TW: Mature themes, death, violence, blood, all that jazz. Read at your own discretion.
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It is said death with the tongue is useful, but I find words too soft an instrument to smash a man’s skull. And tongues useless.
[August 29, 2023, location: confidential]
The basement is a fleeting nightmare you enter with your conscience and cognition far detached from yourself. And as you ascend to the surface again, everything you've seen and heard below, unless significant in any way above, stays behind on the backdoor's threshold. These were the rules for as long as Kijun could remember, an onslaught of repeated relays to you in the car on the way; and really, of such importance they were that everyone who dared come and go here were adamant on the notion of colouring within the lines of this rule. At least if you wanted to keep your head.
Valuing his sleep and sanity, Kijun never dared bring even a toe overline and nevertheless, he couldn't ever truly get accustomed with the unseeing nor the forgetting. But coming here had sometimes been a necessary part of his job as a mediator, and given how seriously he took mediating, he'd eventually taught himself brute force and found enjoyment within the process of tricking his mind with the pleasure of pulling teeth. Thus forcing himself apart from lesser men that cowered, while mitigating some the guilt that often came with memories and dreams.
This they called bravery or balls, and said that if you did it enough times a numb void would become of your heart, as his did—a silence that he could never return noise to again. It grew like a tumor, held his heart hostage and made his work easy, much like a basement in and of itself, for many years of reflex. But for how long could the heart remain obscured and content in the dark?
Car tires come to a screeching stop in front of a plain-looking duplex residence, unobtrusively sitting between two others alike and in an alley so narrow it can only fit one car at a time. Behind the veil of tinted windows, it appears as some sort of anomalous, jagged figure bled into reality by helter-skelter shadows and the sun. Off it wafts the unease of staring into a void you can sense is bottomless. Yet that's all it takes—one glance as a flicker of the switch inside Kijun's heart. It retreats into the darkness with one final warning from the driver, before the car door unlocks for his emptied ribcage.
Expectedly, Yunho is the first to greet him on the way in through the backdoor, which extends to a naturally lit alcove preceding one of the empty living areas. As it is outside, the abode's pale bowels are cold and barren as a wasteland; made in plain sight that this was, after all, not a home made for living. After all these years, eerily, it hasn't changed.
"Glad you decided to show up, kid, even though you're recovering. Didn't sound like you would over the phone back then."
"Sure. Is it just us?" Asks Kijun blandly, as he tightens his signature leather jacket around himself and discards the memory of his initial hesitance. And drawing the blade tucked against his ribcage that much more within reach.
Yunho, perpetually amused and properly clad in his formal suit, extends an arm within the general direction of the basement's entrance somewhere down the right hall. "Everyone else's downstairs."
Lead by his stare alone, Kijun follows.
Two men are on standby on each side of the doorframe, and the two bow with a fleeting stiffness when they approach, their neat black suits creasing and dimpling through the motion. Used to gang formalities, Kijun keeps his head up and his scowl tightly chained across his features, his guard so high it heats his blood and draws pinpricks up to the back of his neck. Neither of them return the favour on the way in.
Soon to be discoverd below is what Yunho meant by everyone, being just the two of them and the other men that belonged here in the undigestible stiffness of the basement, rendered to inconsequential heaps by lack of light—at least for now. There are precisely two of them as well, suspended upside down on thick ropes and stagnant time by their ankles, tied wrists reaching for the floor. Like slaughter hung up to dry.
When Yunho flickers on the basement lights, irrefutable proof of days spent without a meal or much water lay palpable between concave abdomens and protruding ribs. Bruises and dried blood tell tales of long and painful beatings on either side.
The one on the far left is slightly larger, his fingers seeming to have grown swollen and purple with shatter and then neglect. Kijun, who's completely unphased by the tableau in front of him, wonders if the broken bones were a just punishment administered after an attempt at escaping. Remembers how often it had to be done before—how many times he'd partaken in the beatings himself.
After all, if given the chance, dogs on tight leashes often bite their way to freedom.
Noticing Kijun's fixed stare, Yunho chimes in from the side, "That one on the left'd almost killed you last week," He says, "But this one's your guy. Caught him sneakin' around the club on Sunday and apparently, he knows plenty. Here—"
A bucket of water Kijun knows is ice-cold immediately follows the smooth voice pouring over his shoulder, which is almost caught amidst the sudden deluge were it not for his reflexes. The water splashes as intended onto the target body hanging on the room's right, resurrecting him from a deathly stillness with some seconds of vigorous floundering. He's alive.
This is Kim Woosik, Yunho had informed Kijun on the phone earlier in the week, while extending his invitation to this questioning. Woosik'd been working undercover as a messenger for the Green Gang leader for a while, recovering and buying information from accomplices working in the club. Their job this morning was to find out just how much he knew, and who, exactly, it was that told. If there was one thing Kijun was good at, it was carving out rats with only his tongue. Then his knife.
