Chapter Text
Seungmin is too keyed up to rest.
Piece by piece, the need to settle his brain eats at him. To run through scenarios in his head. To be ready.
Right now, the smart thing to do is to lie down. Close his eyes for a few minutes and let it all play out in his mind. That's what he should do. But he can't stop pacing around, walking from the end of the bed to the wall and back. His brain jumps from the mission to Hyunjin. From the plan to that moment they shared in Rm 4419.
He doesn't even hear a knock or the door open, but on one of his turns at the end of the bed, he sees Hyunjin, standing with his back to the door and his hands resting behind him on the handle.
He doesn't say anything.
Seungmin blinks. Maybe he is actually dreaming, making lifelike images of him appear, but the energy in the room has changed. His frenetic fidgeting gives way to something else, something darker and unreadable, sinking hollowly in his gut, and Seungmin fears the worst. Maybe their lighter moment earlier had meant nothing and they've just now entered a new round. A new fight.
Hyunjin can do that. Turn his emotions on and off. Run hot and cold. Touch Seungmin like he always did, then spout things he doesn't mean.
"Are we about to fight again?"
"Is that what you need?"
Seungmin tries not to frown. What the hell kind of answer is that? "No."
Hyunjin leans against the door, eyes slowly roaming all over him before he speaks again. "I wanted you from the first moment I saw you."
Something like a warning sign flashes in Seungmin's brain.
"But I guess that's obvious," Hyunjin continues. "I didn't exactly fight it."
It is almost too easy to wade into that conversation. The fact that Hyunjin brings it up might even mean he's shifted into a different headspace. Something has happened since Rm 4419, and Seungmin has no idea what it could’ve been. He knows the smart thing this time is to ignore Hyunjin's newest mood, but still...
Seungmin can't look away. "You sat off by yourself and gave off a 'keep out' vibe." Hyunjin still does. The look, the attitude, those damn eyes—they always suck Seungmin in. "So fucking hot."
"You'd seen me before that first night in the bar."
"I'd read your file." And still the real-life version of Hyunjin is far more potent.
For the first time—the only time—in Seungmin's adult life, he had ignored protocol and rules and even the job's mandate, and taken something for himself. Acted on the attraction that's kicking his ass. For him , not for work. Because he'd wanted Hyunjin.
Not because Eunmi or Minho or anyone else wanted him to get close.
"You knew what I liked before you moved in on me." Hyunjin seems to be weighing each word, eyes a little less sharp. Testing.
Seungmin isn't sure he can pass, but this topic, the reality of who they are together outside of the job—this really might be his last chance to ever say it. "I watched you. Eunmi wasn't convinced you were gay, but that's what her intel told her."
"How?"
"The mole knew." Seungmin goes one step further. "I knew from the way you looked at me. There was nothing straight about the way you checked me and the other men out."
His gaze would stay a second too long on the attractive bartender. There is no record of any women as close contacts. No one-night stands. No friends with benefits. No like-minded female agents who helped him burn off the sexual rush. No women he paid for release. Seungmin recognizes the signs because he'd guess his record is a mirror image.
"You followed me before you came up to me in the bar." Hyunjin doesn't phrase it as a question, but it hangs in the air as one.
"I'm not going to lie to you anymore, Hyunjin."
"That's a yes?"
"Yes." He might not have Hyunjin's shooting skills, but he has a few skills of his own. Tracking people, dissecting their lives without them knowing it. He's honed those ever since he got into SKZ. "Are you going to storm out now?"
"No."
Hyunjin doesn't look upset. He just stands there with his arms at his sides, and Seungmin has no idea how to assess what he's feeling, thinking. "You kept staring forward. That night, I mean. It was a bit unnerving, actually."
"I was nursing a beer and watching a game."
"More like glaring at the television." A habit Seungmin now knows Hyunjin employs with every game. It is as if he thinks he can intimidate his team into winning through the screen.
