i've been so good, where the hell is the karma?

— ✗  

“If I turn my sword on you and you don’t want to die, hit the play button.”

It’s the last words he says before he slips on the dragon mask, shielding his face and leaving him with only a field of vision through the eye holes. There’s no need to talk when he’s going to kill and while the object was a bit small and old, it held a lot of power to stop those sprees. It had to be at least a decade old, but it still worked. He still had to figure out how to move the sound to another device, just in case he lost this one. Just like the crummy pay-as-you-go cellphone he shut off so that Hyuna wouldn’t dare to call him for another in-house chef special. 

seungwoo is used to this: the familiarity of a hydrus driver, the weapons heavy on his body, the building adrenaline pumping through his veins. he was told he won’t be doing the brunt of the work tonight; he’s really just along for the ride, and seungwoo is ultimately fine with this. he likes observing-- seeing how other people do their work, and sometimes, learning. he is built for being taught, even if he picks up information more slowly than most. this isn’t school, however, and seungwoo has always been better in kinesthetics than academics. 

seungwoo catches as instructed, not lacking in reflexes either, and looks at the device curiously. “what’s this?” he asks, but ryuu is sure to explain soon enough. it’s curious, and the puzzled expression, raised eyebrow and all, likely shows such on his face. how does something like that work? what is he about to see? seungwoo isn’t scared. in fact, it makes him more excited to be his partner on the job.

( tw: vague mention of suicidal thoughts )

that phrase sticks with him, however, and makes him go a little quieter than usual: and you don’t want to die. he has to ask himself whether he does or not. months ago, the answer was easy. months ago, he wouldn’t have pressed play. he would’ve let ryuu drive that blade straight into his heart and thanked him for it. now? he hesitates too long. not knowing the answer perturbs him, but he thinks of wooseok, and he thinks of his friends at the grotto, and their support in december and at the turn of the new year, and he thinks of their mourning. he’ll press play. (he should press play.)

— ✗  

he’s still shaking, can’t tell if the tremble is from his fear or the cold or a mixture of both. his ears are still ringing from the gunshot, and from the feeling of rough hands clenching around his life source and threatening to snap it in two, from the sensation of gasping for air that can’t get past his throat. every time he blinks he sees the rage in his father’s eyes, and then the spot in his face where an eye used to be, the hole in his face, the smell of alcohol on his breath. there are still audible sirens sounding somewhere, because it’s in myeongcho’s nature, and they make the ringing worse, the chill under his skin more biting. he starts to gasp for air again, as if the hands of his father’s ghost are back around his neck, only this time it’s as if the weight of the man’s corpse is sitting on his chest. he doesn’t hear the footsteps approaching him from the open mouth of the alleyway, nor does he remember the gun still clutched tightly in his hand, hung forgotten at his side.

seungwoo is a killer, not a comforter. he copes with humor in every situation, contributes humor to try and provide relief in tension and even in mourning. when weijun tells him what haneul did, and asks him to go get him because he’s preoccupied, seungwoo thinks he’s out of his depth. if weijun trusts him, however, he needs to do it, and he may be able to believe it. he doesn’t trust the judgment of anyone on this earth more than he trusts weijun’s.

he knows haneul mostly as a kid insistent on being taken seriously, but with an attitude that requires otherwise. he frequently throws fits, is temperamental and ungrateful, but at the same time, seungwoo does want what’s best for him. he’s barely older than seungwoo was when he fell into this life, and there’s part of him that can’t help but want to protect him from it, even when haneul insists on otherwise. he’s a classic rebellious teenager, desperate for freedom, misunderstanding their care and desire to keep him safe as controling. 

seungwoo doesn’t know what to expect when he arrives. he doesn’t know if haneul, in all of his fear, will welcome him with open arms, or if he’ll push him away, but seungwoo has endured worse. it was only a matter of whether his patience will stand up to the challenge.

the reality of when he arrives is haneul shaking, clearly devastated and dazed. “hey,” he greets him once he’s close enough, voice soft, and he wonders if the chill of the air makes haneul’s tremors worse. he shrugs off his own jacket, a light one, leather, and drapes it over the boy’s shoulders just in case. haneul might resist, but one of the last things seungwoo cares about is what haneul thinks of him.

he just wants to help. he doesn’t know haneul’s relationship with his father-- if his murder was intentional or an accident, if his grief is insurmountable or it’s simply shock without much guilt.  he won’t ask him for now. he won’t ask if he’s okay either, because who would be in a situation like this, with such insurmountable loss? seungwoo knows how that feels. he knows its crushing weight.

