Chapter Text
Up until two years ago, right before a sudden yet deep fissure had cracked open between them, just the fact that Minho had decided to send him a cryptic note instead of giving him a call as usual would have been enough for Seungmin to drop everything and rush over to him, the actual contents of the message be damned. Unlike Chan, Minho was not the type to use a false alarm as an excuse to catch up; if he had wanted to hang out, he would have dropped by Seungmin’s house, unannounced, with an overly expensive bottle of some non-alcoholic drink and unsolicited criticism on whatever Seungmin happened to be eating or drinking or doing at that time. Understandably, Minho’s overbearing attitude had often clashed with Seungmin’s defiant one and sparked numerous petty fights and verbal debates between them, nearly all of which had required Chan’s intervention before they escalated any further.
It had been annoying then, to have every peaceful hangout turn into a series of heated arguments, but now, as Seungmin sat inside his empty, dimly-lit office, dragging his gaze over the note for possibly the hundredth time, he found himself longing for those trivial fights more than anything else. At least back then, his words had held no more weight than a feather and had drifted away before they could cause any lasting damage.
With a sigh, Seungmin folded the note once and tucked it between the last pages of his journal before shifting his attention towards the more practical aspects of Minho’s message. Ignoring the need for urgency clearly conveyed by the ‘ASAP’, he had taken the entire day to weigh the pros and cons of the four options available to him before he could choose one. He was already, literally, paying for one impulsive decision; he was not about to make another.
Option A: Call Minho, meet him, and answer all his questions—truthfully.
Pros: Finally talking to Minho
Restore friendship
Release all burden
Cons: Finally talking to Minho
Will need proper explanation to convince Minho
Option B: Call Minho, meet him and answer all his questions—dishonestly
Pros: Restore friendship (for how long???)
Put an end to questions
Cons: Lying to Minho
Being caught lying (minho will find out)
No release of burden
Option C: Ignore Minho
Pros: No talking to Minho
No need to worry about giving explanations
Cons: No talking to Minho
No friendship restored (this might be the only chance???)
Option D: Go to terrace and jump off
Pros: Will be finally free
Cons: Will be dead
It took Seungmin the better part of an hour—fifty two minutes to be exact, according to the changing digits on his desktop screen—to finally make his decision. By the time he had locked his office and headed towards the elevators, it was already ten, and almost everybody had left—apart from the employees taking the night shift or the ones handling emergencies, that is.
His personal secretary, Seo Jiwon, had gone home a couple hours ago, after huffing and fussing over him because he had no intentions to leave at a ‘reasonable hour’. Jisung and Felix had reluctantly bade him goodnight after he had all but thrown them out of his office before they could get lost in their theories of why he was not putting out an APB for the man from Minho’s testimony and miss their last bus back home. All the relevant files were inside Seungmin’s bag right now and he knew, somewhere among them, was a portrait sketch of the man Minho had met. A man who was likely the one who had murdered Soyeon. A man who was likely Seungmin’s soulmate.
Even though his fingers had itched to rifle through the file obsessively and his mind had begged and begged for a single glimpse, Seungmin had not taken a look at it. If he did, the dread and anger that he was barely keeping at bay would crash over him again and right now, he could not afford to drown in his own misery. One step at a time. He was going to do this one step at a time, just like his grandfather had taught him.
The surge of confidence that always coursed through him in response to the memory of his grandfather’s words was relatively feeble this time, like a dying sputter of light in the shroud of doubt that had fallen over all his cherished memories. Hyunjin was wrong, Seungmin assured himself as he stepped out of the elevator, and he was going to do everything to prove that his grandfather had been innocent.
Nevertheless, as he walked through the spacious lobby, the echo of his footsteps falling over the polished floor seemed to reverberate through his own body, reminding him of just how hollow he had become inside. As if that was not clear to him already after all he had said and done. Once Jisung and Felix had started badgering him a little too much with their intrusive questions and concerns, Hyunjin had excused himself and left the office without a backward glance at any of them. That was the last Seungmin had seen of him, and now, he dreaded going back home and facing him again.
Well, if his conversation with Minho did not go downhill as always, perhaps he could just spend the night, or his entire life, cooped up inside his friend's office.
As though that was a completely feasible alternative, Seungmin nodded to himself, plastered a professional smile on his face, and headed out the main doors. An unmistakable scent of earthy petrichor struck him immediately, a lingering trace of the heavy rain that had soaked the city that afternoon, and he could feel his spirits lift a little as he turned to address the lone security guard, “Mr. Hong, have you eaten dinner yet?”
The guard, who was perhaps a couple decades older than him, startled at the question and his mouth promptly dropped open the instant he realized that the Director of SPS had talked to him, asked him a question. “Uh—” For a few seconds, he fumbled around for a response before finally clearing his throat and answering, “No—uh—Director, not yet. My shift—” he cleared his throat again to dissolve the nervous rasp in his voice “----my shift ends at twelve.”
“Uh—in that case—” Seungmin extended his hand forward, a lunch bag dangling from his fingers. “Please, take this. My colleagues made dinner for me but I don’t usually—I don’t eat at this time of the day, poor digestion and all that, so—-it would be a pity if it went to waste, right? It’s all freshly made and healthy stuff and I’ve not touched any of it, I swear I’m not giving you half-eaten food or anything. There are also a lot of options to choose from so—uh—I think you’d find something to suit your taste?”
By the time Seungmin finished his rambling, both of them looked equally flustered and nervous. The guard’s wide-eyed gaze flitted between the bag and Seungmin’s face, his mind torn between wanting to fulfill his boss’ request and worrying about being considered rude for eating his boss’ dinner. Leaning towards the former, he reached out to take the bag but then, succumbing to the latter, dropped his hand back down, clasping his fingers tightly in front. “Uh—Director, thank you for your generous offer but I don’t think I can—-
“Please?” Seungmin said, pushing the bag closer towards the security guard, “I insist.”
“I—-” The guard started, his gaze wandering over Seungmin’s face, and after pausing in indecision for a few more seconds, he finally reached out and took the bag. His nervousness and anxiety dropped away instantly, leaving his tense shoulders relaxed, and the hard, weathered lines of his face cracked into a small smile. “Thank you, Director. I’ll make sure to not waste any of this.”
“You can—uh—you can share with the rest of the guards on shift too if you want. There’s a lot of it.” Seungmin gestured lightly towards the bag before pushing his hand back inside the pocket of his overcoat. Biting his lips for a moment, he leaned towards the guard, who towered over him by a few inches, and in a conspiratorial whisper, added, “There’s also a small box of honey cookies at the bottom. If you want, you can have some. I’ll make sure your wife doesn’t find out, Mr. Hong.”
The guard’s eyes widened again as he stared at Seungmin in shock, unable to figure out what was more surprising—the fact that the Director knew he was married, the fact that the Director knew he was partial to sweet things despite being on a strict diet, or the fact that the usually aloof Director of SPS was in a mood to joke around. His boss must have had an exceptionally good day and relieved by that thought, the guard nodded and gave Seungmin a wide grin. “Thank you, Director. For the food and…for not telling my wife.”
“You’re welcome, Mr. Hong.” With an amicable smile dancing across his lips, Seungmin gave the guard a final bow and bade him good night before heading towards the parking lot.
As soon as he rounded the corner of the building, his smile faltered and then slowly disappeared, as though it knew it was not supposed to grace his face, not right now at least, and perhaps not ever. Would he ever be able to smile without feeling like he didn’t deserve to? Even though he felt a tad bit guilty about giving away the dinner Felix had brought for him, Seungmin carefully tucked away the memories of the last five minutes in a safebox inside his brain, like a child collecting pieces of colorful scrap in a world already turned to gray rubble. It was a reminder that, despite everything, he could make someone happy too if he tried.
