花樣年華

The fire alarm is shrill and seemingly perpetual in its shrieking pattern as it drills into your head with each blaring reiteration. The halls and rooms are echoing with the sound to alert the inhabitants of what they already know—the structure is starting to go up in flames with the source of the disaster well below the level you are currently on but advancing its spread with persisting speed.

You’re running down the stairwell of the building, moving as quick as you can to see if there is still a chance to escape. Even if there isn’t, there’s no way you’re going to stay in your room and accept the charred fate that awaits you. Ignoring the restriction of movement in your arm and the searing pain that overwhelms your back from the brash stress you’re putting on it, you keep a steady and brisk pace down the seemingly unending steps.

Until, you can’t go any further.

You freeze at the top of another flight of stairs as you were just about to get ready to conquer it. At the bottom, the fire is now clearly visible, and the heat emanating from it is so blisteringly strong, it feels as if your skin will start boiling if you go any closer. The embers lick dangerously under your feet, and the smoke not only proliferates from the lower floors to obscure the rest of the path you were planning to take, but the suffocating fog ascends in billows to scorch your lungs, eyes, and everything in between.

If the conditions are this bad when you’ve barely made it to the fourth floor, then it’s a guarantee that your exit route must be overtaken with flames, seeing how the building is burning from the bottom up. The threat is drawing nearer with each passing second, which effectively wipes any idea you had in your mind that this could be a viable path to take.

Turning back around, you begin a sprint up the same stairs you rushed down on, hoping that your legs won’t give out on you in this more difficult trek to your new destination. Since you can’t even dream of going to the ground floor, the only place you can go now is up. There’s no need to stop and take a peek over your shoulder to check the status below, because you’re fairly sure that the fire and smoke are rapidly advancing.

You can feel it.

Once you reach the top of the very last set of stairs, you’re met with an exit that is labeled “roof access” in bold, red letters. You throw yourself onto the metal bar and shove the door open, not stopping your winding feet until you reach another roadblock: the edge.

Above your head, the sky is nothing but a murky shroud, but below, you are able to see the hellish illumination of the fire that has already devoured half of the structure. You strain your eyes to look beyond the smog and sparks, and when you focus on the ground near the sidewalk, you detect numerous dim figures you can only assume are onlookers of the spectacle. It definitely looks to be a long way down with nothing to break the fall but the unforgiving pavement.

Remarkably, that doesn’t stop the people trapped inside the building.

Movement coming from the upper levels catches your attention, and when you try to discern what it is, your vision follows the descending shadows as they fall out of the windows and make their way towards the cement. Judging by the rate at which they are dropping, you can easily distinguish that those forms aren’t just papers or objects from the offices floating through the wind. Bodies are flying out of even the tenth floor windows, plummeting down with increasing velocity until they crash onto the unrelenting surface with sickening splits and splatters. Everyone is desperate to escape this burgeoning inferno, and you can’t say that you’re too far behind the tipping point yourself.

Actually, you’re about a step away from it.

Staring down at the scene below, you can determine that while the threat is coming ever closer, there are no other escape routes available for you to choose from. There are only two options: you can either stay here until the building burns up or collapses beneath you, which could be any minute now, or you can jump off and join the rest of the agents who took the leap of faith. Maybe you’ll be able to get away with your life in exchange for broken legs if you position your landing correctly, as slim of a chance it may be.

You take a deep breath, immediately regretting it as you inhale a lungful of the all-too-familiar fumes of ash and carbon. Your time is running out, and you know that there’s only one thing left to do.

Wake up.

You jolt awake with a start, your eyes shooting open to meet the same insipid ceiling from your previous awakening, except this time, it’s eclipsed by a looming shadow above you. Your first reaction is to lunge up from your bed, reach out for a nearby item to protect yourself with, do something so you can ensure your safety and stability, but you can’t move.

That’s when you realize that someone is hovering over you, clamping your wrists and shoulders down in an attempt to hold you down. Since flight is not an option, you start to kick into fight mode, but when your frantic eyes land on the face of your supposed assailant, the tension relaxes from your body in a wave of relief.

“Sorry,” Namjoon says, slowly releasing his grip and straightening himself up from the leaning position. “I thought it would be best to wake you.”

Your heart is still racing from the residual adrenaline pumping through your veins from the unpleasant awakening and even more unpleasant dream, but you start to steady your breathing after grasping an understanding of the circumstances. At least he took caution to restrain you before attempting to wake you. It seems as though he has learned from the mistake he made last time—of course, the nasty bruise and near concussion probably served as a lesson he wouldn’t forget anytime soon.