— ✗  

he sighed somewhat, straightening up as he folded his arms for a moment, before deciding he didn’t like the position much and instead shoving his hands into his pocket. “perhaps,” he just offered with a small shift of his shoulders, “but it’s not like i care about anyone in hydrus. they signed up for this shit, it’s their own fault if they get shot. should have seen it coming.” then he paused, looking seungwoo in the eye, “and that includes you.” and while it technically might be his fault, he’d get over it a lot easier than if it were because of him pulling the trigger.

what he was supposed to be doing? “taking pictures,” he offered simply, not really wanting to discolse much more than that.

he laughed. respect and seungwoo just didn’t go together. “nothing i do is going to make people in hydrus respect me,” he snickered, and he believed it fully. nothing he ever did deserved respect. he killed, and he got the job done, but he wasn’t meticulous or perfectly clean or effortlessly flashy. maybe he could get some respect for that much, but anything he could earn he lost by selling his body. seungwoo was used to not getting anymore; more than that, he didn’t want any respect. (he didn’t deserve it.) “i don’t want any respect i’d have to earn by selling someone out that doesn’t deserve it.” maybe jihun would deserve it one day, though. “so...don’t do anything to deserve it, i guess.” 

“you didn’t tell me anything,” he pointed out, confused, unless he entirely misunderstood him (very possible.) “you acted, and i saw that you could aim well enough to kill but chose not to. hydrus might think you’re lying to them or something. you’re not as useless as you’re supposed to be.” he didn’t say it with any ill-intent-- like it wasn’t vaguely insulting. “but sure, i guess if you cared more you could’ve just, i don’t know, died.” now he confused himself, because thus far, he knew craving death as an action of someone who doesn’t care, thus associating death in general with that emotion, but if jihun cared so much about maintaining his illusion of uselessness, he could’ve just died with it, right? yes. 

he couldn’t help but laugh again, though it would’ve been more convenient if he didn’t. seungwoo had his own secrets he wasn’t so keen on letting out, including how little he really feared death. still: “i’m so scared,” he says, sarcastic. “you’re right, i chose this and i’m going to die an early death. i’m here for a good time, not a long time.” it wasn’t a lie, at least. seungwoo was good at that: half truths, talking much and saying little, secrets without lies. 

— ✗  

It feels as if it’s been ages since the last time she’s visited the playground. She used to go almost once a week as a child. A vague memory of a little girl shouting and running happily, hours spend playing with the sand. She continued going as she grew up, though not as many times and not as energetic and almost never alone. A young woman watching the sea from the same bank she is sitting on right now. The distant memories almost feel foreign, almost as if they corresponded to another person or another lifetime. But they are insistent, and they are real. And as expected, the strange feeling comes back, a mixture of familiarity, remembrance, and something more. Only this time she doesn’t push it down, she lets it be. At least for a couple of hours …

Taking a short breath, she stays there.

@mixseungwoo​

usually seungwoo gets his beach fix not far from hydrus headquarters. it’s his favorite thing about the gang: abandoned clothing factory towering over an equally abandoned beach. before he spent most of his time with wooseok, sometimes he would sit for hours on the shore, staring out at the waves. 

he hasn’t lingered by the water much since his time in the hospital, and his dream, or vision, or whatever, with jeongwoo, and the water, and seungwoo, you still need to do better. he hasn’t been able to spend much time on the shore since, the vast expanse of the sea making his skin crawl when he’s alone there. it’s strange, because part of him wants to see jeongwoo again, and yet the place he last saw him makes him so uneasy. 

it’s a shame, because the beach was one of his favorite places; there he goes: robbed of joy once again. 

he tries to beat the feeling with shell beach, with a little more company-- less solitude and space to get stuck in his head. wooseok is off on a job, so seungwoo needs to busy himself, and to not wallow at home. there, on the beach, under the spring sun, he remembers why he loves the beach. maybe, if this goes well, he’ll take wooseok with him to the abandoned beach near hydrus headquarters. for now, however, it’s just him, and as he stares out at the horizon, he only feels a little apprehension. so far so good.