Despite the light traffic and the fairly short distance, it took Seungmin twice as long as indicated by the GPS to arrive at the hospital. Partly because he had driven at such a leisurely pace it had seemed like he was navigating through a personal traffic jam and partly because he had almost turned around and given up on the whole endeavor more times than he could count. By the time he stood outside the doors of Minho’s office, bracing himself against the pervasive smell of disinfectants and antiseptics, it was pretty clear that he had been too hasty in making his decision. He was, in contrast to what he had told himself repeatedly on the way over, not ready to meet Minho.
“Is there a problem, sir?” The nurse who had directed him towards Minho’s office came into view again, clutching a bundle of files to her chest, and judging by her slightly raised eyebrows, was probably wondering why Seungmin was still standing outside the office, in the same position she had left him in twenty minutes ago. “Is Doctor Lee not inside? Do you want me to chec—
“No, wait!” Gripped by sheer panic, Seungmin scrambled forward, positioning himself between the nurse and the door as soon as she reached out to turn the knob. In the next instant, as if to remind him that he could only avoid the inevitable for so long, the door, which had apparently been left unlocked, gave way behind him and a shocked gasp was the last thing he heard before he fell through.
A shock of pain shot through his tailbone as he hit the ground with a dull thud and grunting and cursing under his breath, he blinked rapidly, momentarily dazed and unsure of what had just happened.
“Sir—” The nurse started, her face pinched with concern as she moved to help Seungmin “---are you alright? I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—-
“Don’t worry, Miss Jang. He’s alright.”
“But, Doctor Lee—
“It’s alright, Miss Jang. You may go, I’ll take care of him.”
Giving Seungmin a final apologetic look, complete with a deep bow, the nurse reached out and closed the door, leaving him alone to stew in his mortification. Well, not alone.
It was hardly the most embarrassing thing he had done in front of Minho but as sneakers, etched with the number twelve on the side, came to a stop just beside him, the heat that had been creeping across the back of Seungmin’s neck blazed into a wildfire. A curse, followed by a frustrated grunt, followed by another curse slipped from his mouth as he moved to get to his feet, keeping his gaze firmly fixed on the ground and away from the person standing near him.
Minho, it seemed, was determined not to be ignored again.
Fingers wrapped around Seungmin’s arm, gripping him tight, and before he could so much as make a noise of protest, Minho had hauled him up to his feet effortlessly, as though he weighed next to nothing. Seungmin pressed his lips tight. Just because he was standing in front of someone did not mean he had to look at them. There were other, more interesting places to look at—such as the ground at his feet.
A moment later, Minho sighed, effectively conveying all of his exasperation with that single sound, and released Seungmin’s arm from his firm grip. Lilac-colored sneakers disappeared from Seungmin’s visual field, prompting him to lift up his gaze, just a little—and just in time to see Minho pick up the bottle that had rolled out of Seungmin’s gift bag and come to a stop near a table leg. The bottle of nonalcoholic wine Seungmin had bought on his way to the hospital. For Minho.
Option D seemed really tempting right now.
As a token of mercy perhaps, Minho did not comment and only pushed aside some of the papers strewn on his table, kept the bottle down, and took a seat behind his desktop screen once more. As Minho scrunched his brows at something on the screen and bit his lips in concentration, Seungmin could not help but scoff softly at how hard Minho was trying to appear busy. He was also offended, just a little. They had known each other their whole lives. Even if Seungmin was diagnosed with amnesia one day, which was a distinct possibility considering his mental health, he would still remember that whenever Minho was actually concentrating, in his ‘zone’ as he liked to say, he had a blank, dazed-out expression on his face, not this charade he was putting on.
Nevertheless, Seungmin grasped the opportunity to avoid interaction with both hands and let his gaze wander around Minho’s office. It was different from the one he had last been in, two years ago—more spacious, more prominently located inside the Ophthalmology department, but no less cluttered. Books and files were almost falling out of the shelves lining all the four walls, even covering half the windows on one side, making the whole room appear suffocatingly small despite its impressive dimensions. A low table was pushed up against one of the shelves—probably being used as a stool considering the faded footprints on it—and expensive leather couches were dumped around it in no particular style or order. As Seungmin took in the few paintings hanging between medical charts taped to the wall and the stack of vinyl records on another ornate table behind his back—since when did Minho start listening to music on vinyl?---it was hard not to imagine Minho as a child who had found too much money but did not have either the sense or the patience to do anything ‘proper’ with it.
Who was he to judge? After all, he had spent his own money bribing a Cleaver for information.
“I didn’t think you would take so long to remember my birthday,” Minho said, drawing Seungmin’s attention back towards him even though his own remained fixed on the desktop screen, “I’m a little hurt, to be honest.”
Ironic, coming from someone who regularly forgot his own friends’ birthdays and then showed up a month or two later with no remorse or guilt whatsoever. Seungmin was on the verge of giving voice to that thought, just so he could remove all this awkwardness between them with another one of their petty fights, but decided to keep those words to himself. He was not here to fight, he reminded himself. He was here to talk, properly, and dispel all the confusions and misunderstandings as best as he could.
He picked up the gift bag from the ground, dusted it off, and then, folding it carefully, walked towards the table—only to stop in hesitation near the couple of empty seats on the other side of Minho’s table. Even though he had been enveloped by an impenetrable haze of panic the day Hyunjin had been shot, Seungmin could still recall, and feel immensely guilty, about the way he had treated his friend. Despite being on the receiving end of more than two years of radio silence, Minho had come running to him as soon as possible—something Seungmin had not been able to bring himself to do even today—-because he had been scared and worried for him. In return, all he had done was use Minho’s skills for his own needs and had then gone back to ignoring him again.
Did he even deserve to sit in front of Minho now? He might as well kneel on the ground too, just like he had made him do that day.
“Take a seat.” Minho waved a pen towards the chairs while he typed something with his other hand. “I don’t like looking up at people when I talk.”
Seungmin bit and licked his lips as he paused in hesitation for a few seconds more before finally pulling a chair out and taking a seat. A soft grunt slipped out of his mouth immediately the moment his bruised back hit the tough fabric. Minho flicked a glance towards him, eyes narrowing as they dragged over Seungmin’s hunched frame and pained expression, before sliding back towards the screen.
“Uh—” Seungmin cleared his throat, did a rough sweep of the office once more, before finally jerking a nod towards the bandage wrapped around Minho’s neck. “What happened to your neck? Did you sprain it while looking up at tall people?”
“Accident.”
“Oh.” Seungmin dropped his gaze to his lap, vowing to never start a conversation with a joke again. Never start a conversation, period. “Are you ok—
“How is he?”
Seungmin’s brows scrunched in confusion for a few moments as he tried to figure out whether that was the actual wording Minho had been going for or the question was supposed to be something along the lines of ‘how are you?’ instead.
“Your bodyguard, the one I treated that day,” Minho clarified, his voice a touch impatient, “Is he alright?”
A spark of annoyance shot up inside Seungmin in response to Minho’s tone but it slowly fizzed off into nothing the instant he actually realized what Minho was asking him about. Or more accurately, whom Minho was asking him about. Clearing his throat softly, Seungmin leaned back in his chair and clasped his fingers over his lap, hoping to exude all the calm he did not feel. “He’s alright. Recovering.”
He might be reading too much into the contents of Minho’s note. But even if he wasn’t—which was a strong possibility considering it was Minho—Seungmin knew that if he stayed calm and played his cards right, his friend would be none the wiser.
“It’s been more than a week since he got those stitches. His wounds should have healed up by now.” The printer behind Minho hummed to life, underlining all his words with a faint buzz. “Bring him in tomorrow afternoon. I’ll take a look and remove his stitches.”
