midnight.

The entire time Aeon was talking and keeping a steady pace at his heels, Near had been scoping out the entry points of the building. Each mental note recorded to memory because the only ones who would manage to leave this area would be him and his partner. “Yeah, let’s just gas the whole place up and let them scatter out of the building. Yup, that makes sense and then let’s get our scopes out and shoot them all in the head without ever figuring out if they even have anything we can bring back with us that’s valuable. Yeah, great plan. I love it. Especially the part where we would have to wait for the gas to dissipate so we could go in and check things out for stuff that maybe could be in there because we didn’t bring gas masks with us. I love it. You really know how to make plans.” As distracted as Near appeared, his sarcasm didn’t skip a beat along with a ‘we’re not fucking doing that’ kind of look shown in Aeon’s direction.

“There are a total of 2 entrances and a fire escape. If we’re smart about this, we can still use the gas without gassing the whole place out. Look–” Near removes an IPAD out of his backpack and begins to draw the details of his thoughts onto the electronic device. “This is what we’re going to do. First, we block both entrances at the bottom of the building to make sure no one comes in or out of there and we gas the whole first floor.  Additionally, all the rooms in which they can escape through the fire escape also has to be gassed, forcing them to maintain locked down in the rooms in the front of the building. This closes them off from all areas they can escape.” He identifies these cutoffs with x’s in different places on the screen. “Once they’ve been gassed in, that’s when we get in through one of the windows. We’ll have a timer on our backs for how long we can interrogate them and ransack the place. I’ve got an extra pair of goggles in my backpack and some standard surgical masks. That’s the most protection I can supply us but it’s more than nothing at all. Think you can manage without killing all of us?”

“I could do without the sarcasm, Near.” He acts as if he’s dismissing his partner when in reality, he doesn’t know how to admit that he just wants to lock the whole place down and use his gas to paralyze, not kill. Okay, maybe kill along the way, too. Regardless, Near’s giving him an earful and Aeon’s getting a migraine, and he can faintly hear carefree conversation inside—he can’t wait to put an end to it. Unfortunately, Aeon has to stare at the iPad screen as his partner explains the plan, otherwise, he’d be halfway completed with the first floor before the man finishes his monologue. He hums, patting Near on the back and subsequently freeing the aforementioned goggles and masks from his backpack. “I’m gonna do so well you’ll question why you ever doubted me.” There’s a grin on his face, accompanied by his smug demeanor, as he readies his tools—including his small hand grenade, no bigger than a baseball, and hands it to his partner. “Have fun!” He playfully salutes Near as he runs off to the marked entrance on the opposite side of the building in effortless fashion.

tw: anxiety, drugs !

Ki snorts to himself at the stranger’s words. “Take your pick,” he replies, tone wry and a little bitter.

Just like everything else about tonight, it seems luck is decidedly not on Ki’s side, because he’s clearly been noticed by the other patron after all. It was a futile hope to wish otherwise, especially given Ki’s spot in the too-small bathroom. If it were more than the two of them in here, it’d feel just as claustrophobic as the packed dance floor outside that door.

Reluctantly, he lifts his head and tilts it back until it rests on the wall behind him, baring the sharp line of his long neck. He scrutinizes the stranger with lazy eyes narrowed to slits. His gaze tracks the man from head to toe before his brow furrows into a thoughtful frown.

“Have anything that might make it better?”

The question is off-handed, easily mistaken as a throwaway comment to anyone who wouldn’t catch Ki’s underlying meaning– but he’s desperate enough to take the edge off that he doesn’t think twice about asking. After all, at clubs like this it’s harder to find someone that isn’t pocketing a little something to enhance their night out on the town. If he can ever get his shit together and get back out on the floor he can probably find a dealer or two lurking about, but the thought of returning to the crowds outside still makes Ki’s stomach turn.

tw / depressing mention of mortality

The small man’s answer renders him speechless. After being isolated in his own thoughts for so long, and not expecting a response to his off-handed remark, he's found himself looking at his hands for assistance. They twitch as words circle their being—ranging from jest to downright cynical—however, hitting pause on his playback doesn't put his surefooted demeanor in better light. “Let's be optimistic, shall we, and say it's the latter—that way, it's just like any other day.” Bewilderment etches into his being as familiarity strengthens in every word he utters. Who is this referring to?