his gaze drifts-- bobs around the people close to him, beach not as crowded as it is during the summer, but with a few people dotting it. he does a doubletake at one familiar shape: someone who came back from the dead-- metaphorically, of course. he doesn’t know if everyone thought she was dead or not. seungwoo, for one, busy with his own disappearing act, didn’t know soobin was gone until he saw the news that she was found. that much shook him a little too: ex girlfriend, returning from a place even she didn’t remember. 

he tried, back then, not to wonder too much about what happened to her to cause such a thing. he did, however, try to contact her. he texted her old number an i saw the news. do you remember me? is there anything i can do for you? but received no response. he didn’t really expect otherwise. now, however, a smile spreads across his lips, and he scurries over to her, nearly slipping in the sand and falling on his butt beside her. he lands a little more gracefully than that.

— ✗  

after dancing to the first half of the song, he pauses the music, clapping his hands as he returns back to his original spot. with a countdown he breaks down the first chunk of the dance, taking his time to explain each move so seungwoo doesn’t get lost, mimicking how his previous instructors taught him in the past. “alright, so.. just try your best to copy what i just did and then i’ll make the proper corrections as we go!” 

of course hoseok asks. it’s puzzling why a stripper would be so flexible, except, well...it’s not really a job requirement, but it’s useful-- a bonus that makes him a little better at all of what he does. that’s not how or why he’s so flexible, though, and seungwoo ponders over what to tell him as he stretches out his arms, long familiar with the actions due to his gymnastics and martial arts backgrounds. “i used to be a gymnast,” he decides, because it’s harmless enough, and barely a secret. he doesn’t need to tell him it’s that that got him into his current line of work, or that he paired it with martial arts to create one of the only things he’s close to proud of or close to good at. “you don’t have to tell me how to stretch,” he informs him, teasing now that hoseok knows this new information about him, and just how familiar he is with stretching himself to the limit. still, he does the same stretches as hoseok to humor them; he would’ve done most of them of his own volition anyway.

“we don’t have to,” seungwoo replies. “or both? it’s not like i have much better to do.” he’s not so keen on admitting it, though. there’s something more charming about playing hard to get and pretending it’s a great privilege for hoseok to receive his time, isn’t there? realistically, he’d just be at home falling asleep on the coach with chips in his lap, waking up with no idea what year it is, spilling his chips on the floor and trying to keep his cat from eating them. sitting here watching hoseok dance, and maybe picking some things up himself, doesn’t necessarily sound preferable, but if it’s not better, it’s definitely not worse. 

hoseok seems pretty intent on switching things up to contemporary now that seungwoo mentioned it, so he goes along with it, as he does with most things. he’s pretty sure he’d do better in a more contemporary style, too; it’s just a matter of making sure it’s more dancing than it is gymnastics, which might be difficult. contemporary and gymnastics aren’t that different, are they? dancing just seems freer-- no rules, no regulations, just movement. in that way, he can see why it’s appealing. he’s not that eager to learn, but now that he’s here, he might as well try it, right? maybe he’ll like it. 

hoseok will teach him. that sounds boring. then again, it’s not like he knows anything about any respectable dancing, so maybe he does need some lessons. still, he’d rather jump into it and try it without wasting any time learning. still, he once again humors him, and listens, and truthfully doesn’t really commit anything to memory, most of it going in one ear and out the other. he still goes through the movements as hoseok says, however, and by the time they’re done, and hoseok looks at him all expectantly, seungwoo is sure he won’t be able to remember what they just went over. that’s okay.

“i’m not really the mimicking type,” he admits with a smile, more mischievous than anything else. “cue music!” when hoseok starts it again, seungwoo takes a few moments to gather himself, and what he’s about to do hits him then. how someone can be self-conscious, private, and a total showoff all at once is a mystery, but seungwoo pulls it off. for now, he channels the latter, and instead of trying to remember all of the moves, he immediately launches himself into a butterfly jump-- to the rhythm of the music, thank you very much. from then on, he doesn’t bother stringing the moves hoseok tried to teach him into order, just adds them in as he remembers them, and otherwise just tries to sync himself up to the music and move with it. he figures the rest doesn’t really matter.