“Uh—It’s—it’s alright, you don’t have to. I’ll take care of it. It’s no big deal.”
“You’ll just mess it up again,” Minho said with all the conviction of someone who had ample evidence to back up his claim. “Bring him here, if you don’t want him to die because of your clumsiness.”
“I know how to remove stitches too, alright? It’s not something that is exclusi—
“You don’t know how to remove the stitches I’ve made, trust me,” Minho interrupted and his gaze hardened as it drifted towards Seungmin’s collarbone, the one that contained a jagged scar as long as the pen in his hands. “You’ll just end up bleeding.”
Swallowing hard, Seungmin tugged at the collar of his overcoat nonchalantly, as though Minho had not just sent him hurtling back to the past and reminded him of his own limits, his own weaknesses, with a few words and a pointed glance. Even though it had felt liberating then, in hindsight, it had been a moment of weakness when he had sought out Minho’s help and ended up confessing about everything. It had been a mistake, perhaps one of the biggest ones he had ever made.
“I’ll—” Seungmin started, taking a deep breath as he did “---I’ll figure something out. You don’t have to worry about him.”
Minho let his gaze linger over the hidden scar for a moment or two longer, taking in the way Seungmin’s fingers were fiddling with the edge of his collar. Neither of his friends, Minho concluded, seemed to understand that the more they tried to appear indifferent, the more transparent their emotions became. Casting a long look at the ring glinting on Seungmin’s finger, Minho finally shifted his attention towards the printer behind him.
“Why are you so against the idea of bringing him to the hospital?” He asked, picking up the stack of papers from the printer tray, and tapped the edges gently on the table to align them. “I’m not like other doctors, you know that. I won’t deny him treatment just because he’s a Cleaver.” The sharp snap of a stapler punctuated the end of his words and the sound seemed to echo inside Minho’s office, like the kill shot in a game before the screen went black. Game over.
Given the clear implication in that otherwise cryptic note, Seungmin had expected—almost hoped—that Minho would bring this up but the reality hit him no less hard. Despite all the other options available to him, he had chosen to have this conversation and he willed his mind to stay calm before answering, “He’s not a Cleaver.”
“He’s not?” Minho arched an eyebrow in question. Setting aside the papers, he rested his chin in his hand, giving Seungmin his undivided attention just as the latter shook his head in response. “Who is he then?”
The genuine look of curiosity on Minho’s face was a subtle tactic he always used to coax people into revealing information on their own—information that he already knew, and some more—just so that later, they would only hold themselves responsible. Seungmin knew all this. He had been on the receiving end of that interested gaze countless times himself and to his own annoyance, had yielded every single time. Yet, despite being aware of such strategies, he could not help but feel unnerved and his gaze wandered around aimlessly for a second before it found its way back to Minho. Lie, his mind yelled at him, lie through your teeth and put an end to this whole thing. And when had Seungmin not listened to his mind?
“Hyunjin is just my bodyguard,” he finally answered, staring straight into Minho’s brown eyes, “He’s not a Cleaver.”
“A bodyguard?” Minho hummed in thought for a while. “And where did you find such a bodyguard?”
“He was—I found him at a bar a few weeks ago. We hit it off, I decided to bring him home as my one-night stand, and he became my bodyguard soon after. He needed a job so I gave him a job, that’s all.” He was quite sure that he had managed to make that outrageous tale sound as convincing as he could and he made a mental note to thank Jisung for concocting it in the first place.
“So, he’s your boyfriend and your bodyguard?”
“He’s not my boyfriend, he’s just my bodyguard.”
“Usually—” Minho leaned back in his seat and dragged the bottle of wine towards himself “---people don’t live with their bodyguards in the same house, if you know what I mean. And they don’t get as worried or scared for someone who is ‘just a bodyguard’ as you did that day. It’s weird.”
“He needed a home so I gave him a home. What’s so weird about that?” Seungmin asked with a shrug, choosing to ignore the entire second half of Minho’s statement. He had not been worried for Hyunjin that day. He had just been worried that Hyunjin would die without giving him any information even after taking the payment for the first month. That was all.
“He needed a job so you gave him a job. He needed a home so you gave him a home. Sounds like your one-night-stand turned bodyguard is blackmailing you or something.”
“He is protecting me.”
Minho co*cked his head in response, brows creasing slightly as he regarded Seungmin with a curious look—not the one he used to manipulate, but a genuinely curious look. Silence hung in the air between them for several, long seconds, punctuated only by the faint squeak of a drawer and a muffled clink as Minho pulled out a couple of wine glasses from behind him and placed them on the table. As his reconciliation gift, Seungmin had chosen a non-alcoholic merlot, a drink that Minho preferred for its balanced mouthfeel and smooth texture. Right now, as Minho slid a half-filled glass towards him, Seungmin only regretted being too considerate and not bringing the alcoholic version.
“You’re a terrible liar, you know that?”
Seungmin had resolved to stay stoic until the end but the uncharacteristic trace of pained disbelief behind those words made him tear his gaze away from the dark, deep-red liquid in front of him and towards Minho. The unmistakable softness in the eyes that met his own caused his facade to crack within a second even as he replied, “I’m not lying.”
Minho cast a pointed glance towards the way Seungmin was fiddling with his collar, prompting him to drop his hand back to his lap, and proceeded to fill his own glass before asking, “Do you really want me to believe you went to a bar, had a one-night-stand with someone you just met—
“We didn’t do—do anything, it was just—
“----and then hired a complete stranger as your bodyguard?” With a scoff, he added, “You’re crazy, I admit, but you’re not so crazy that you would actually do any of those things you're telling me, Seungmin.”
“And how would you know that?” Seungmin snapped back, his words dripping with the annoyance surging through him in response to Minho’s self-assured tone. A small part of him was vaguely aware that he should shut up before he went overboard and wrecked something beyond repair but despite his best efforts, words leaked out of all the cracks that had formed in his facade. “It’s been more than two years since we last talked properly, Minho hyung. People can change in far less time than that, I have changed, okay? I go to bars, I get drunk, I—I have one-night stands with strangers and then I hire those people as bodyguards. I’m sorry if that seems crazy to you but this is who I am now, so stop pretending to know me, okay? Because you don’t.”
“And whose fault is that?” Minho asked even before Seungmin had finished, his words tinged lightly with the frustration he had long suppressed, “Did you hit your head when you fell? Because if you want me to jog your memory, I’ll gladly do so.” Without waiting for a response, Minho pulled out his phone and tossed it onto the table, causing Seungmin to startle slightly at the loud clack. “Do you know how many times I’ve tried to get in touch with you these last two years? Why am I even asking? I know you do.” Minho scoffed. “I bet every time I called you, every time I messaged you, every time I came knocking at your door, you just sat there and waited for me to give up. Do you want me to remind you how you sped off in your car every time I showed up at your house? Do you want me to remind you how you refused to meet up with Channie hyung as soon as you knew that I was there too? Forget about my feelings, I know you don’t care about that, but do you have any idea how worried Channie hyung was—is—for you? He keeps asking me what is wrong with you and every time, I have to lie and tell him you must be stressed because of work. I’m lying to a person I admire just because you begged me not to tell him anything.”
The heat that had barely subsided razed across the back of Seungmin’s neck again even as he clenched his jaws hard and said, “This is irrelevant to the—
“Nothing’s irrelevant, Seungmin. And especially not now, not when I know you are keeping a Cleaver by your side for god knows what reason. You know, I’m this close—” Minho pressed his index finger and thumb together, the sliver of gap between them barely visible, as he took a sip of the merlot to calm himself down “---this close to telling hyung that you have made a stupid Soul Contract with a Cleaver and have that bastard arrested. I’m not doing it just for your sake because then, you’d be behind bars too.”