"You sat down and smiled, and I..."
Seungmin waits, but Hyunjin just lets the sentence drop. "What?"
"Lost my mind." Hyunjin pushes away from the door and something in Seungmin's chest stutters with him. He doesn't step closer, but the room seems to constrict. The air grows thinner, makes it harder to breathe. "I kept trying to get a look at your body but I couldn't. You were on the barstool."
"I remember." Seungmin's heartbeat kicks up and takes off on a race, even as he tries to contain it. "You weren't exactly subtle about it."
"I didn't have the benefit of reading all about you in a file first."
Seungmin doesn't want to talk about files and work. Not now. Not when they seem to teeter on the edge of something bigger. "You were so much hotter than the photos I saw."
Hyunjin laughs. "You don't have to flatter me."
Sweet damn. His body. Sure, Seungmin had expected Hyunjin to be fit and able to run. But he's turned out to be pure perfection—every muscle, every angle, appealing to him on a primal level.
"Your hands." It's not even something Seungmin has ever noticed on any other guy. Ever.
Hyunjin's eyebrow lifts. "What about them?"
"Long fingers. Sexy and strong." Seungmin reaches for Hyunjin's hand and turns it over. He runs the tip of his finger over the calluses, earned in the weight room and on the practice range. "Then I learned what you could do with them."
Hyunjin doesn't take his hand back. "Were you supposed to move in with me right away?"
Seungmin doesn't let go. He keeps brushing his finger, soothingly, indulgingly, across Hyunjin's open palm. "Never."
"What?"
"It was supposed to be a quick hookup for me to scope out your place." Seungmin continues to touch him, almost hypnotized by the motions, silently memorizing how good it feels. "I convinced Eunmi getting in a relationship would be the best way to keep tabs on you."
At this, Hyunjin curls his hand around Seungmin's. "Because that's what Minho ordered?"
"No," Seungmin breathes out. "Eunmi wanted one night to confirm the data she had and collect more. Minho insisted that I not actually get involved with you. Just tell Eunmi I slept with you but not do it." He's been answering to two people, both of whom expect him to use Hyunjin.
Hyunjin frowns. "I don't get it."
"You aren't the only one who lost his mind that night, Hyunjin." He looks up, gaze searching Hyunjin's, looking for any sign that he understands the gravity of what Seungmin is trying to say. "I broke protocol. Being with you became more important than any job. Right from the start."
"Seungmin—"
"You don't have to believe me." Seungmin can't actually stand to hear it if he doesn't. He drops Hyunjin's hand, just as the constant ache in him grows stronger with the thought. "I just needed to tell you."
Something moves in Hyunjin's eyes. Heat, maybe. Maybe something else, something deeper. "What else do you need?"
"You. Always you." Seungmin doesn't bother to lie. He's already promised that he won't, and he doesn't want to. It won't move them one inch further than where they are. "What we did, what happened between us earlier was only the start."
Instead of walking out or denying anything, Hyunjin sits on the bed. He gestures to the space next to him. "Come here."
Seungmin watches him and swallows. So fucking tempting. "I don't have time."
"Seungmin." Hyunjin moves back and puts his body closer to the center of the mattress.
"I'm also not in the mood to see you rush out right after and leave me to guess your thoughts."
There, Seungmin has said it.
The real worry.
At least this way, Seungmin can pretend whatever they have ends without yelling. One more step, and they'll slip back into that cycle where he hopes and Hyunjin bolts for the door.
"Come. Here." This time it is an order. Not in Hyunjin's work voice, no, this is the one he uses in private when he wants his way. Quiet calm that always makes Seungmin want to give in. "I don't have a condom on me. Left it in my room on purpose."
Seungmin exhales. Then why should he get on the bed? What waits for him there? "Then what's the plan?"
"We'll just lie here for a second."
A rush of amusement strikes Seungmin that he has to bite back a laugh. He can't fight the smile though. "You mean you want to cuddle?"