“fuck.” youngjae blurts out. his face seems to burn immediately after, his cheeks turn red and he mildly panics in silence, because he didn’t thought about that. of course, you stupid human being, of course he’s going to ask you about it when you mention that the place you work at doesn’t have any mirrors; he tells himself. “sorry, I didn’t mean to say that.” a nervous laugh leaves his lips and he tries to calm down a little bit. he probably needs to expose sungjae and himself now, there’s now way that he can make up another lie - technically, he didn’t lie about everything. he just didn’t mention what kind of dancing sungjae was doing - and what kind of dancing he had to do after his performances.

“uh-”  he stutters, unable to form the right words. “I don’t really want to..” he stops, coughs slightly and looks straight to the ground. it’s always hard to tell people where he works, because they assume that he’s doing it voluntarily.

“moonflower.” he blurts out, maybe a little bit too loud. his teeth sink in his bottom lip and he doesn’t dare to look at him, hopes that he doesn’t know what it is. “I’m- I-I’m not his boss!” he says, a little bit hastily, to make sure that the other male knows the truth.

It takes him a moment. Moonflower. The name encapsulates his thoughts with fervor as he stops right before the restaurant doors in contemplation — he doesn’t like not knowing. He’s aware of a nightclub called “Moonwalkers” since he’s frequented it in the past; it’s been a few weeks since, and he might go again in the coming month or so, but what’s this new place? Hyungwon puts the thought on hold for a minute as he reaches forward to finally open the doors; not wanting to leave the entrance preoccupied for other patrons to walk through and causing a scene. “Let’s head inside first,” he motions for the other to join him. “You can tell me all about it.” His voice is as soft and amiable as he can make it as he perches on top of the steps and waiting for a response. He doesn’t try to pretend like he knows the place, nor does he act like he can just brush off whatever being someone’s boss entails, but they weren’t going to get through this ordeal being embarrassed to talk about someone’s occupation. 

youngjae always had been a bad liar. when he was 16 and got his first hickey, he said that a cat bit him. the girl he got the hickey from had been indeed a little bit cat-like, but no cat could give you a blotch of that size. when he was 21 and made up a story of him studying something with biology - because that was at least something he was interested in - his parents didn’t even believe him slightly. he got nervous whenever he lied, tried to avoid the other person’s gaze - but the doctor didn’t seem to get that the things he was telling him weren’t exactly the truth.

“he is.” that’s the truth, youngjae has never felt that guilty in his life before, because he could’ve trained sungjae better. the poor boy’s hurt and its all youngjae’s fault, of course. his first striptease comes to his mind and he shudders, but is able to cover it up with adding a short “pretty cold for a summer night, isn’t it?” as they leave the building. he’s glad that the doctor didn’t choose an expensive restaurant, because that would mean meeting a lot of his clients. that’s the perk of being worth one million won per night, you don’t get to meet the people who rent you very often.

“please excuse my appearance, the last time I’ve seen a mirror was this morning. the place where I work at usually doesn’t have mirrors.” his apology is honest, he’s sure that the other male usually eats with people of higher standards. “also sorry if Aesop’s table wouldn’t be your usual place to eat at, but I really can’t afford more at the moment.” he sighs deeply and eyes him up for a few seconds,  before he faces the streets again.

How curt. He continues to wrestle with the importance of the patient, but that may just be the fault of his habitual refusal for emotional connections. Lessening the tension between his shoulders, he ambles along the sidewalk; taking the side nearest to the busy road, because he could somehow see Youngjae absentmindedly walking into traffic — at least, in his currently tired state, and he’s not ready to return to the hospital without some fuel first. “Yeah, Summer’s weird like that,” he lets himself say out loud with a nod to emphasize instead of keeping all his thoughts to himself — if someone was going to quote him, it might as well be something as mundane as the weather. “Thunderstorms, chilly nights, and the hottest days.” Hyungwon comments sourly while leading them passed a traffic light, a pitiful excuse of a hotel, and a couple of dirty strays. 

It’s been months since Ki’s had a night like this.

Crowds don’t usually bother him. If they did, he’d have a shit time getting by since he spends most nights working packed clubs and casinos– and Lynx isn’t in the business of beingunderstanding. If anything, he’d just find himself back on the streets working corners if he gave them too much trouble working the floors.

But there are some nights that just the thought of being touched makes Ki’s skin crawl.

Tonight is one of those nights.

He’s been on edge since long before he left his apartment to head into work. To make matters worse, he’s out of anything to take the edge off, and so he’s horribly sober. All it takes is the wrong patron brushing past him on their way to the bar and Ki’s suddenly finding it hard to breathe in the middle of the crowded club floor, feeling as if the people around him are pressing ever closer and the air in the room is beginning to thin.