Seungmin’s gaze had snapped towards Minho as soon as those words, those impossible words, had floated into his ears. He must have misheard or perhaps, the non-alcoholic wine, which he had yet to take a sip of, was getting to his head. There was no other explanation for it. Nevertheless, he dropped his hand away from his collar and on his lap, hiding the ring away from Minho’s sight even though the latter had already taken a good, long look at it. “How do you—you don’t—
“Oh, c’mon.” With a roll of his eyes, Minho drained his glass, his actions hinting at his growing impatience and exasperation more than his even-toned words. Waving his empty glass towards Seungmin’s lap, he added, “You’re wearing a Blood Ring, aren’t you? And I’d bet my whole career that the other one is on that Cleaver’s finger.”
Seungmin fisted his fingers over his lap, suddenly feeling like a powerless child who could do and say nothing and only look down at his feet while his Minho hyung toppled away all the lies he had stacked up with unnerving ease. Why had he ever thought that he could lie to Minho and get away with it?
“You’ve not changed, Seungmin, not at all,” Minho said after a while, his voice soft and seemingly empty of all frustration, “And neither have any of us. I—we—still care and worry about you even though you don’t want us to.”
It was a real struggle for Seungmin to keep his voice even and not start bawling as he would have done as a child but somehow, he managed. After all, he had years of experience acting calm and nonchalant in front of another one of his friends. “I can take care of myself just fine,” he said, “You don’t have to worry about me.”
“Why?” Minho asked, “Because you don’t trust me anymore?”
“It’s not—
“You trust me enough to call me over during a medical emergency but you don’t trust me enough to tell me the truth about that Cleaver and the mess you’ve gotten yourself into.” Minho hummed in thought as he poured another glass for himself, allowing the sloshing liquid to fill the silence for a few seconds. “It’s because of that, isn’t it?”
Seungmin knew exactly what Minho was referring to but this time, he chose to think over his words properly before responding. A multitude of factors had led to their current, fractured relationship, a few of them internal and some of them external, but if Minho wanted to pursue this line of conversation, he had no trouble addressing it. At least in this case, he had done no wrong. “You never answered my question that day, or any of the other times, Minho hyung,” he said in a soft yet firm voice as he lifted his gaze to meet Minho’s head-on, “Why were you going through all the stuff in my grandfather’s office that day, behind my back?”
“I didn’t answer because I knew you wouldn’t like it, that’s all.”
“Why were you going through my grandfather’s office, Minho hyung?”
Just like all the other times, Minho opened his mouth, almost making it look like he was going to say something, but then closed it back up again. If not for the hint of hesitation evident in Minho’s wandering gaze, which eventually fixed on the full glass in front of him as though it was the most interesting thing in the world, Seungmin would have thought Minho was doing it on purpose. This whole nervous act did not suit him and since Seungmin knew it was not an act, he found himself getting a tad bit nervous too. Suddenly, he did not want to hear the answer to the question that had plagued his mind for so long.
While whatever tension that had gripped Minho slowly faded away, Seungmin’s unease went up and when Minho finally answered, he did not even hear him at first.
“What?”
“I said,” Minho repeated, “I was looking into your parents’ death. That’s why I was in your grandfather’s office.”
“Why? Why would you—-” Seungmin leaned back in his seat, a confused frown sweeping across his face. Every word of Minho’s statement gave rise to a new set of questions, prompting Seungmin to open and close his mouth a couple of times himself as he tried to figure out which ones to voice first. Finally, he asked, “Why would you search through my grandfather’s office if you were looking into my parents’ death? They did not even live there and all the evidence had already been taken away by forensics. What were you even looking for?”
Minho had been expecting those questions and his answers to all of them were ready, but that did not mean he responded right away. He took his time. He scratched at his nose absently, took a couple sips more, and actually mulled over the idea of voicing his suspicions since he already knew what he would get as a response. An eye-roll and a scoff of disbelief, if Seungmin was being merciful, or another two years of radio silence if he was not. Minho decided to take his chances. Minho was not going to let Seungmin ignore him again, not when he knew his friend had gotten himself tangled up with a Cleaver, instead of killing him outright as usual.
Taking a deep breath, he leaned forward and explained, “After your parents died and your grandfather took you in, there were rumors going around in the whole house. You heard them too, I know.”
“Of course, I did. People were always gossiping.” Seungmin replied with a shrug, “So what? Don’t tell me you went ransacking my grandfather’s office just because of a stupid rumor you heard more than ten years ago.”
“I didn’t do that just because of a stupid rumor. I’m smarter than that,” Minho said, appearing slightly offended, “But Mom heard conversations between your grandfather and some SPS agents before and after your parents’ death, okay, and she only told me all this after she retired. It just bugged me and I had to prove to myself, and to her, that she was wrong so that she won’t lose her mind over something that didn’t actually happen.”
“Wait. What—what kind of conversations?”
Minho chewed at his bottom lip for a couple of seconds and regarded Seungmin with a concerned gaze as if trying to get a handle on his reaction prematurely before answering with a sigh, “She said that your grandfather was—he was talking about—about getting rid of your parents.”
Seungmin must have been feeling generous because he only slumped in his seat with an eye-roll and a scoff of disbelief. “I thought it was going to be something dreadful,” He said, sounding immensely relieved for some reason, “but turns out, it’s a rumor I’ve heard a million times already. I thought you were smarter than that, Minho hyung.”
“I don’t think it’s just a rumor, Seungmin. We both know how obsessed your grandfather was with this whole idea of turning you into his perfect heir for SPS and how opposed Uncle Kim was to that idea. If your father had his way, he would have never let you within a hundred miles of SPS, let alone allow you to become its Director.” Encouraged by Seungmin’s silence, Minho added, “Your parents were not killed with a serrated blade. You remember that, right?”
Of course Seungmin remembered. It had been fourteen years since his parents had died, or more accurately, been murdered, but even now, all his memories of that day were vivid as if it had all just happened yesterday. As if only yesterday, he had come back home after playing with Minho and Chan at the local park to find his parents dead. His father in his home office, where he had always liked to work on weekends, wearing a blue polo shirt that Seungmin’s mother had bought for him, and sitting in his usual chair, in his usual position. Everything had been the same—if one only ignored the blood pooled at his feet and dripping from the table, his lifeless eyes staring at Seungmin even though they could see nothing.
Seungmin acutely remembered yelling, crying, shouting for his mother, as children his age often did whenever they faced any type of difficulty, and in the years that had followed, he had often wondered whether he had been trying to put on a charade even then, playing the part of a scared child even though he had known his mother wouldn’t come running. If his father was dead, his mother was dead too. That simple logic had not been very hard to grasp; his parents had been soulmates after all, and instead of feeling grief, he had just been angry at them for being soulmates, for dying together and leaving him behind all alone. In the following days, he had heard many of his relatives, who had come over to coo and sigh over him, express their relief at the fact that at least, his parents had not been killed with a serrated blade. They would be able to find their way back to each other in their next life.
“What about me?” He had asked some of them, “How do I find my way back to them in my next life? There’s nothing connecting me to them.” He had only received more sighs, more sobbing and more hugging in return but that was not the answer he had been looking for so he had stopped asking.
As angry as he had been—at himself, at his parents, at the whole world and its stupid system—he had still been rational enough to not believe every rumor that flew his way after his grandfather had taken him in. And that included the nonsensical one Minho was currently spouting from his mouth.
“I know my parents were not killed with a serrated blade,” Seungmin finally replied, “but just because it was not a Cleaver, that doesn’t automatically mean it was my grandfather. He was not a cruel person, Minho hyung, he gave both of us a home when we had nowhere to go. You should be ashamed of doubting a good man like that.”