Hyunjin rolls his eyes as he shifts some more, ending up with his head on the pillow. "It sounds ridiculous when you say it like that."
Seungmin has officially stepped into some sort of weird fantasy. This is the only explanation. He blinks a few more times—but Hyunjin is still sprawled on the bed, looking far too inviting for Seungmin's limited self-control. "So, no?"
"If I have to say it one more time after this, I'm coming over there to get you." Hyunjin pats the mattress beside him. "Come here."
All the fight finally drains right out of Seungmin, and need and warmth roar through. So do all concerns about time and concentration.
But Seungmin can have this.
A few minutes of just this.
He gets on the bed and turns on his side. Without any effort or taking a minute to think, he shifts closer and drapes an arm across Hyunjin's stomach. They lay there, fully clothed, with Hyunjin's arm wrapped around Seungmin and his fingers brushing through his hair.
For a second, Seungmin closes his eyes and lets a sense of peace drift over him. He isn't a guy who stops and relaxes all that much. Hyunjin is even less so. But at this moment, as he sinks into Hyunjin's body, he lets his mind wander, lets thoughts scatter in his head.
But one keeps shouting in his brain. "I fucked all of this up."
He hadn't meant to say it out loud. He doesn’t even realize he had until Hyunjin starts talking, voice rumbling in his chest.
"You did your job." Hyunjin exhales and Seungmin feels the way his chest and stomach heave and relax against his body. "I can admit that now."
But Hyunjin doesn't get it.
Seungmin is referring to all of it. Every minute of his adult life. "I was talking about more than us. But I did mess that part up pretty badly, too."
Hyunjin's arm tightens around him. His other hand creeps up to cover Seungmin's on his stomach. "Tell me."
Seungmin hesitates.
But there, in the room with tightly closed blinds and tinted windows, not looking at Hyunjin but feeling him everywhere —he finally starts to unload. To talk about all the personal things he couldn't talk about before because they didn't match his cover story. All the secrets he's buried deep inside.
"I liked to party when I was a teenager, something I learned from my parents, but they were functional and I was a drunk," he recounts softly. "Stealing the family car, going on joyrides. Raiding the extensive liquor cabinet and showing up at school piss drunk."
Hyunjin makes a noise like he is putting the pieces together in his head. "Is that why you don't drink much now?"
Seungmin has mostly stopped years ago. A beer here and there, but no more. Never more than one glass, and even that, never within hours of driving a car. "Identifying your parents' bodies after your father kills them both in a drunken car accident is a pretty powerful deterrent."
Hyunjin's whole body jerks. "Jesus, Seungmin. I'm sorry."
Seungmin only presses closer. "My whole life... It has always been about not being him." Back then, Seungmin viewed his father as an obnoxious hypocrite who cared more about what people thought than about his own kids. Now, nothing much has changed that assessment since. "He'd preach about personal responsibility, then exercise none. My sister went into the military to escape him. I thought SKZ was the answer."
"Where's your sister now?"
"Dead. Military hero." And that is all Seungmin can say about her. Even in this quiet moment, he doesn't want to talk about Mina.
Hyunjin lets him be. For a few seconds, they just listen to each other's breathing as silence blankets over them. Consoling, comforting, not demanding anything.
"You don't have to make everything right for everyone." Hyunjin's fingers travel back and forth, from Seungmin's hair to his shoulder before starting the circle again. "That's what going back into the District is about, right? Some sort of penance."
"I don't regret my decisions there." Desperate to make Hyunjin understand this one point if nothing else, Seungmin leans up on his elbow. Stares down at the man who has come to mean everything to him. Even more than the job that sustains him. "I couldn't let you be dragged off."
"Protecting me is not your job."
When before, Hyunjin has said something similar and sounded pissed off, not this time. Not with anger.
"You refuse to understand how much you mean to me." Softly, gently, Seungmin traces Hyunjin's bottom lip with his thumb before dropping a chaste kiss there. "Maybe you don't want to."