Escaping to the bathroom offers only the smallest reprieve. The tiny bathroom may be filthy, the doors hanging off half the stalls and the mirrors broken and cracked, but at least it’s empty. There’s enough room for Ki to press his back to the wall and sink to the floor, to drop his forehead on his bent knees and focus on steadying his breaths.

Of course, the solitude doesn’t last long.

He doesn’t lift his head at the sound of the bathroom door swinging open or even the sink faucet groaning to life across from him. Maybe if he’s still, if he’s quiet, the other club goer will leave without ever taking notice of him.

The thought of going home right away doesn’t excite him; there’s nothing or no one waiting for him there, but neither is staying for longer and giving some more unsuspecting civilians a good time — that is, if being so high on pills you don’t even feel your own toes anymore, so far off the point that you can’t be bothered about it, can even be considered a good thing. But the people here don’t appear or act like they care. They look like this is their last night on Earth and want to make the most of it. If only it were true. He would happily give them that much more desirable outcome if it were under different circumstances. It’s an annoying thought, how careless he had been this entire night, that he replays in his head as a form of self-punishment while he motions towards the cut of wall he would normally find a washroom hand dryer, but is instead met with an empty paper towel dispenser and a disheveled young man in fetal position. 

working at a restaurant/bar ain’t the most glamourous of jobs – the crow’s nest is professional, yeah, and classified as a ‘family restaurant’, but come a certain time it ain’t really that family friendly. the bar becomes more popular, as does the dining section, but it’s a different kind of crowd and it’s a whole ‘nother set of orders. it ain’t parents with kids; it’s people who have backgrounds that have both been in the fucking sewers and prob through other shit that he’d take all night to list – he wouldn’t put it past some of them if they’ve also eaten shit too, and in the very literal sense. he ain’t gonna ever ask if it was on purpose or not, though – he ain’t want those images in his fucking head next he sees ‘em come in and as he’s serving ‘em their weekly choice of liquid poison. really, he’s seen his fair number of shitshows and ain’t want to willingly have another shoved into his memories.

with all of that as background then, it ain’t unusual for some weird things to go down at least once a night, when he’s working. yeah, people drink way too much and don’t fucking know their limits, and then puke everywhere and it’s a fucking gross-as pain to clean up. people also fall asleep, knock out, cause fights and shit – all sorts. the fights are less tolerated; the big ol’ boss (he ain’t really big, height-wise or weight-wise, but he’s the manager) doesn’t really stand for that kind of rubble, and even less when it endangers the staff.

he’s seen jihoon step in more than once in his time, and whew does he act without mercy. the smile he can have in his face ain’t really fooling him; jun knows there’s some sort of evil inside there that takes no shit.

but lately, the weird of kind shit that’s been happening ain’t seem right, and for some reason it’s only been to the customers at the bar. yeah, sure, people can choke every now and again because they don’t fucking know how to swallow like any other decent human being, but the girl he saw have a seizure wasn’t all that old. don’t only old people have that shit happen to them, ‘cause their brains stop working or something? he doesn’t know the specifics, but it just seemed a bit weird. still, it didn’t stop him from still doing his job. he’s one of the two bartenders on tonight, and is over on the other side finishing up a refill of ice cubes for the bucket, when he hears a patron calling him over. making sure to fix a small smile onto his face, he straightens and heads over, unassuming of anything about the man he’s about to serve.

“yes, sir? what can i fix up for ya tonight?”

One, two, three, four, he counts with fervor at his handiwork. Two have already gone into the stages of typical alcohol poisoning — paling, vomiting, irregular breathing — and one is expected to have a seizure at any moment now, if he can find where they’ve gone off to that is, because he would definitely love to watch their bodies arc and their struggle for help and understanding of their dire situations. One would think an emergency room doctor would be able to keep track of moving bodies, but it’s normally much brighter in those situations, and he really doesn’t want to save anybody tonight; much less if he were the cause of it, because of course he knows how to stop the pain and sixty-percent chance of death. At that, he thinks he should make it more lethal at some point, but he’s having too much fun witnessing the suffrage. Shame. 

sometimes, jaehyun wasn’t sure why he was send to deal with nut jobs. he was more than aware that there were mad scientist’s on this island, but something really made him wish he didn’t have to always get information from the bookworms. he was never book smart, don’t get him wrong, but he was always above average when it came to school. even if he only ever managed to graduate middle school, because life had other plans for him.

however, a job was a job and even if he felt slightly uneasy, he pushed those thoughts away and finally unlocked the door of the apartment. he hated using hair pins to get through, but you gotta do what you gotta do. jaehyun makes his way through the flat, quickly examining the place and finally, he reaches the room where he expects the other would be. he’s heard things about his target, that people called him aeon, whatever the fuck that was supposed to mean. and like always, he just opens the door, as if he lived there, slow and steady, his free hand already pulling the gun out from his best and he inhales.