“Just because he had a large house with a couple of empty rooms doesn’t automatically make him a good man. You know how he treated all his servants, how he treated my mother, and if you still consider him a ‘good man’, you should be ashamed of yourself.” Minho lifted the glass to his lips and then put it back down without taking a sip. This conversation had made all his thirst and appetite vanish. “I might be wrong about your parents, Seungmin, but I’m not wrong about your grandfather.” Ignoring the waves of anger roiling off of Seungmin, threatening to smother him alive if he uttered one more word, Minho added, “He was not a good person, not at all.”
***
It was close to midnight by the time Seungmin shut the front door softly behind him before proceeding to creep through the hallway of his own house like a thief. Despite everything Minho had told him, he still believed he had done nothing wrong by defending his grandfather against the baseless accusations of a Cleaver, but it did not change the fact that he had gone too far. Visceral shame flooded through him every time his own words echoed back to him, its intensity so overwhelming that he had not been able to go more than five minutes without thinking, ‘What have I done? Why did I say that?’
There was no way to undo or even lessen the scale of damage he had done, so now, like a coward, he could only hope to avoid Hyunjin as best as he could until it all passed—without him having to do something insane like apologizing. He had already taken every possible measure to prevent that unpleasant scenario from occurring: he had parked his car all the way at the far end of the driveway, turned off all the motion sensor systems before entering the house, changed his expensive suit for a nondescript black hoodie so that he could move like a shadow. Now all he had to do was cross one last hurdle—make his way through the open space between the hallway and the staircase on the other end without alerting a certain someone to his presence. A certain someone, who, no doubt, was watching TV again, if the overly dramatic documentary soundtrack drifting in from the living area was anything to go by.
Clutching his laptop bag and the packet of medical supplies close to his chest, Seungmin tiptoed down the length of the dim hallway, relying solely on the light seeping in from the kitchen to navigate his way through. He need not have gone to such lengths, he realized as soon as he took a cautious peek from behind the hallway wall before stepping into the living area. Because Hyunjin was sleeping.
A small mercy at last. At least, he would be able to grab something to eat from the refrigerator before running up the staircase and hiding away in his room for the rest of the night. He should do it now, while the devil was still sleeping and unable to fix that haunted, broken gaze on him again. He knew he should do it now, while he had been given a rare opportunity to bring an end to this awful day without any further confrontations.
But for some inexplicable reason, his body refused to move in the direction it was supposed to. Instead, after a few moments spent staring, Seungmin found himself slowly walking towards the living area. He placed his laptop bag and the medical supplies on the coffee table, switched off the TV, and by the time his mind caught up with his body, he had already taken a seat in front of the couch Hyunjin was sprawled on.
Hyunjin was sleeping, there was no doubt about it, and from the relaxed expression on his face, half-hidden by shadows and wispy strands of his long hair, his dreams were most likely peaceful. He was still wearing the pants from the suit he had put on earlier, while the jacket and shirt lay tossed over the back of the couch, and as usual, Seungmin’s gaze dragged over the scars that were on full display on Hyunjin’s bare back. One. Two. Three. Seungmin leaned forward, squinting slightly as he tried to count them. Four. Five. His fingers twisted over each other on his lap, seized by the irrepressible need to trace each one of those scars with his own hands, as though their true origins would become clear if he could just touch them. It was a whimsical wish, one no doubt planted in his brain by the sci-fi and fantasy movies he had watched when he had been young enough to believe in all of them.
He gave up on trying to count them even before he had reached the middle of Hyunjin’s spine. It was just too much to handle. The wounds repulsed him, despite the fact that he had spent years examining bodies in all kinds of gruesome states, and his inability to look caused a fresh wave of guilt and shame to flood through him. Hyunjin had gone through the pain etched in those scars whereas he—What had he done? Why had he said that?
Without any evidence—apart from their own words and memories—debating over which one of them was right seemed pointless at that very moment. Right now, all he wanted was to make amends and the only relevant question was: how was he going to make amends? (He refused to think about why he wanted to make amends with a Cleaver in the first place.)
“I—-” He started but his voice was so painfully raspy that his single, barely-formed word transformed into a cough. He pressed a hand over his mouth immediately to smother the sound and his eyes went a little wide with panic as he looked at Hyunjin, completely sure that the latter was going to wake up any second and look at him with that haunted, accusing gaze once more.
But Hyunjin did not even stir in his sleep. The lines of his face remained relaxed, the rise and fall of his back was even, and after a few seconds of panicked staring, Seungmin slowly dropped his hand back to his lap. He knew full well that he would be considered insane if he did what he was about to do. He did it anyway. Clearing his throat softly, he said, “I—I—um—I did not—” God, why was this so hard? “---I didn’t mean to say that to you.”
As soon as he had stumbled his way through the first sentence, the rest of them flowed out as though a dam had burst.
“I really didn’t, okay? I—I was just angry because of all those things you were saying, I was not thinking straight. I never actually think straight, I guess, but that is a matter for another time. What I mean to say is I don’t believe that you deserved all this—” he waved a hand at Hyunjin’s back “---and this is not about you specifically, alright? I don’t believe that anybody, let alone a child, should be treated this way no matter what laws they have broken or what crimes they have committed in their lives. But this doesn’t mean I’m going to believe anything you or Min—say about my grandfather. He was a good person, he took care of me when I had nowhere to go, he made me everything I am today, and I’m not going to doubt him until I have conclusive evidence against him. And when I prove you wrong, you are going to apologize to me, no, to my grandfather. I’m going to make you apologize for everything you said.” With a sigh, he straightened his shoulders, placed his palms on top of his knees, and added, “That’s all I wanted to say. I don’t want you to think I’m some kind of sad*stic, heartless monster who condones something horrible like torture. Not that I care about what you think about me, it’s just a general…idea.”
As he had expected and hoped for, his rushed explanation was met with silence. His shoulders relaxed, no longer weighed down by his own guilt, and a soft sigh of relief dropped from his mouth as the silence stretched longer and longer without an end in sight. This was what he had wanted. This was perfectly fine. He had cleared his conscience, without losing a fraction of his pride or embarrassing himself in front of a Cleaver, at least an awake one. Now all he had to do was get the hell out of here before—
“I don’t know what I should be more surprised by—” Hyunjin peeked open one eye just in time to catch Seungmin freezing in place, “----you sitting on the coffee table or you trying to apologize to me.”
“I’m not trying to ap—-” Seungmin started but all his haughty words of denial dissolved on the tip of his tongue as soon as Hyunjin moved to sit upright.
Hyunjin was all hard lines and sharp edges and strong muscles, and even though they were almost the same height and build, he seemed to occupy considerably larger space, whether on the couch or in Seungmin’s mind. Hyunjin’s face crowded his vision and Seungmin tried not to lean away even as his fingers tightened over his knees and he scrambled to find a spot to fix his gaze on—somewhere that was not Hyunjin’s eyes and somewhere that would not make it seem like he was intimidated. The sheer mortification of being caught apologizing to a Cleaver—by a Cleaver no less—had mingled with the confusion that arose inside him every time he was this close to Hyunjin and even as he sucked in a breath, bracing himself just like he had done at the hospital, a deep, earthy scent washed over him nevertheless.
It left him even more confused, for it reminded him of nights spent tucked inside blankets as rain pattered against his window, of evenings spent playing in the mud with sticks and splashing in puddles, of mornings spent sipping hot chocolate near the fireplace. It was an objectively pleasant smell and if he had not known that it’s source was a Cleaver, he would have found it to be comforting almost.
