop and more taunts ensue. He thinks of a way to get her out of here somehow as they’re quickly running out of options. If they make a run, one of them will get hurt. If they fight, one of them will get hurt. No one can win. If all wasn’t in their favor, they’ll both get hurt.

The men call him out again, and Minseo’s saving grace finally remembered in a burner phone in her pocket. She immediately sends a distress call to their location, alerting her own men to come to the signal. She didn’t know how long it would take, and she wanted to buy time. Any time.

“Looks like you have a friend there… if you don’t want her to get hurt, just come out now.”

The two look in silence, looking for confirmation. Something that would give them enough just to be able to at least escape: harmed or unharmed. The phone sit still, and they just wait.

“I’ll count to three, don’t make me come there …”

Wenhan was quick on his feet. She hisses a curse between her teeth and watching him with his hands up. Minseo’s trauma was brought up in her mind as it looked familiar before and she was planted where she was. She was unsure as to why she couldn’t move but the panic sets in when he follows their instructions to walk forward slowly. One step closer and they’ll capture him for good.

Damn it, Minseo, move—!

“Don’t do anything funny, little miss behind the containers..!”

don’t let him die…!

“If not, I’ll shoot Wenhan dead…~”

A decision that changes her immediate thought, Minseo could only wish that Wenhan would understand her intention. She loads the gun, coming out of her hiding spot by force and aims. The shot was fired almost instantly, and she fires another as warning for them—

Wenhan furrows his brows as excruciating pain slowly builds up by his side. He holds it, blood seeping through his clothes as he turns to look over his shoulder. Minseo’s face was apologetic, as he weakens and drops to the ground. He looks up in despair, letting the hurt consume him completely. All he could hear was a muffled scream from her, them surprisingly not approaching.

“Stop—!!!” Her gun raised against four men. “This was about him—” she croaks in desperation. “It’s over— “

Before they could respond, the timing was impeccable from her guards that more gunshots are heard. Each dropping like flies. They were immediately protected, with herself using her body with what she could cover of him. Wenhan’s vision begins to blur as he tries his best to stay awake. It was warm and he appreciated the contrast on his body from his cold hands and feet. She’s seen this before— it was reminiscent of her own son’s death. It finally sent her to shed tears seeing him in a painful state, shaking from the thought of actually killing him.

“You’re okay— I promise it’s not—“ deadly. Or so she hoped. she presses gently on his wound as he was being carried away. “I’m sorry— I’m sorry— “

He could only crack a smile in the car, hearing her in such high stress. Blood stained his mouth as she begged them to hurry. That was a good plan. A risky plan. To have them witness that he was dead, she could only assume they were sent by his father, to be sent back where he would surely die. The thought of creating new enemies was far beyond her mind, only wanting everything at the moment to be okay. A hand weekly holds on to where hers was, himself coughing up a chuckle.

“My head… is a little higher… you know….” his silly joke didn’t pierce through her emotional anguish, frowning upon hearing it. “…you said it… I’ll be okay….”

He couldn’t hear anything after that. He did feel rocking, as if he was being forced to wake up. It was Minseo frantically looking for anything to undo what was happening. The last he feels evidently was a cold rush of wind, and being laid down somewhere soft. It wasn’t too bright, and he could guess in his mind he probably wasn’t in a hospital.

-

It must’ve been ages until dawn.

“What happened there—?” her private doctor asks, looking over Wenhan who was finally stable after a couple of hours. It bothered her seeing him so lifeless. The man hands her the bullet she fired. “You would’ve hit an artery.”

It sent shivers down her spine, “We had a pact. Something like that. Thought I’d give it a test run...” She looks on, hoping the joke would’ve gave her some kind of sign he could hear her. “Anyway, thank you, I’ll send the money by tonight.”

The underground was not a forgiving world. Everyone was tossed and dealt with accordingly, with what resources you can offer. There’s personal vendettas to one another but she never actually thought she would be involved in someone else’s other than her own. The higher the rank, the more profitable, but also highest in danger. But once a pact is made, it’s until death.