— ✗  

“we’re okay,” he can finally say, wiping snot and tears away from his face. he’s gross, he feels pathetic. he feels smaller and weaker than he has since he really was small and weak. “i’m sorry. i don’t cry…” but seungwoo would know that with all the reasons wooseok has had to cry over him, but never did. he might even be able to guess why, with the few stories and times he’s mentioned his father and his crushing tutelage. “it’s just… it’s been a long time. my mom was the last person to say that to me. i… didn’t know how much i needed to hear it.” not quite consciously, it’s proof that he’s not such a monster, that her dying wish was granted. his father and family had tried so hard to make him into an unsentimental, unlovable monster. seungwoo brings him back from that with just three words.

wooseok still cries, and seungwoo can’t help but pull him closer, into his chest, like he can protect him from something-- whatever plagues him now, if it’s pain, or something stable of it’s not. strange, seungwoo being the stable one, but maybe it’s about time wooseok cries. he has been so strong for him for so long; seungwoo has never once seen him cry. he understands why; everything about wooseok explains it, but he deserves this, so he doesn’t judge him for it for a moment. seungwoo just stays there for the support.

seungwoo doesn’t know what he expected, but it’s not a declaration of love in return, at least not now. part of seungwoo might’ve always known, maybe from that first day, in jokes of wooseok having a crush on him and wooseok’s rosy cheeks. a small part of him feared it was just him-- that he would tell him he loved him and wooseok would see him as nothing more than occasional entertainment, mostly a burden. but wooseok loves him, and he loves wooseok, so a smile blooms on his face until he beams. “yeah?” the grin stays on his face too long, or maybe, in situations like these, nothing is long enough. “you should say that again, once you can properly talk,” he teases him. he does want to hear it again. he ways to say it a hundred times and hear it just as many.

he realizes then that he can’t remember the last time he heard those words from the mouth of someone honest. there were a couple clients at the grotto convinced they were in love with him that told him as much, and it just left a pit in his stomach. wooseok is the only one he can believe; wooseok has seen everything, and yet he’s full of awe. it doesn’t make sense, but instead of agonizing over it, this time, he accepts it, and treasures this love. he wants to meet wooseok’s love with his own. he hopes he can pay him back with it.

“it’s okay,” seungwoo reassures him with a hum, and he runs a hand through wooseok’s hair. “i don’t cry either, but you saw me cry. now we’re square,” he laughs, as he always does, but he’s relieved when wooseok comes back to earth. he listens to him, and then nods. “i don’t remember the last time someone told me they loved me either,” he confesses. “i realized it just now. does that make us perfect for each other?” it’s another joke-- more laughter, and he can’t wipe the smile off his face. eventually, it fades into something softer, warm, still glowing, and seungwoo feels it all in his chest in the best possible way. 

“it is a long time,” he agrees, and he nods, understanding, but maybe a little sad. still, his soft smile returns. “i’ll tell you i love you a lot to make up for it. i’ll never really be able to make up for the years you went without hearing it, but it’ll be a start.” he wants to. maybe the promise of telling wooseok he loves him every day will make the days easier to get through-- something to look forward to, some rare positive energy he can put into the world to offset all of his dark that wooseok tries so hard to rid him of every day. seungwoo believes, maybe for the first time, that he’s succeeding.

— ✗  

“you make me laugh,” he just starts talking, starts saying whatever things come to mind when he thinks of spending time with seungwoo. “you don’t make me feel like an idiot when i don’t know some reference.. you share really good movies with me.. and i’m not so lonely when i’m with you.” he doesn’t know if it’s enough to seungwoo, if it sounds like anything special to anyone else. but it’s a big deal to wooseok, who has never been allowed to have a friend this close ever before. even if he did, who else would’ve kept him, or not try to take advantage of the skills he was raised to have? “it’s just a bad day, seungwoo. you’ve had good ones too, remember? it’s just one bad day.”

it’s not wooseok’s fault. seungwoo doesn’t know where any of it comes from: this overwhelming weight and sense of failure-- this worthlessness and hopelessness. maybe it’s just a reminder of how shameful his life is. maybe it’s a reminder of his incompetence and total lack of value-- of how little he matters and how little he cares for himself and his own life. it’s not wooseok’s fault. wooseok just stumbled upon it-- on his true occupation, his dark secret that he was so afraid for wooseok to know. maybe some of the tears are relief, too, all of the conflicting emotion too much, and seungwoo would never claim to be able to work out his feelings, or separate them, or cope. he hopes wooseok knows it’s not his fault that he’s still so damn sad. it’s his fault-- seungwoo’s only. maybe he’s not trying hard enough. if he tries hard enough, and if he really wants it, will he be happier?