The events of the day had clearly taken a toll on his mind, Seungmin thought as he pressed his knees tightly together as soon as one of them brushed against Hyunjin’s. ‘Move away, move away, move away,’ he chanted in his head, ‘just move away from me.’
Seungmin was certain that his desperate need for some distance had not been vocal but somehow, Hyunjin seemed to have heard them all, or perhaps, had just gauged his unease. In the very next instant, Hyunjin folded himself into a cross-legged position and pressed back into the couch, giving Seungmin all the distance he required, and some more.
The relief that surged inside Seungmin was so intense that he almost mumbled out a ‘thank you’ in return. Almost.
Hyunjin co*cked his head as he regarded Seungmin in the awkward silence that followed. He had heard every word of Seungmin’s rushed, almost-incoherent explanation or apology or whatever it had been, and even though it was more than he had expected from the Director of SPS, it was still not enough. What would ever be enough? Even if tomorrow Seungmin knelt and begged for forgiveness, it would not bring Hyunjin’s family back, it would not undo any of the pain or make his ugly scars magically disappear and leave unblemished skin behind. A momentary rush of satisfaction was all it would give him and at the end, everything would remain the same—he would still be the person who had killed people just so he could live and Seungmin would still be the grandson of the person who had made him that way.
But Hyunjin did appreciate the effort. It was not satisfactory, not by a long shot, but it did pique his interest, as though by opting to throw an apology at a sleeping person, Seungmin had revealed a side of himself that had remained hidden all along. Even though Seungmin’s actions and words had been largely predictable until now, dripping with venom that Hyunjin suspected all SPS agents were given on their first day of initiation, some of them had still managed to catch him by surprise.
The way Seungmin had brought soup for him that day despite being angry enough to bang and shatter half the crockery in the kitchen. The way Seungmin had decided to come forth to change his stitches even though Hyunjin had not mentioned a word about that. The way Seungmin had started using airtight containers for leftover food despite his obvious disdain for eating the same thing twice and only yelled at Hyunjin when he did so. It almost felt like there were two people warring inside Seungmin at all times for control of his actions: the person he actually was and the persona he had molded himself into.
And despite it all, Hyunjin found himself getting curious about the former.
“Why are you staring at me like that?”
Hyunjin blinked out of his thoughts—only to find that Seungmin had reverted to his usual, annoyed self and was glaring at him with his arms crossed over his chest. “Walk away, then,” Hyunjin replied with a shrug, “Why are you sitting here and letting me stare at you? You did your part, you said what you wanted to say, so go now. Leave.”
“Don’t order me around. I’ll leave when I want to leave.”
“Fine.” Hyunjin shrugged again. “Do whatever you wanna do.”
Great, Seungmin thought. Now, because of his stupid mouth and stupid pride, he couldn’t even leave without making it seem like he had accepted defeat. What was the appropriate amount of time that should pass before his actions were considered as products of his own freewill again? He did not know. But he did know that he was not going to spend that undefined period of time feeling like a hostage in his own house, in his own living area.
He tried to relax. Uncrossing his arms and letting his gaze wander over the opulent interior of his house seemed like the way to go about it—wow, installing those pendant lights over the kitchen island had been a really good idea—until he started feeling like a guest in his own house. Once the awkwardness and the silence and the blatant staring got too much, Seungmin decided to ask, “Were you here all day?”
It was just a casual question; he had not meant to sound suspicious but judging by the scoff that he got in response, he had apparently failed even in that simple task. “Of course, I was not here all day,” Hyunjin answered, “I was out, bullying children in the playground and kicking the cats who looked at me with boba-like eyes. I also pushed an old lady down the sidewalk, shoplifted from a small grocery store and also punched a man who was looking at me a little weird. Didn’t you hear? I was all over the news.”
“Are you incapable of answering even a single question properly?” Seungmin fixed Hyunjin with an annoyed gaze. “I didn’t mean to sound like I was interrogating you, alright? I just wanted to know where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing. Is it so hard to tell me the truth?”
“Since when did you start caring about the ‘truth’?” Hyunjin scoffed again, “As far as I know, you think I’m a heartless monster who deserves to be burned at the stake so—-
“I told you, I didn’t mean to say that! I was just—
“Just because you didn’t mean to say that doesn’t change the fact that you did. And just because you deigned to come over here and mumble a half-baked apology doesn’t mean I’m obliged to forgive you.”
Even though those words were sharp, destined to pierce the bubble of relief Seungmin had wrapped himself in after delivering his ‘half-baked apology’, Hyunjin’s voice was calm, even-toned in a way that made Seungmin feel petty for raising his own earlier. It irked him. And it irked him more because there was nothing he could do about it except try to push Hyunjin’s buttons to get a reaction out of him and end up making another mistake.
With a sigh, Seungmin finally reached over to pick up the bag of medical supplies he had taken from Minho’s office—without his permission, of course. “I need to remove your stitches. Turn around.”
“You don’t have to. I can do it myself.”
“Yeah, right.” Now it was Seungmin’s turn to scoff and he did so with as much exasperation as possible while rummaging through the bag. “They’re on you back, how the f*ck are you going to—
“I’ll think of something, you don’t have—
“Just turn around, for god’s sake!” Seungmin snapped, causing Hyunjin to flinch slightly. “Do you have to make everything so f*cking difficult? You were the one going around, singing about the need for cooperation and whatnot so why are you complaining now that I’m trying to cooperate. I’m trying, okay? I’m trying. Do you even know how hard it is to—” Seungmin paused, breathing hard, and pushed the rest of the words back down before he could start spilling his heart and mind out. God, why did he always end up feeling this way in front of Hyunjin? To dump out all his tangled thoughts in the open, hoping someone else would straighten them out because he hadn’t been able to do it himself? Hyunjin was a Cleaver, and possibly the last person on earth Seungmin should turn to for such help. The last person Seungmin should be vulnerable in front of.
“Turn around,” he said in a far softer but no less firmer voice, “I’m not going to sit here and wait for you all night.”
“Why are you doing this?” Hyunjin asked, brows creased into a small furrow as he regarded Seungmin with a curious gaze. “You’re not obliged to change or remove my stitches, the Contract doesn’t bind you to take care of me or something. And you obviously don’t like doing all these things. So why do it then? Why are you sitting here and waiting for me instead of going to sleep? You’re clearly tired.”
“Did you not hear a word of what I said earlier? I’m trying to cooperate. And that means removing your stitches, cleaning your wounds and saving you from dying of infection.”
“So you’re doing this only because you want to cooperate?”
“Yes.”
“Huh.” Hyunjin decided to leave it at that. Even though he liked to think that he could read Seungmin better than most people, there was no way he would be able to understand the underlying rationale behind all these confusing demands and actions—not unless someone developed a technology that would allow him to physically explore Seungmin’s mind, that is. For now, Seungmin remained the enigmatic Director of SPS who wanted to remove stitches in the name of cooperation and Hyunjin decided to let him do just that, if only to finally get some relief from the persistent itchiness on his back.
Despite having braced himself for the uncomfortable procedure, Hyunjin still flinched as soon as Seungmin’s palm pressed down on his shoulder. The touch was downright chilly, akin to having an ice cube placed on one’s skin, and an involuntary shiver ran down his spine, muscles of his back tensing in accord. Hyunjin cleared his throat promptly, hoping to divert attention away from his treacherous body and towards the sound—which was kind of difficult since Seungmin seemed laser-focused on the former instead.