Hyunjin breathes out. He runs the back of his fingers softly over Seungmin's fuller cheeks, then just as delicately cradles the side of his face in his palm. "You scare the shit out of me."
"At least you feel something for me."
Hyunjin doesn't even blink, still holding him like... like this means something to him too. Like Seungmin means something to him. "Too much."
The tight band that has held Seungmin's chest in a vise since he's heard about the kidnapping loosens. The choking pain, all the guilt, lifts. For a second, he feels lighter, freer.
He doesn't want the feeling to end. He can't stand the thought of whatever next sentence ruining it. He slips his hand inside Hyunjin's shirt.
As his finger moves up, he slides down, turning his head and kissing a line down Hyunjin's chest and over his shirt to the warm, bare skin beneath.
"What are you doing?" Though Hyunjin's husky voice suggests he knows exactly what would happen next.
Saying goodbye in case this is all the time we get.
"Giving us both some relief. The only kind we'll get right now." Seungmin's fingers go to the button at the top of Hyunjin's jeans. Then he has the zipper down, his hand working its way inside while his mouth travels lower.
The thick walls magnify Hyunjin's sharp intake of breath, just as a strong hand wraps around Seungmin's wrist that makes him pause. "Seungmin."
"Hyun… please."
Hyunjin stares at him, looks at him as though he is seeing right into his soul, bared and exposed and barely held together for him. Seungmin waits with bated breath, heat in the tips of his fingers and in every part that touches against him—until Hyunjin finally moves, nudges him up until they're level. Face to face, chest to chest.
His hand slides to Seungmin’s waist, settling just beneath his shirt and against his skin like it belongs there, the other grounding at the back of his neck. Warm. Protective. Desiring. Reverent. Seungmin's fingers find purchase on Hyunjin’s shirt.
Dark eyes roam over his face, and within his next breath, Hyunjin holds him closer, tugs him down and presses a chaste kiss on his forehead.
A plea of his own. Seungmin feels it on both of his closed eyelids next, the tip of his nose, and savors it last on his slightly parted lips. A confession. As though it's meant to hold him together even when everything inside him is falling apart. To piece him back together and patch the holes, the wears and tears he doesn't fully understand yet but Seungmin knows he’s trying to.
As if Hyunjin can only hope this is enough to convey at least a part of the surface of everything he's feeling. As if he has so much to say, and yet nothing comes out of his mouth. Nothing but, "Promise me you'll come back. Alive."
Seungmin leans in for another bittersweet kiss, holding this one for a moment longer than usual. He doesn’t dare play with fate this time. "I will."
But while Seungmin hopes he can do it, he fears he won't be able to.
Together like this, tangled again in the warmth of each other's bodies, the last twenty-four or so hours feel like a distant memory.
Hyunjin doesn't know how long the two of them lay there, clinging to each other as the night deepens. Too afraid to let each other go. Afraid to speak, to even make a sound. Choked by the reality that Seungmin will be leaving soon.
Hyunjin has even started to think that if he doesn't say a word, maybe they can live in this moment forever.
In the sacred space of dusk between waking and dreams, his mind drifts back to the one and only time he thinks Seungmin actually caught him in a lie. Hyunjin still clearly remembers.
He had gotten home late that night, hoping to just sneak into bed without Seungmin noticing, but the latter was still up late on his laptop. Seungmin had flashed him a brilliant smile when he walked through the door of their apartment.
"Hey, late night?"
And Hyunjin's exhausted mind had latched onto the first idea that came to him. "Yeah, just out grabbing drinks at the bar around the corner."
"Really? I thought they were closed for renovations all this month."
Shit. "Oh." Hyunjin wished Seungmin hadn’t noticed his stammering. "We must be talking about two different bars then."
Luckily, Seungmin had seemed to buy it, only giving a small shrug before turning back to his laptop. Looking back now, Seungmin definitely knew he was lying.