“Why are you here?” you question, subtly trying to move past the embarrassment of having to be woken up like a child who was acting out because of a nightmare.

“To tell you that you’ve been discharged,” he states as he watches you prop yourself upright on the bed. “You can leave whenever you’d like as long as you stay on the other side of the Han. I was just about to head back to HQ, so I wanted to stop by and see if you were up yet.”

“I’m up now,” you begrudgingly declare. You rub your eyes of whatever remnants of sleep are still leftover and push the sheets off of you. “I’ll be out in 10.”

“Take your time.”

Namjoon leaves with a click of the door, leaving you to your own devices. You take this time to release a well-needed sigh in appreciation for your body and mind finally calming down. It’s much too early to be in inner turmoil right now, but apparently your brain thought otherwise and felt the need to grace you with the highly unnecessary and unwelcomed dream.

You couldn’t fall asleep for the longest time last night, and it was only when you could almost perceive the first rays of the morning sun brightening the dark blue sky that you managed to slip into a slumber.

Evidently, that didn’t last long.

Even though the couple winks you were able to squeeze in leaves you feeling wearier than ever, you still can’t relinquish the chance to get up and leave this stuffy room, even if it’s just to return to the comfort of your own bed. You keep that thought in mind as you go to change out of your hospital garments, but you having a strong feeling that it’s going to be a long while until you have the pleasure of getting some real rest.

As you pull out of the parking garage, you brace yourself to face something similar to a warzone, but much to your surprise, things are completely and utterly normal. With the flow of the traffic and the stream of pedestrians filling the streets, everything is business as usual, almost as if a violent crime didn’t just take place in the heart of Seoul yesterday. It could be because you’re heading back to Gangnam, which is on the opposite side of the Yongsan office from the crime scene, but nevertheless, is seems as though the city is an unstoppable, well-oiled machine.

That is, until you step foot into Kim Daily.

On most days, it’s the upper levels of the 54-story structure, the quarters where the assassins spend the majority of their time, that are bustling with activity, but today, the lower precincts where the news company works its journalism magic are just as busy, if not more so, as the rest of the building’s denizens.

You have grown to admire their hard work and their ability to stay on top of things, because among the many powerful resources Mr. Shin possesses, this news company is one that proves to be most reliable time and time again.

It has not even been a full 24 hours since the incident occurred, yet it seems like the situation is well on its way towards being resolved. The whole of yesterday was dedicated to revising the print for this morning’s paper and filling the online news platform with all the necessary information that needed to be distributed to the general public.

The big headline doesn’t include the gritty details of the violent turn of events that you would usually find on cover stories such as these. There’s nothing specific about the one dead and nine injured, numbers that are blown up with prominence on other news outlets, nor are there profiles of the shooter and his associates, a decision no doubt to keep your identities safe.

Instead, the main emphasis is on reform—how we will recover from this tragic event and the steps we need to take in order to prevent it from happening again in the future. It’s an extremely well-written, convincing, and thrilling exposé on the nation’s gun control regulations that most definitely will leave readers nodding their heads in agreement or at least scratching their chins in contemplation.

On top of that, quite literally, is Mayor Moon’s face plastered on every front page. The photo is not taken from the press conference that transpired yesterday, despite it being fitting for the article, but instead, it’s one of his more professional shots that you would spot on posters for his campaign tour. The Mayor of Seoul looks like a jolly man with thin-rimmed oval glasses, neatly-combed black hair, and a smile that ironically brings out the prominent frown lines on his forehead.

Within the exposé, quotes from the press conference concerning the attack at Seoul Plaza have been included. Mayor Moon responded to the early criticisms and vowed to do everything in his power to make the city safe again. To win over the public even more, he also discussed his proposition of restricting firearms to a greater extent by requiring GPS tracking of all guns that are in circulation from now on.

Between this incident and what happened in Sejong earlier this year, you have a good hunch that the new regulations will be put into full effect soon enough.

It’s all good in theory, but you know that there’s no way that a law like that will reign legitimately, at least not for you guys. If anything, it’ll just become that much easier to monitor the authorities and any other low-class criminals who are unlucky and ignorant enough to carry around bugged weapons.

Come what may, Mr. Shin is managing to make the best out of a situation that could have gone terribly wrong and should have had no upsides whatsoever. You thought it would certainly take more of a strenuous effort to bury things and cut all loose ends; shootings in Seoul are exceptionally rare, and even for a man of his capabilities, you were sure it was going to be difficult to sweep under the rug and cover up. Not only is he doing exactly that though, but he is also helping to paint Mayor Moon in a better light, fruitfully furthering the solidity of both of their positions.

A true win-win scenario.