“Your hands are cold,” he remarked lamely, a wince punctuating his words as the first dressing was pulled away from his skin, slowly but none too gently, “You know, perhaps you should—
“Shut up and stay still.” The last thing Seungmin needed right now was another advice or opinion on top of all the confusing ones he had already read on his way over from the hospital. Contrary to what he had claimed in front of Minho, Seungmin did not actually know how to remove stitches, especially snug, tiny ones made by a professional doctor. He was perhaps a couple seconds away from screaming and throwing the tweezers down in frustration—a scenario which became a distinct possibility when a thread caught on something invisible. But fortunately, since all his focus was zeroed in on the arduous task he had taken upon himself, the fact that he should get annoyed at Hyunjin, who was maybe saying something, or get disgusted by the scars on Hyunjin’s back, one of which was right under his palm, did not even cross Seungmin’s mind. Once he got the hang of it, he made quick work of the threads making up the stitch over the first wound and applied a generous dose of antiseptic before taping a clean dressing over it.
“----if you don’t want to. I’m still going to help you find your soulmate no matter what horrible things you say or do to me,” Hyunjin finished with a deep breath but after a few seconds, when he did not receive the usual barrage of confused-annoyed questions, he glanced over his shoulder. “Is….something wrong?” He asked, features pinching in concern as he caught sight of Seungmin frowning at the stitched-up wound near the spine.
“Stop talking for a second,” Seungmin replied absently as he bit his lips, the confused furrow in the center of his forehead deepening with every second that he spent looking at the second bullet wound. He had not thought it possible but compared to the first one, the stitches on this one were even more small and Seungmin moved the scissors towards the skin a couple of times before dropping his hand back down, unsure of his ability to cut the thread without piercing the skin. He should have just called Minho over. Him and his stupid pride, Seungmin cursed inside his head.
“Is something wrong?” Hyunjin asked again, keeping his voice devoid of all the panic he was currently feeling, and this time, Seungmin glanced up at him.
For a few excruciating moments, alarmed by the anxious look Seungmin gave him, Hyunjin was completely certain that his wounds had somehow festered drastically under the dressings despite the fact that Seungmin had changed them diligently every couple of days, and now, the only option was to remove a chunk from his back and leave it even more ugly than it already was. But then, with a sigh, Seungmin finally admitted, “I can’t see the threads properly, the stitches are too tiny.”
“Um—” Hyunjin cast a quick glance around before slowly shifting on the couch so that he was half-lying down, with his elbows pressing over the arm-rest “---how about like this? The light should be enough to give you a good look, I guess?”
“Maybe.” Seungmin still appeared uncertain as he bent over Hyunjin’s back with tweezers, antiseptic wipes and scissors in his hand. “Hold this.” He pushed the box of wipes and tweezers towards Hyunjin before pressing a palm over the center of Hyunjin’s spine, right above one of the most gruesome of scars, “Move a little to the side, I still can’t see.”
“Alright, princess.” Hyunjin sighed and shifted until he was almost dangling out of the couch and had to plant a foot firmly on the ground to keep himself from falling over. “Is this better?”
“Maybe. There’s still a lot of shadow over the wound. Move a little more, will you?”
“Are you kidding me?” Hyunjin would have thrown up his hands in exasperation if they had not been the only thing preventing him from toppling over and banging his head on the side of the granite coffee table. “How difficult can it be to remove the stitches you’ve made? You should get your eyes checked, honestly. Maybe all that stress is making you go blind.”
“In case you forgot, I’m holding a pair of scissors.”
Hyunjin scoffed as he shifted so that he was lying completely on the couch. “As if you can actually do anything with that.”
“Don’t tempt me, I’ll accidentally stab you while pulling out a thread,” Seungmin shot back, tossing a defiant look at Hyunjin even as his hand started trembling as soon as he brought the scissors closer to the wound. God, he wouldn’t actually die if he stabbed Hyunjin while cutting out a knot, would he? Just to push the blame onto someone else, he added, “And for your information, I’m not the one who made all these stitches, okay? So stop labeling me as—
“You’re not?”
“Of course not. I have a—a friend who is a doctor, so I called him over to treat you,” Seungmin answered, keeping his attention fixed on the tight stitches, and lowered the scissors for possibly the twentieth time in the span of two minutes. “I didn’t even give you any anesthetic when I dug out the bullet so don’t expect too much from me in the medical department.”
Seungmin allowed his gaze to slide towards Hyunjin’s face, hoping to find a panicked expression that would mirror the feeling currently twisting his own insides and making him want to throw up. But the look of sheer horror that Hyunjin gave him, all wide eyes and slack jaw, was so comical that a small, rare smile cracked across Seungmin’s face in response.
It was not even a complete smile, just the idea of one, and disappeared like mist within a fraction of a second but the possibility that it carried, of someday evolving into a bigger and brighter one, made it hard for Hyunjin to tear his gaze away from Seungmin. He stared, astounded, even as Seungmin frowned at him in that annoyed way of his. He stared even as Seungmin’s lips moved, making some sound that he was suddenly incapable of hearing, and the edges of those brown—no, hazel—eyes hardened. He just….stared.
“----staring at me!” Seungmin huffed, silently regretting not taking Hyunjin’s advice earlier and leaving before he could get stared at by a creepy assassin, and bent over Hyunjin’s back with scissors in his hand to get this over with as quickly as he could—even if cut through skin in the process.
After a short while, Hyunjin turned away from Seungmin and pressed his face into the armrest before mumbling under his breath, “You do know how to smile.”
‘Of course I know how to f*cking smile, I’m a human being too,’ Seungmin wanted to say but didn’t. How could he, when he was unsure of both those statements? If it were possible, he would have kicked himself for smiling—smiling—in front of a Cleaver, someone who deserved to be treated with contempt at all times. He took a deep breath, allowing his grandfather’s teachings to bring some clarity to his muddled brain, even as he pressed a hand gently over Hyunjin’s spine and tried to be as careful as possible while trying to cut through the stitch. For some inexplicable reason, his hand was no longer trembling and within a couple of seconds, he managed to do it.
Snip. The tiny threads and knots tightly covering the deep wound came loose, allowing it to heal completely, and despite it all, Seungmin found himself hoping that it wouldn’t leave too big of a scar. They both already had too many of those.
“So, who is this doctor friend of yours?” Hyunjin asked after a while, keeping his voice as nonchalant as possible despite the curiosity slowly seeping through him. Before Seungmin could respond with something like ‘mind your own business’ or ‘f*ck off’, he explained, “I’m just asking so that I can thank the person who saved me from dying of pain because of an inexperienced certain someone.”
“I forgot to give you anesthetic, alright? It’s not like I did it on purpose,” Seungmin replied as he worked on removing the stitch, alternating between easing out a thread and wiping the area with antiseptic, “And besides, Minho hyung only accepts gratitude in cash or cheque. If you want to thank him, you can say goodbye to your next month’s payment.”
“Minho hyung,” Hyunjin repeated under his breath, rolling the name over and over in his brain, quite sure that he had heard it somewhere before. After a couple of moments spent frowning to himself, it finally clicked. “Ah, he’s the doctor who came today to give his testimony, isn’t he? Doctor Lee Minho.”
Seungmin neither confirmed nor denied his suspicion and kept his gaze and attention fixed pointedly on the task in front of him.
“Honestly, it’s hard to believe that another one of your ‘friends’ ran into your soulmate,” Hyunjin continued, “First that policeman friend of yours, now this doctor friend of yours. It feels like either all of them are jinxed just because they’re your friends or perhaps, they’re not actually your friends.”
“They are my friends, alright? Stop pretending like you know them better than I do.” The irony of his own words struck Seungmin the instant they left his mouth. He had no idea whether Chan and Minho still considered him a friend after all he had done and he definitely did not know them any better than their own friends and colleagues. Perhaps even less. “I trust them,” He mumbled under his breath, his intended statement transformed into a wistful question.