"Kim Woosik," Kijun calls out as he finally tunes into his other self, merciless and unforgiving if he'd ever seen it. The heavy bass in his tone passes and reverberates across the damp walls and limbs with a commandeering urgency, Woosik immediately stopping his squirming to listen as he no doubt hears nearing footsteps in the echoes, then feels Kijun's presence when he crouches down by his head.
In this moment, everything happening outside the two of them ceases to exist, Yunho's lighthearted warning not to break him too soon falling upon deafened ears. This place was made for breaking, and breaking alone.
Kijun rips the soaked sack off Woosik's head to begin, and—briefly freezes. Met with two eyes he instantly recognizes, all bloodshot and reflecting shock and the vivid memory of mourning staring back up at him, Kijun feels icy blood and dread rushing up to the back of his skull. Has to quickly war confusion off his brows by aggressively ripping the piece of duct tape off Woosik's mouth. The latter screams as his dry lips split red, alive. He should be dead. I saw you die.
"Who the fuck are you?" Demands Kijun from the ghost turned rat, overtaken by a surge fury so profound it tears and shreds through him thoroughly enough to quickly become all he can feel.
But nonetheless, Woosik smiles a dangerous smile, like he knew all along that this day would come. Spits blood and teeth at Kijun and earns himself a square punch in the face—the sheer force of that singular blow so hard it cracks and skews Woosik's nose completely. It also throws him off balance, erratically swaying on the rope as the walls reflect broken moans and convulsions that can't be muffled by hands. Neither should they exist today, to begin with.
Kijun figures he'd question Yunho later in favour of satisfying his current rage instead. Grips onto Woosik's hair hard enough to sting the scalp bloody, too, and spits, "You fuckin' traitor."
"You fuckin' idiots. Yeah, it's me." Woosik chokes on every syllable he can't grind out without hurting himself, tongue too large in his mouth in this position and agony. But his eyes—oh, how the fire never falters. "Y'thought I'd ac'ually go and die for that greedy fuckin' bastard y'call a boss? Fuck 'ou— I'd rather be a traitor than a fuckin' dead on this turf."
A violent silence ensues at this, lasting only a few laboured breaths from the hanging men, but enough for everyone to feel it's onslaught ten times over. Kijun stands with it, shoving the head in his grip away from him with harsh dismissal. Takes a few extra moments thereafter to produce a smoke from his pocket and light it up, then another, for him to gather some manner of composure back into his voice, in spite of the fires that are laying waste to his insides. Blood, fresh from his split lip soaks into the circumference of the cigarette.
He stars over, while effortless, long strides bring him around this Woosik far too quickly for the other to keep up with, "So, that's why you decided to fake your own death to get out? Just so you could go die for another greedy fuckin' bastard? S'that it, Jung Hyungmin?"
The name tastes filthy and bitter on his tongue; not because he cared that much about Hyungmin's loyalty. Until this day, Jung Hyungmin was supposed to be simply a good friend from the past; someone Kijun had known well since they were seventeen and nineteen. And most importantly of all, he was supposed to be dead. Yet no matter how hard Kijun tried and tried again, life then knocked on his door and proved itself a force he could only bend when it came to his own death.
He had wondered what Yunho meant when he'd said on call, nowadays, we can't even trust death to do it's job. Now he knows; the explanation being a bloodied nose, ugly stabbing scars Kijun recalls stitching openly stretching across the length of his spine and abdomen, and a snake tattoo etched into his inner bicep. Green Gang.
"Yes, Kijun. Y'd be surprised t'know how many have done the same shit. People get sick of bein' manipulated to fuckin' hell, from bein' lied to practically all the time and worked literally to death for personal gain. I didn't choose this life t'be someone's fuckin' toy, and neither did you."
Kijun sneers, though he's merely playing along now after having detached himself from the past, "You know nothing about me. And I ain't surprised at all. Found that informant of yours at the club—works as one of my boys. He told me as much." He crouches next to Woosik again, this time bringing with him a confident lie and the blade he had sheathed under his jacket. Before Woosik can find the strength to surge forth, Kijun brings the tip of the knife up to the base of his throat. Smiles the smile of someone who knows.
"That's before I cut his fuckin' tongue out'ta his mouth, 'course. Future proof problem solved."
Maybe it's because he's wet, starved, desperate and upside down, because the lie connects immediately. Woosik is suddenly reduced to an eerie stillness again, his toes so white it must feel like death slowly encroaching into his skull. His mouth becomes a thin line, his eyes a thousand slices through Kijun's flesh. The latter doesn't mind.