he doesn’t really know how he cries, but the tears come and they stay, and they pour and pour and he can’t stop them. he feels so powerless to do anything, like he’s trapped in some kind of glass box, like he’s inside and outside of his body at once; he can see everything but can’t move. he has no control, just spinning, impending downward spiral if not for wooseok. of course, wooseok has to bail him out-- always. always. it’s bitter. why can he not just stand on his own two feet? why is he not even enough for himself?

it’s not enough to push wooseok away. instead, he melts into him, and he cries more, still quiet, an art perfected as an anxious and overwhelmed teenager, in high school bathroom stalls and hiding his fear anywhere wonwoo might see. he hugs back, clinging too tight, in need of leverage or some anchor, and of course it’s wooseok. no one else could be. his words are such a lie, though. nothing about him is okay. wooseok deserves a hundred apologies. he will never be able to apologize to him enough, and he’ll never deserve wooseok in all of his forgiveness.

he stays there, holding onto wooseok, and this reminder that he isn’t alone anymore. sometimes he wishes he was. he wishes there was no one to remember him-- no one that cared enough to bat an eye --and that he could just disappear. he never wanted anyone to miss him. he never wanted to them of after, he just wanted to evaporate, and to be gone. he wonders if there’s part of him that will always ache for that, even if he won’t try to bring it about himself anymore. it’s different now, though; here is this person, so desperate to save him, and seungwoo cares so much for wooseok, too. he doesn’t want to hurt him anymore, but he doesn’t know how to stop. 

he doesn’t know how to stop crying either, and when wooseok rattles off the reasons he cares-- why he likes him --he cries harder. part of him thinks it’s stupid, and that it sounds like something someone would say if they had no good reasons for liking someone. most of him, however, can’t shake the fact that he has never had someone care about him so much in his life. he can’t remember if anyone ever cared enough to tell him anything he did to help them outside of something related to his job. this is about seungwoo, not one of his many names. wooseok knows every part of him now, and still only has good things to say about him. it doesn’t make sense, but this time, he doesn’t question it, and tries to rest in it instead.

— ✗  

“yeah,” he’s able to relax into the humor a little bit more, to cling to this normalcy. “i wonder why that is.” they both know the punchline: he was. he pretends to think about seungwoo’s request, pretends that he needs to think about what answer to give him. he already knows it; for an assassin since birth, wooseok does have some decent morals at time. keeping a deal is one of them. plus, as sloppy as seungwoo is, there’s things he’s more than capable of. wooseok wouldn’t mind some well trained backup, provided he’s actually willing to commit to his full capability there. “okay. when i have a good job to bring you on, i’ll see.”

he wonders if he’ll regret that maybe later joke, if seungwoo really will take him up on it and this whole scenario will repeat itself. wooseok, distantly, thinks he would like it if seungwoo kissing him wasn’t always associated with that horrible time. it might be nice if he could train this knee jerk reaction out of himself, if he could just live in that moment when he realized how good it felt forever. he feels his ears heat up when seungwoo calls him amazing, something in his voice sending an electric pulse through wooseok’s whole body. “am i?” he tries to brush it off, tries to play it cool. “i guess i sorta am. but what makes you say it now?”

wooseok still looks worried. seungwoo wonders if he’ll always treat him like he’s fragile-- always look at him like he’ll break at any moment. he knows he did it to himself; it was his own choice that led them here-- to a wooseok on edge, just moments ago, inches from his own kind of falling apart. seungwoo said, on the night that they met, that he would never forgive wooseok for not finishing the job he paid him for. instead, it’ll himself that he’ll never forgive. 

sometimes he still wonders, though, how much less he would’ve suffered if he refused to get dinner with wooseok that night. he wonders what would’ve happened, and if wooseok would’ve followed him around like a lost puppy anyway, and it was just some twisted destiny that they ended up here, wooseok in all of his worry and seungwoo’s undeniable urge to kiss him. (not anymore though. he doesn’t want to kiss him now...)

strangely, at least in this moment, seungwoo thinks things didn’t turn out so badly. maybe he likes this part of fate, if that’s what it is.