By the end of the scramble, you stand corrected, having taken your boss’s professional prowess too lightly. Mr. Shin has been running the game for decades now, so you doubt that this is the worst thing that he has witnessed during his lifetime. It was foolish of you to think that any other undesirable outcome would have spawned from this situation.

In the following days, it seems as though the shooting and the subsequent proceedings that occurred afterwards are all that is being broadcasted and covered by news companies and major media sites alike. It’s all that comes up on the TV at the apartment when you have time to turn it on, which you do have plenty of recently as the assassins have been told to put down their guns and knives and lay low until things get concluded with ink strokes and keyboard clicks.

It’s times like these where the pen is, in fact, mightier than the sword.

“I am here to confirm that we have successfully captured the offender and have taken him into custody.”

An astute voice leaks through the speakers as you watch the announcement on screen. Cameras are flashing and shuttering at amazing rates, but that doesn’t seem to faze the Police Chief, Cho Ryeowoon. This uniformed man of experience has a rigid stance and hardened facial expression that makes him appear almost immune to the commotion around him. He’s standing behind the podium to carry out a simple task, one that will hopefully be the bow that wraps up this entire case.

“Everyone can rest assured that the streets are safe. With the recent mandates that have been passed, there is no need to worry about something like this happening again.” Sure enough, it only took a span of a few days for the gun control regulations to be imposed. Chief Cho’s guarantees sound so matter-of-factly, and you’re impressed by his ability to turn such a dubious subject into a highly persuasive speech. “As for the culprit, I think I speak on behalf of everyone when I say that it is only right that he be brought to justice—and you have my word that he will.”

After a few seconds, a picture of the alleged criminal is pulled up onto the screen by the broadcasting station. The man in the photo is not Jungkook in any way shape or form, but since the CCTV footage of the actual wrongdoer was never released to the public, the viewing citizens will be none the wiser. Even those who were physically present won’t be able to say a word otherwise, because with a beanie and a mask, any male with the same build and basic traits can probably pass as Jungkook.

You can’t help but wonder who the poor sap going under the guillotine is, but you guess it doesn’t hold significance. If it did matter, he wouldn’t be where he is right now, taking the blame for your teammate’s actions for the sake of your organization and its allies. Besides, if you know anything about the organization, it’s almost guaranteed that the man did something foul for him to be placed on the hot seat like that—this is just a slightly less practical way of getting him where he needs to be.

Truthfully, you’re pleased that this is being covered up so competently. None of you need the stress of the aftermath weighing down on you, especially not on top of all the other baggage you have to carry. It’s a bit selfish to say the least, but being in the position that you guys are in, it can’t be helped.

It’s merely self-preservation.

Since the effort to recover from the close call went better than you could have hoped for, especially after the “culprit” was captured, the status of the organization returned back to normal in record time. Following suit, your stitches were taken out after about a week of having received them, and by now, the wound is no longer hindering your movement and performance.

The situation seems to have blown over in the blink of an eye, but on the contrary, those few days of unemployment were arduous for the business. While you were all preoccupied with the large-scale affair, it was not quite as impacting to the rest of the city’s population who weren’t directly affected by it. Even in the madness of everything that happened regarding the wanted man, clients were not holding off on placing orders and requests, so to act in accordance, the organization accepted them like they always did.

This is a business, after all, and these are your jobs—your livings. Everything else was continuing on with its fixed pace after acknowledging what has passed, and you guys couldn’t afford to be bumming around for any longer when there were contracts to be signed and orders to be fulfilled. Especially after the news broke that the organization had quite possibly been infiltrated by a mole, not another minute can go to waste.

Just like that, life goes on.

Jungkook was transported back to headquarters shortly after you returned, and yet, even as the days go on, you don’t catch so much as a glimpse of him.

It’s rather strange if you think about it. There are many times when both you and Jungkook are busy with your own assignments, and during those periods, days or even weeks can go by until you two see each other again. Currently, it has only been a little over a week, but these are not the same circumstances. It’s a completely different story because you know that he is in the same building as you, conversing with the same people as you, probably even eating the same food as you, but he himself is choosing to keep you distant and away.

You hate this feeling that is planted within you, growing each day that it’s left neglected like intrusive vines that spread through every fiber of your being. You wish that you could at least apologize in person or even see with your own two eyes that he’s really okay, but so far, you haven’t been given a chance to clear up the mess.

Some of the others are doing their best to keep you in the know, so when they relay to you that his condition is progressing well, you have no choice but to take their word for it. He’s apparently healing up quite speedily—to your liberation, there are no persisting damages from the bullet wound—but you didn’t expect any less from Jungkook. Sometimes, you seriously believe he’s just built in a different way from most people in this world.