"There it is, Yunho hyung. The truth." Lifting off again, this time off the air off success, the blade follows Kijun's generous height all the way up to Woosik's abdomen. Aimed precisely where Kijun knows his vitals are. "He knows it."
"Yes, and we only need a name."
"Fuck—y'selfish fuckin' bastards. Cut out my tongue. 'm not givin' y'all jackshi—" But Yunho shoves the water bucket under his head before he can finish disagreeing, the implication of it becoming all the more horrific when Kijun brings the sharp end of his blade back to the tender flesh at his throat. Tuning his stare downwards, he recalls how Hyungmin had been many things, but a hero had never one of them. "Wait, wait, wait, okay, okay I'll fuckin' tell you! Jus' don't—"
If anything, he was always just another traitorous coward.
"Then spit it out, bitch."
"K—Kim Namseong. He knows everything."
[September 2, 2023, location: confidential. / ft @chenosias]
Two ancient hands raise skyward in avid calling of the holy spirit. Summoned along with them are long, white robes of cotton, suspended properly by gleaming, silver cuffs, and at opposite end, presumably God in the action of thousands of feet stomping upright in the pews, hands joining. Kijun checks his watch and notes that it's been about an hour since the church hall had become fully occupied, with both him and Osias included in the mix, at whichever God's mercy. The prayer drawls on without his own participation, though wholly embraced by his searching gaze.
The pastor remained as he always remembered him; an old, hunch-backed mausoleum of sin and holy nightmares. And perpetually equipped with a frown that always haunted his face, provoking unease at rest. To the others around them, he may be a devout zealot and Messiah, drawing garbs of cotton, modest silver and a large crucifix around his neck, blessed directly by the God they pray so heartfully to. But all Kijun sees is a crook in a suit and tie, well tucked beneath a hard mask like a second skin. He was a cartel knave at heart and he was good at being so. As was Kijun, though.
In the pew next to him sits Osias, dark, brushstroke brows shifting and settling repeatedly to and fro on his face. He carries curiosity on his sleeve; catching details in the crowd ahead no average joe would ever see, then releases them with the occasional stray nudge or remark into Kijun's shoulder. Watching and listening to him quickly becomes half of Kijun's mind, counting freckles like stars whenever the hall erupts into drab musical bumps and leaves him only with long, black coils and a perfectly smooth, tan cheekbones.
The moment Osias finds the truth in backhanded preachings from the pulpit, though, by way those eyes skew dark brown and stare sidelong with did he just fuckin' say what I thought he just said? on the tip of his tongue, Kijun figures he'd done well by rejecting Yunho's company and bringing Osias instead. The growing glint in them susses out philosophy and cartel poetry he's probably heard many times before, both in Korea and America, the realization doing something most glorious to his handsome features that Kijun, satisfied and amused beyond imagination, would never forget.
Never trust the preachings of a gangster priest. Presses his elbow to the one beside him and murmurs blasphemy through repeated worship, all to be occasionally shushed by the grandmas sitting behind them.
But they steadily lose interest as the service itself ultimately has no place in their itinerary tonight. The person they're actually here for stands five pews ahead with his fingers crossed and eyes closed. In worn hoodie and jeans he appeared as benign as it got, far from the clandestine chamber of secrets he actually was. What would a man like that pray for, wonders Kijun.
It's ironic how society has always taught the next about how and when it's important to fear God, rather than fearing the immediate violence of being alive instead. After all, the only hurdle between man and the God they bend the knees at night for are themselves.
A prayer can only save you if you are alive.
"In the name of the father, son and the holy spirit, Amen."
That's their signal and purely by design, as well as everyone else's. Unhurried and careful to keep small and out of sight, Kijun raises from his seat as the crowd surges and begins to drift towards the exit doors, wordlessly nudging Osias behind him for that extra overlay of obscurity. Five pews behind them now, Kim Namseong, none the wiser, claps his bible shut and thinks of his successful attendance as a telltale sign of safety within the same breath he fails to register the head full of luscious coils sprouting ahead of him, as the only sign of yonder bloodshed.
They tail him out, that blissful ignorance lasting him four whole blocks and a brief convenience store trip to home though at his front door, it becomes a carelessness that would be taxed at the cost of a tongue.
A risky operation soon ensues within strict Green Gang turfs, and is executed by just two men and their trusty blades.
It begins and ends in a back alley apartment block just two preceding buildings shy off the main road, the residence itself a narrow and unkempt street-level hall that reminds Kijun of his days spent in Gyeonggi prison. The thought even tickles a bitter chuckle out of him given the recollection that were this to go completely wrong, he would end up either dead or in prison yet again. Osias hears him in the silence, of course, sounds self-assured enough for the both of them as he echoes off a smug grin a sentiment off the side, just his boyish excitement and encouragement pulling Kijun's shoulders back with an immediacy that arrests him into resolution.