“don’t move and i don’t shoot.“ crown says simply once the door is fully opened and the gun is pointing at his target. once he is sure that everything was going to go smoothly, he closed teh door behind him and took a few steps towards aeon “turn slowly, come on, don’t got all day with you.“ he explains, pulling out the cuffs from the pocket of his hoodie, letting them freely make noise in the quiet room. he just wanted to get this over with, as soon as possible. afterall, jaehyun had always been a simple person.

It’s a little unnerving now that he’s seeing the liquid simmer; freely and without deadline, which isn’t atypical of his other substances when he’s messing around with his otherwise harmless chemicals untouched, but the slight change in color does concern him. Hyungwon looks for something that can cap the tube for the same reasons one covers a blender — the skin of a tree bark of some sorts. Is it called a cork? He’s shifting through his cabinets for it, quickly finding and placing the small cork into his equally as such transparent tool, which he assumes will keep it from going anywhere for awhile. It looks safe to him now, all covered, clean, and organized, if you disregard the messily placed notes and writing, and he’s ready for a late meal; maybe a quiche since he’s not touching the stove after his burn, but he doesn’t seem to get too far from his desk when the door widens and an unrecognizable voice sounds through the otherwise silent room; or what he would normally call his sanctuary of a home-laboratory. The gun’s pointing right at him, but he doesn’t even bother to raise his hands in surrender or call for peace, being in a similar situation a couple times before, but they were usually to demand for his stash and leave; unless they were trigger happy, of course. But this one seems to have other plans, so his otherwise slumped shoulders tenses instead.

Though the air was tight and constricting; muddy with humidity and the stench of fire and blood,  Minhyuk had felt icy cold right down to his weeping, bloodied knuckles. In here it reeks of antiseptic and death, always. It was a place with blinding florescence and thick yellow tubs consistently filled with bleach and citrus wood polish for the floors. It made him sick, all of it. He’d rather that this not be the last thing he saw in the last moments of his life, young or decrepit.  He listens though, - waits in the room with others who were terrorized from the riot after showing his ID and paying the fee like the rest of them, tasting only sweat on his tongue, and failing to find the energy to speak too much–,  or empathize with people whining and tossing in their hard plastic seats. Minhyuk hadn’t felt it, the weight of concern to add to his injuries,– he felt instead, jealousy, he was beside himself with it, drowning in it to his eyeballs. He always wanted to be loved as much as this.  

‘Lee Minhyuk,’  when she calls him, he doesn’t hear them the first time, it’s loud and the nurse’s voice is too gentle to compete. He hears her the second time though when she raises her voice, and he stumbles to meet her at the automatic double doors. She crosses off his name on her clipboard, hides her expression behind it as she leads him to the room he’d meet the doctor in. He wonders, what kind of scenario she makes up in her mind when she looks at him. He’s not wearing his mask, his hood or his gloves, he’s just Minhyuk and Minhyuk holds kindness, warmth and sweet honey in his eyes, but Luck, his gaze was too much like rum, dark rivets of color with a sweltering auburn tint that only meant to suffocate their captor. But she’s gone too quickly, and he’s left with a box of a room and a young dejected doctor already surveying him, head to toe.

He settles down on the tissue paper laden bed, having refused any help–he’s got pride, feeling in his legs, he could sit on his own dammit. The first question, to him, felt redundant. His veins were rapid and angry, pulsing with the need to heal too many wounds at once,–and there was too much demand to quench the thirst of agony that shredded through his muscle and bone. Maybe some of the ache he had felt was buried in fear. Fear of hospitals, emergency rooms, or of gurneys, fear of eyes like his so used to witnessing death, that what was left was only some faint recognition of how to delay the inevitable, not heal the damage done. Maybe it was in paranoia–yeah, a boiling paranoia that crawled acid hot under his skin and left purpled lacerations around his throat, and jagged, crescents down his forearms. Maybe it was just simply ache, marginalized, neat and recognizable, could be defined as easily as pen or paper. If he had to pick, compartmentalize his suffering, Minhyuk was only sure that the most pain he felt right now, wasn’t in his head,  heart, or the half his right side but in his left shoulder, and the way despite his attempt at relocating it, didn’t allow him the use of his hand and only throbbed, continuously and ran that pain up his neck, across his earlobes and back again. “My arm,” he tries, offers a laugh when his voice comes out hoarse, cracked and rough around the edges.