he lets out a long exhale, more a tired kind of relief than anything else, because at least wooseok believes him when he says he’s trying. he says he knows, and with it comes some comfort that his efforts might be recognizable. maybe he’s not as stuck and helpless and hopeless as he so often feels, if wooseok can tell he’s trying. he shakes his head. “you do a lot. too much,” he smiles softly, and he thinks he’ll always feel guilty that wooseok spends so much of his time on him. it doesn’t matter what else he would do, and that wooseok would claim there’s nothing better; he should get all of this time to do something different. he wants to ask him: are you tired? don’t you get tired of it? but he knows it’ll only further worry wooseok, so he doesn’t. his gaze gets distant voluntarily though, away from wooseok, off at some distant point on the wall. he realizes soon enough, and looks back at him. (surely that’ll worry wooseok too. shit. is there any avoiding it?)

wooseok smiles, so seungwoo does too-- more relief, both that he succeeded in lightening the mood and in steering them away from sincerity seungwoo doesn’t know how to voice or that would feel too strange and serious leaving his lips. still, there might always be a corner of his mind dedicated to it now: that vision of wooseok, and the knife, and the ease of it all. this time, it’s a long inhale; yeah, who is he kidding, he would kiss him again.

wooseok doesn’t agree to let him come on a job with him quick enough for seungwoo’s liking, so he falls on the art of persuasion (see: pouting) to convince him. sure enough, he agrees, and seungwoo beams, excited. “okay!! great!” seungwoo has been on joint jobs with people in hydrus before, of course, and he’s always liked them better than going solo, extrovert that he is, but this is wooseok. with all of his wanting to see him in action aside, continuing to do one of the only things he’s half decent at with his best friend sounds like a life seungwoo might be willing to live. thus far, they’ve made a pretty good team. 

he laughs. i guess i sorta am. maybe it’s because even for as well as seungwoo thinks he knows wooseok, he still surprises him sometimes. he doesn’t know how to express why he thinks he’s amazing; it’s a combination of a lot of things, surely, but one thing he can say is, “just how-- you were really stressed out and upset, and you still came up with comeback when i joked about kissing you again.” yes, a joke. “and how i was begging you to fight me and you acted like you wouldn’t and then just attacked me. i didn’t expect any of that. i like that about you.” he doesn’t intend to sound so reverent, but it’s not like it’s the first time.

Tagged: @mixseungwoo

Being tied down to one place sometimes had its advantages, while other times it seemed like it had its disadvantage. As a member of a gang, it had both sides present in this situation. There isn’t much that Ryuu could do in this situation, especially since it had come down as a mission to go out and retrieve the gang’s stolen cash from a gang that was large in numbers, but still fresh as a newborn baby’s bottom. 

His role in all of this? 

Kill them all, so they don’t try again.

A lot of people were skeptical about him joining, and he didn’t exclude the male next to him as they prepared for their mission. He probably owes that to the time he was being initiated into the gang, pulling on his classic village idiot act like he wore it with pride. He fastens the long cloth around his waist, making sure his knots were tight enough to keep his scabbard there. 

and so he will obey. to be fair, he isn’t going into this alone, and maybe that’s why they chose him. he’s paired up with one of hydrus’s newest recruits, and seungwoo really doesn’t have him scoped out yet. he seems like a fellow idiot, but he’s heard some peculiar rumors about bloodlust. he’s interested to see what happens first hand, and to find out a little more on who ryuu is. 

he doesn’t really mind taking the backseat. in fact, he knows it’s probably for the best, and it’ll give him more of a chance to observe all of this. he looks over his choice of weapons, eyeing the cloth his companion puts on. sword? interesting choice. seungwoo can respect it. he too loves a good sword. 