From what Jin has graciously taken the time to tell you, Jungkook has been put under special care until he is completely healed. You’re grateful for your supervisor, because even scraps of information such as this is not necessarily mandatory to divulge to the rest of the team. Perhaps he’s so attentive at informing you because he feels guilty about the whole exchange at the Yongsan corridor. Even if that’s not the case, Jin does tend to have a bit of soft spot for you—Lord knows you’ve been softening him up by poking and prodding him for details since the dawn of time. It’s not that you take advantage of this fact at all, but more often than not, you are able to coax something useful out of him.

This is one of those times.

It became clear to you that this “special care” wasn’t just to track the superficial injuries Jungkook sustained once Jin uttered that single word, one that you realized was the true reason for the elongated recovery time and temporary removal from the team.

Therapy.

Yes, assassin therapy is not only a thing, but a quintessential aspect of the system. Just as important as physical health, if not more, mental health is dealt with the utmost care, precision, and promptitude.

The organization holds monthly evaluations for all members working within it, and among the several tests is a mental state check, one of the practices in which everyone’s psyche is measured and monitored. These examinations are tedious at times, but they are essential not only for curing anomalies but for preventing those imbalances from happening in the first place, and the consequences of deciding to omit this facet of the assessment are far too high. The officials and even other members need to know that the inner workings of an operative are not abnormal or unstable in any way before setting them out into the field with the potential to inflict adverse harm and wreak havoc.

Furthermore, this arrangement proves to be amply effective.

There have been a few instances where you have heard of assassins being pulled from their roles on the team, almost always at the end of the month and with minimal repercussions. There was only one deviant from this otherwise efficacious procedure you remember hearing whispers about that concerned a particular agent whose primary job was interrogation—just like Jimin. His personal methods, however, became too eccentric, even for the organization’s tastes.

To put it bluntly, he was discovered to have been cutting off and eating the hostage’s fingers in order to force them to comply.

Admittedly, it was an effective torture technique—there’s really nothing like watching someone eat your own body parts in front of you—but unsurprisingly, it didn’t go over well with the higher-ups, or anyone else for that matter. Shortly after he was caught—it didn’t take long after the initial episode—the agent was removed from his post before he could go off the deep end, as if that line hadn’t already been crossed.

This entire screening process is in no way a perfect one, but without its implementation, the organization could very well have seen greater calamity or even collapse by now.

Jungkook’s behavior certainly raised some red flags with the company officers, and while you can argue that it’s not nearly as bad as Mr. Finger Fetish, you have to agree with the call for rehabilitation that they made. It still gives you shudders when your mind travels back to ponder what kind of mentality Jungkook held in that moment that drove him to go through with his erratic actions. It makes you wonder if you should have paid more attention to the signs that led up to that point.

No, you were well aware of them—you just didn’t act upon them.

You figure that it’s no use in making yourself feel worse than you already have been feeling all week. Now that the problem has been uncovered, the focus now is to make sure that it’s extinguished and won’t be rekindled again. You’re relieved that he’s undergoing the proper treatment he needs, and thankfully, everyone’s extremities are still intact.

Plus, you know Jungkook will make it through to the other side better than ever.

All of you are a little broken in your own way, whether you’ve been bent and twisted or torn and frayed. There is not one person among you who doesn’t struggle with your own self, because regardless of if you like it or not, residing inside every single one of you is the good, the bad, and the ugly. Not only do you learn to live with this reality early on, but you are taught to overcome it and manipulate it to your advantage.

Human emotions are such frail constructs to begin with, but even with what could easily be considered weaknesses, you’re trained to hone them—control, not erase. You are to amplify them when the situation calls for it and to suppress them when they run the risk of getting in the way, but you are never to dispose of them.

In spite of everything, you are human, and they are what make you so.

You can only attempt to hold something in for so long until you explode; it might not always be the cannibalism route, but an eruption is imminent. There have been plenty of instances of this happening—examples, if you will—with the orphans and assassins before you, displayed in the various ways they fought with themselves, whether they couldn’t pull the trigger or they pointed the gun at themselves.

The organization allocated the time and effort to refine their training and selection program so that the possibility of those outcomes has been reduced to the lowest prospect, but even so, they did not resort to producing mindless drones. You are all still your own individual person with innate strengths and weaknesses, the former being polished and the latter being purged.

In Jungkook’s case, he is currently in the process of having his faults expelled, and in harmony with that, you need to make sure that your strengths have been toughened after the experiences you overcame. You can look at it like he is working on his own mission at the moment, so the only thing left for the rest of you to do is continue on your own missions as always.