“When i was attacked, i-i threw out my arm, i guesss,” he shifts on the paper, feeling himself slip but it doesn’t help him any and he tumbles down from it,–hits the floor like the gravity was stolen right from underneath him. In protecting his hurt arm, he lands on his right one, but he doesn’t make a sound–blackness eating at the edge of his vision. He can only see those long legs, and stupid ugly shoes in front of him. “‘m okay,” he mutters under his breath, swallowing what feels like water in his throat, but tastes too much like nickel, of copper pennies and heartbreak. He coughs, finally, gasps like he’s starved of air-  it hurts, it really fucking hurts.  

Individually, everything is doable — the throbbing bruises on his neck that Hyungwon desperately wants to ask about, the blood on his hands that looks and feels dried yet he keeps finding more in other places of his defeated state, and the absence of space awareness as he falls over the bed. Idiot. “Did you hurt your right arm, too?” He asks with a raised brow; clearly unimpressed with the turn of events. Straightening the patient is harder on him due to his lack of physical prowess, but the nurses have it covered. Looking around after he’s offered an inconspicuous tablet of relief to the bedded man, he comes to the realization that one of the nurses has completely left the curtained space without his knowledge, having already cleaned the patient’s arms in his wake, and the other two are teetering on the edge; deciding whether to finish the job or go help the onslaught of wrecked bodies. Just go. He thinks with miffed features, borderline glaring, yet his thoughts seem to have voiced out as their backs become mere memories. 

does he have a preference? well, he usually ends up ordering food for dinner. he’s not that good at cooking ( even though his mother made him visit a cooking class when he was 13 ) and the only thing he’s able to do are pancakes and kimchi, something he doesn’t want to eat every day. “I’m fine with everything, to be honest, I don’t eat at restaurants very often.. I suggest that you choose a place. but something a normal mortal is able to pay for.” he smiles softly, he knows that the hospital food is horrible and he hopes for the doctor that he doesn’t have to eat here very often.

“Uh, no? I mean, Aesop’s Tables perfectly fine, but I don’t want you to pay for it.” he nods softly and clutches the fabric of his pullover between his fingers for a split second. he always feels bad when other’s pay for his food, he wants other people to spend as less money on him as possible, because he wants to get rid of the feeling of getting payed for being alive, for his body.

he feels unpretentious next to the well dressed doctor, a little bit as if he’s at the wrong place. his clothes look so perfect on him and then there’s youngjae, the wallflower. one person who just completed their shift as doctor and the other person who just came from the red-light district, two worlds meeting each other.

“I’m perfectly fine, as I said, just a little tired from working, even though it was the early shift.” it’s true, he wouldn’t have been home until five in the morning if he did the late shift, too - as usual. “Why? do I look like I’m not?”

Dismissal. 

There’s nothing wrong with that; it’s commonplace for him regardless of the situation. Aesop’s Tables seems to be the type of place where locals would go for affordable yet good food, he wants to say, but refrains. He’s never actually been there before after all; never had a proper reason to without any company. Reflecting, he thinks that his intentions were innocent enough — simply trying to make the situation better, somehow, by treating the other to some decent food — but maybe he just made it worse. Don’t overcompensate. Noted. He’s not exactly the type to make counterarguments anyway, so he hums in response as he steps into the elevator and presses the G button for the lobby and returns to an impassive expression since his friendly act clearly wasn’t working.

“You look worn out,” he says without filter; glancing from the buttons to the other. “The patient must be worth the sleep you’re missing out on.” Hyungwon’s already forgotten the kid’s name without his clipboard to aid him. Nonetheless, he doesn’t see the merit in waiting for someone to wake up, especially since the patient was going to recover and go back to whatever dancing he was going to do in a few weeks. Take care of yourself first. He checks his watch, finding that they have a couple hours before the restaurant closes, as the doors slide open and reveals an emptier-looking spanse compared to sometime this morning. 

“any fool can know. the point is to understand.”