@mixseungwoo

among the many hats that lian wears as weijun’s right hand, security is her biggest role. she has full control over the hiring (and firing) process, and for the time that she’s been here, things have been pretty bland in terms of major security terms- up until recently, it seems.

seungwoo, thankfully, has always been here, and has taken an interest of sorts in helping with security. the notion still partially puzzles her; how can he fill the requirements of both jobs without sacrificing partly on one, but he does well, and lian likes to think that part of it, at least, is because of her. 

tonight, during what appears to be a mostly dead night, she sits back in the security room with him, intent on teaching him how the cameras and recording equipment work. “so each of the monitors on the left are for client rooms, you can change the views for those with this set of controls,” she taps each of the buttons lightly enough that nothing changes, but that her point is made. “the center monitors are for the general areas, bigger monitors, bigger space. keeping up so far?”

seungwoo doesn’t think he can be anything other than a whore. or a nuisance. he can’t do anything well other than sell his body, is the point. he knows wooseok claims otherwise, but it’ll take a little more convincing for him to believe it, or more than that, proof. 

he’s willing to try, though, and more than that, he wants to help lian if he can. it’s not that he thinks she needs help-- she can more than handle herself --he just...maybe he wants to do something better. he doesn’t expect security to ever become his job at the grotto; he’s pretty sure he assured he would could do no different here than he does, but maybe he can help, and he can learn. that’s enough for him. if he can help her successfully, maybe he can do something else somewhere else.

(would he go somewhere else, though? are lian and weijun the main reason he’s still here?)

— ✗  

“I wouldn’t be surprised, he sounds very scary. He needs to be knocked down a couple pegs, just because he paid that doesn’t give him the right to rough you up. It doesn’t, right?” It was a genuine question. She had no idea what the rules of prostitution were, but there had to be some guidelines set. “Is he a frequent…customer? Is that why the others are afraid?”

seungwoo laughed, because he wasn’t sure if hyuna was serious or not. there was really nothing high class about a prostitute, no matter what he pretended. he was, however, very good at his job, so it still made sense why choi changyoon liked him-- plus his complete disregard for his own life. that probably helped. that and seungwoo’s tendency to fight back only to ultimately do exactly what anyone said, tendency to always cave in the end. changyoon surely loved that power, and seungwoo indulged him, and never said know. surely he was furious seungwoo tattled on him, sufficiently keeping him away from him while he was blacklisted. seungwoo hoped weijun would keep him away forever, not just because he hated him, but for everyone’s safety; seungwoo feared it would only get worse.

the severity of the moment sunk in once the words left his mouth-- the vulnerability, the weakness. he reeled, trying to grasp a joke to save the moment, only to reach for his glass and finish it off. already? “that’s some good stuff,” he commented, undoubtedly an attempt to change the subject, or lighten it at the very least. “you have good taste.” it wasn’t a lie. he liked the alcohol, but seungwoo wasn’t really the picky type. all of it served its purpose, and he wasn’t some kind of alcohol snob. 

he still spotted that expression on hyuna’s face: something like sympathy, and it was unexpected-- maybe even appreciated. he always thought people would look upon him and assume he always dealt with poor treatment, and always deserved it. it was just the nature of his work, after all. it was what he got for putting his body on sale, an undeniably poor and dangerous decision. yet hyuna seemed surprised, and there was something a little refreshing about it. trusting her would be too much, but maybe he could appreciate her a little more for it. 

“yeah,” he agreed with a hum and a close-lipped, mischievous smile. “hence why i’m telling you all about him. i think he deserves karma getting him back sooner rather than later.” changyoon was such an evil person seungwoo was sure, if reincarnation existed, that he would come back as a cockroach. he shrugged, though. “my boss always says we’re allowed to say no to anything we’re uncomfortable with, which is especially merciful of him,” part of the reason why seungwoo loved weijun, and why he could never manage to pull himself away from the grotto. “but i just--” (have no self-worth) “don’t really care, usually, but i guess i got tired. it’s kind of just the nature of the job, though.” he didn’t want to get into how much he thought he deserved it-- another scoop of ice cream to keep himself from getting too serious in the face of someone he didn’t intend to open up to as much as he already did.

— ✗  

all he could really make in response to that was a small noise of agreement in the back of his head. of course just injuring people wasn’t a good thing, either, but he still felt as though he had some moral high ground in all of this. “well, i’m not going to tell you to be different from literally every other hitman,” that was a pointless argument just waiting to help and he was not here to start changing people’s minds. he would do his own thing and everyone else could be murders instead of him.

when why they had ended up in this situation was brought up, jihun swallowed a little uncomfortably, but tried to seem unbothered as he shrugged a shoulder. “just got spotted, not a big deal. we dealt with it.”