“Of course you do,” Hyunjin answered and this time, his soft voice carried no hint of any sarcasm or mockery. Nothing to suggest that his words might be anything but serious. Seungmin glanced towards him, allowing his confused gaze to meet Hyunjin’s silently confident ones, but before he could even attempt to understand the rationale behind that confidence, Hyunjin asked, “Did you take a look at that testimony yet?”
The question was like a splash of cold water over the sleepy, tired warmth that had started wrapping around Seungmin and he quickly redirected his focus towards the wound in front of him. “No,” He shrugged, hoping to appear busy in applying the dressing, “too busy.”
“Too busy to take a look at the sketch which might very well be the person you have been trying to find all this time?”
“Yeah, I was too busy today. I’m the Director of SPS, after all. Reading testimonies is not the only thing I do.” Seungmin was acutely aware of how lame it sounded but he was not one to back out once he had started spinning a lie—not until he got caught, at least. “I’ll take a look at it tomorrow, it’s not a big deal.”
“Are you…scared?”
“No, of course not! Why would I be scared? That’s just ridiculous,” Seungmin huffed—and rolled his eyes for added measure—as he put the final tape to secure the dressing. “I was actually busy today and right now, I’m too tired to read through a long statement, that’s all.”
A deep, distant and apparently inactive part of him was aware that he was not obliged to talk, let alone explain himself to a Cleaver, but that realization did not strike him until Hyunjin sat up on the couch once more and regarded him with plain amusem*nt. It was unnerving, the way Hyunjin always looked at him as though he knew exactly what was going through his mind at any given moment, but Seungmin refused to lose his composure and just dumped all the medical supplies back in the bag as quickly as possible so that he could leave and get done with this horrible day. A few words, however, were enough to make him go still.
“You are scared.”
Seungmin snapped his gaze towards Hyunjin, furious that he would say something insulting like that, even though it was the truth, but before he could give voice to the sudden surge of anger coursing through him, Hyunjin leaned towards him, with his one arm slightly raised.
For a frantic moment, Seungmin had the outrageously wild idea that Hyunjin was going to hug him or something and the mere thought of having those bare arms wrapped around his body sent his heartbeat skyrocketing and adrenaline pumping—just the way it always did whenever he was fighting or on the verge of killing someone. The kind of drug he sought, the kind of drug he craved for.
His fingers clenched tight over the plastic bag on his lap in anticipation even as he instinctively leaned back a little. He was not going to let a Cleaver hug him just because he might be scared of seeing a silly little sketch and the possibility of being held seemed like a slice of heaven right now. No. Not Hyunjin, not a Cleaver. If he wanted hugs, he would hire a professional hugger or make up with Chan and ask him for hugs. There was no way he was going to let Hyunjin hu—-
His train of wild thoughts caught fire, derailed and went crashing off the edge when Hyunjin, instead of doing something utterly brazen, only picked up the laptop bag Seungmin had placed on the coffee table earlier and leaned away without another word or glance.
The flush of heat that spread across the back of Seungmin’s neck was so intense that by the time he realized Hyunjin was going through his bag, the latter had already set aside his laptop and had begun flipping through a file.
“Wait, you can’t just—
“Relax,” Hyunjin drawled, his lazy tone in contrast to the trepidation burning through Seungmin, “there’s nothing on here that I don’t already know. I’ll just take a look at the sketch and if it’s really your soulmate, I’ll let you know, alright? I still think it’s unlikely that your doctor friend met hyu—your soulmate. If he had, he would have been dead by now, I—” Hyunjin trailed off as snatches of conversation from a rainy night one week ago slowly floated inside his brain, causing him to second-guess his own statement. Minho might very well have been the doctor Seungmin’s soulmate had wanted to get killed—still wanted to kill probably—and Hyunjin mentally sighed in relief that he had refused to take on that task. He would have killed his own savior then, and moreover, Seungmin would have killed him the moment he found out.
“I’ll—I’ll just take a look.” Hyunjin flipped through the file with a slightly heightened sense of urgency as Seungmin’s expectant, anxious gaze bore down on him like a thousand-pound weight. Within a few seconds, he found the sketch and even though he had expected it, a sigh of relief slipped from his mouth nevertheless. “Yeah, it’s him. Wanna take a look?”
Seungmin’s entire body tensed as the file was flipped towards him, and despite the fact that he had spent his entire life waiting for this moment, waiting to catch a glimpse of the person destined for him, the sketch of his soulmate still managed to catch him unprepared. He did not know when he had taken the file from Hyunjin but slowly, the whole picture appeared so much bigger and clearer, every line of every feature defined as though the person in the monochrome portrait was staring right back at him. The forensic artist had undoubtedly done a very good job and Minho definitely seemed to have taken a good look at Seungmin’s soulmate up front yet, neither had managed to depict him as the monster he was.
Just like his alleged name, Seungmin’s soulmate also looked normal, much to Seungmin’s disappointment. No horns on his head, no wicked grin etched permanently on his face, no evil in those eyes that were shaded slightly lighter than a deep black. Dark gray eyes, the note said. Except for using or having a rare eye color, with his slanted eyes, tight smile and slightly tousled dark hair, he looked like any other normal person, the kind one might run into on the street, have a minute of polite conversation made up solely of sorrys and thank yous, and then forget about a couple of blocks later. And despite it all, Seungmin could not help but wonder what his life might have been like if he had run into his soulmate on the street or a store like so many other people. Would he have felt something, if his soulmate had been a normal, kind person like his picture made him out to be instead of the murderous monster he actually was? Or would he have remained clueless even then?
Was all of this his fault?
Somehow, it felt like it was. After all, if his pull had been stronger, perhaps he would have recognized his soulmate in an instant, right there on his eighteenth birthday party. They could have met, they could have talked, and perhaps his soulmate would have realized that spending a lifetime with someone might not be so bad. Perhaps, he would have been able to save this man in the picture before he went beyond all saving
“Stop thinking like that.” Hyunjin’s voice pulled Seungmin out of his thoughts, making him realize that he had been staring at the photo with a forlorn gaze for far too long. Had he been speaking out loud too? Seungmin wanted to ask but as if in response, Hyunjin only shook his head, gently took the file out of Seungmin’s hands, and added, “There’s no use in thinking about useless things.”
Largely offended and slightly confused, Seungmin crossed his arms over his chest with a huff. “Well, excuse me for having wishes and hopes, I guess.”
“You’re going to drive yourself crazy if you keep wishing and hoping for things that are no longer possible,” Hyunjin stated, even though he was as guilty of that particular crime as Seungmin. Perhaps even more. With a light chuckle, he closed the file and added, “Not that you aren’t already crazy.”
Seungmin resisted the urge to roll his eyes and only watched as Hyunjin put the file and the laptop back inside the bag and zipped it close. “So—-” he started tentatively and paused for a few seconds, allowing his gaze to wander “---are you still going to help me?”
“Of course,” Hyunjin promptly answered as he set aside the bag before giving Seungmin his full attention, “I told you no matter what horrible things you say or do to me, I am going to help you find him. But the question is—” he leaned forward, forcing Seungmin to brace himself against the woodsy scent that washed over him again “---are you ready to find him?”
“Yes.”
“Perfect.” The grin that spread across Hyunjin’s mouth was wide and unrestrained, quite like that first night when he had given up his name and had gone from being a nameless assassin to a real person who had started occupying almost seventy percent of Seungmin’s daily thoughts. And just like that time, Seungmin felt his heart racing, in anticipation of what was to come and in exhilaration at being on the receiving end of something so wild. Hyunjin’s dark eyes roamed over Seungmin’s face for a few seconds before he finally nodded to himself, apparently having found whatever he was looking for.
“Okay, then. Put on your best outfit, princess,” he said, “time to go soulmate hunting.”