So it goes, the Green bastards, grim reaper and pigs all be damned. Blood can only be paid back with blood.
"Go on, then." Speaks Kijun only around the last corner up to their destination, encouragement returned in kind with a firm clap on Osias' rear.
Their plan was a simple one for the sake of avoiding too many complications and potential injuries: After Namseong gets home from his usual church service schedule, Osias will knock on his front door a couple minutes later and make conversation about anything random. Which, if he's not immediately recognized, would in turn allow Kijun just enough time to sneak up to the scene once Osias gives the clear, and pounce on Namseong. Palm muffling the screaming and an arm locked beneath his jaw, they'll have to knock him unconscious as soon as time and the ferocity of Nameseong's squirming will allow. And then that'll be that.
The only thing that manages to slip past them is a stray punch in the jaw behind him, which later in the night at their own hideout, Kijun will spend nursing with a half-frozen can of Terra beer, Osias already drunk and going off about something in English.
For now, they work in silence, speed and efficiency of it's use within their tandem paramount to their success. This was neither of their turfs after all, so a throbbing jaw would have to wait until their fates are once again only theirs to determine. While Kijun strips and ties up the unconscious body by the joints, Osias searches the room for anything that might alert the Greens of their meddling, smashing Namseong's phone and watch for good measure. Then he's hauled into the only armchair in the neglectful goshiwon space and gagged. His head silently hangs as though shame plagues him hushed and visionless, his neck bruising purple from their recent struggle. Kijun almost allows a pang of guilt grip his heart, except he can't seem to find it anywhere himself.
"A'ight, we shouldn't wait." Scarcely speaking, Osias murmurs as he pulls off his hat, then mimics Kijun by sinking into a relaxed crouch. "Gotta get what you need and get the fuck out posthaste. Surely they'll know somethin's wrong after an hour or two."
"Did'ya find anythin' in his stuff? Just to be sure. Still don't think we should kill him, 'least this— ain't the right place for that..."
"Yeah, yeah whatever y'say. Found these, though."
From Osias' jacket pocket to the center of a palm, then the next, appear a pocket knife and a burner phone. Kijun has to refrain from rolling his eyes and laughing too loud, but the approval is there, resonating in thick contorting eyebrows, his snickering and the soft popping of his knees as he stands again and casually cracks a slap across Namseong's right cheek, so unforgiving even the walls reflect the sound.
Kim Namseong jolts violently awake in the chair, his eyes falling wide as the moon upon a living nightmare he's probably had before. Once his gaze at last crosses Kijun, the air in his fury shifts to an alternative avenue; icy and tart with a fear he can't expunge quickly enough off his smooth face. The same reoccurring snake tattoo peeks at him from an inner left bicep, thus defining the other's ultimate stance. And that twists some ugly, raging, swelling thing inside Kijun as it clearly spells a dreaded mistake out for him: a massive oversight on his part, that'd almost costed him his life.
After laying out all the warnings and going through necessary intimidations, the captive emerges with dense pulps all over his body and two deep black eyes, sponsored by Osias' uncontrollable fists and Kijun's unrelenting refusal of wanting his partner to halt the pummeling. Until Namseong is choking on blood and air and begging through tears.
"Tell me what exactly you know now about the Green Gang's intentions with the ring and we'll leave it at this. Simple." Kijun attempts with a firm clap on Namseong's shoulder, "Why did you fuckin' traitors attack us?"
The next few minutes stretch for what feels like eons and naught, every second spent stalling another sentence of death upon the two who didn't at all belong in this space. Kim Namseong was a stubborn opponent, the type of gangster that rarely fought with his fists. He was slightly older and thus a handful wiser; better informed than most, and Kijun could tell. But Kijun has also learned over the years that to win against the odds, you must first take away their greatest asset. And we gotta do it quickly.
The idea emerges through the heat and pleasures of the moment like a fish out of water,and Kijun finds himself impulsively knocking Namseong out cold, for this final stretch. His fist flares bright red and purple with a fresh pair of reaped blotches, when he says, all wide-eyed and feral, "Hold his head back f'r me, O."
"What? The fuck're you doin'?"
"...Makin' sure he'll never snitch again."
Totally contrary to the wild, searing numbness overtaking his hands, the knife feels light and icy in Kijun's fist as he lifts his sweater and unsheathes it. So light it is that he feels he could toss it upwards and it would somersault on and on until it skewers the sun. But he grips it with a surgeon's precision, and sees only red.
The tongue is a soft collection of muscles and nerves that yield with mind-boggling ease to the blade. Such is the enormity of the cruelty behind survival.
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