( tw: death, depression )

he shrugged; he didn’t really need jihun to understand his motives or agree with him. he was never one to fight much verbally (outside of a few circumstances), and he did understand jihun’s perspective. maybe in another life, he would be the same way-- he would be the ideal son, smart enough to be a doctor, with three pleasant brothers instead of one dead and one that murdered him. he would have no reason to raise a finger against anyone, only to work his way up the financial ladder and bring pride to his family. he would be a good person and meet a nice girl and live a life he wanted to keep instead of whatever this was. maybe if he lived like jihun, he would hate himself a little less, too.

he couldn’t, though. it wasn’t in his job description, nor was it in his nature anymore; he killed and didn’t ask questions, obeyed and didn’t doubt his orders. he didn’t care anymore, or if he did, he ignored it well enough. he felt more emptiness than guilt, and he knew this will be no different. he looked down at the bodies again, and spared a moment to think of this impact, as jihun would have him do: the look on the faces of their wives and children and friends when the police delivered the news, the grief, sons growing up without fathers at his hand. he frowned, and didn’t say anything about it being just as much jihun’s fault even if he didn’t deliver the killing blow. who knew where they would all be if they hadn’t run into each other today. maybe all of these men wouldn’t be dead. maybe jihun would be instead.

“no way to know,” he answered, both in regard to his thoughts and in regard to jihun’s comment on the afterlife. “maybe i’ll see them in hell.” he put his gun away and brushed his hands together, like he was rinsing them of it all.

“what would i gain from ratting you out?” he asked. maybe he would get in someone’s good graces, theoretically, before he inevitably lost that. seungwoo wasn’t talented enough or clean enough or quiet enough to really stay in good standing with people in hydrus that mattered, even if he listened better than they might expect. who knew, maybe they liked him better than he thought, too. either way, he didn’t care. “maybe i’ll just use it for blackmail,” he mused, mostly a joke, but paired with a smile that didn’t quite make his intentions clear. 

he rolled his eyes right back; if he thought himself worthy of respect, maybe this would irritate him. seungwoo, however, had his self-respect drained of him long ago, and he expects so little from anyone, even though jihun was younger than him. he should get a little respect. maybe. “you know what i meant,” and in case he didn’t, he would say it again. “you not shooting to kill might get someone else killed instead, and i hope you don’t find that out firsthand.”

— ✗  

She was about to say something, but there was a look on his face that told her he was in thought. Rather than interrupt him, she let him take his time. A large laugh came out as she noted he had a small dick, already imagining the humiliating jokes she could make. But as Seungwoo continued, her eyebrows furrowed as she continued writing. A psychopath? This sounded like she was about to get more than just his sexual shortcomings. She took another sip of her drink before looking at him. “If you don’t mind me asking, what does putting up with him mean? Is he reckless or something?”

( tw: asphyxiation, references to prostitution )

“i thought you would come into this with some questions you ask everybody, i guess,” he replied with an honest shrug, and reached for his drink, taking a hearty sip. he knew her plan; soften him up with ice cream, drown him in all the alcohol he wanted to loosen his lips. he didn’t mind it so much. in fact, maybe he’d welcome it-- a little less inhibitions, getting it over with opposed to how conflicted he felt. he supposed it made sense, though. the ball was in his court on who of his many questionable clients he wanted to expose, many of which of high status, seungwoo happily their dirty little secret. (most of the time.)

he was not happily choi changyoon’s dirty little secret, however, so he could make it a little less secret. part of him knew he was falling into his dumbass stereotype by sharing all of this-- knew the danger of telling hyuna something with no clue what she would do with it, but smart or stupid, he trusted her to keep his identity safe. if not, maybe he’d end up dead. that wouldn’t be a huge loss. still, he nodded. “that would be the one. i didn’t know who he was until someone mentioned it to me. i am a high class whore, i’ll have you know.” as if to prove his point (or disprove it) he propped his feet up on her coffee table and leaned back on the sofa.

nevermind the fact that seungwoo had no class whatsoever, and the grottos’ clients likely handed any they had over at the door. it was fun to pretend. 

he grinned, glad to get a laugh out of hyuna at his joke, but of course, he couldn’t keep the tone light forever with a job so full of darkness, and a man seungwoo believed must’ve just had some evil inside of him. his expression shifted again, more reluctant, like he couldn’t quite get it out of his mouth. “he’s probably a psychopath,” he repeated, and he knew he’d need to provide an example. first, however, he reached for his drink again-- another large sip, indicative of the difficulty of this situation, not bothering to hide it from her.