Even later that same night, as he was holding Seungmin close, drifting to sleep inside the peace and security of their shared apartment, he'd barely register Seungmin whispering into his ear.
"You know I would forgive you for anything, right? " His voice was soft, like a lullaby. "No matter what, Hyun."
At that time, Hyunjin worried how Seungmin might have thought he was cheating.
Now, as he holds him close again, finally free from the lies he'd told him...
He hugs Seungmin tighter against his chest, breathing in his scent, trying to memorize the feeling of his body against his.
He doesn't know how long it takes for him to drift off, just listening to Seungmin's even breaths and soft snoring, but when he does, he dreams of Seungmin.
Of a happy future with him.
And yet, when Hyunjin awakens next, he's alone in Seungmin's bed.
That is a bad sign.
Before he even has the time to process it, he's already hastily bounding down the stairs, re-zipping his pants as he goes.
By the time he hits the main room, he's shifted into a jog— until he sees Seungmin still there, standing in the middle of the room.
He slows down, realizes he hasn't been breathing right until he feels the air sharply hit his lungs. "You're sneaking out of bed now? This is a new thing."
Changbin makes a face. "Damn, man."
"We're all standing right here," Jisung points out.
Seungmin actually looks amused. He isn't smiling, but it is close. "It's okay. I'm not the one who's shy about who I sleep with."
A dig. Isn't that fucking fabulous. The days of no one knowing about Hyunjin's personal life are truly over.
His friends stare at him as Chan and Minho come out of a back room and hover in a doorway to join in.
Fine , if they all need a big announcement, he'll give them one. His parents had made him feel ashamed for long enough. "Like it's a big secret what's been happening since we got here twenty-four hours ago. Do I need to spell out every position we've tried over the last few months?"
Seungmin frowns at him. "Let's not."
"Wow. Hard to believe you work undercover with that sort of massive oversharing problem." Jisung whistles. "Your boundaries need some work."
"No kidding." Seungmin picks up the water bottle hanging on the edge of the table and sits down holding it.
"He could also use a lesson in tact." Changbin shrugs when Hyunjin stares at him. "What? I'm not wrong."
Seungmin waves off all the comments, but his furrowed eyebrows, the subtle sulking in his face, stay in place. "It's fine."
Not that Hyunjin wants to listen to what any of them has thought of—anyone but Seungmin. The question on his mind is too damn important to brush away or ignore, gnawing under his skin. "Was the plan to run off and let me find out you'd left from someone else?"
Seungmin freezes in the middle of unscrewing the cap. "Of course not."
"Hey!" Jisung waves a hand in front of Hyunjin's face. "You can see us standing here, right?"
Unfortunately, yes, and he'd rather that end right now. "Get out."
"Not gonna happen." Changbin takes the seat at the head of the table. "We don't have time for a lovers' quarrel. The exchange is in an hour and we need to rough Seungmin up a bit first. So Eunmi and Jimin will believe he's been battling with us."
Seungmin makes a choking sound. "Thanks for that reminder."
Forget the ticking clock. Hyunjin has finally figured out that their covers aren't the only thing keeping him and Seungmin arm's distance apart. He enjoyed what they had because deep down he'd convinced himself they couldn't have anything else. The relationship was based on a lie and could only go so far. Farther than any other in his adult life, more meaningful and bigger than he'd ever expected, but still he'd held back.
Hyunjin needs to tell Seungmin all of that. To explain it even though it scares the piss out of him to talk about things like emotions and relationships and a real future.
Seungmin needs to understand that he will have backup.
A man like Seungmin, who lives his life sacrificing for others, might be willing to pay the ultimate price—but Hyunjin can't let that happen. He refuses to sit this mission out.
That means a lot of arguing and negotiating, and Hyunjin has no idea how to accomplish it all in an hour. And with an audience. Desperation wells more and more inside him. "Maybe you all can't tell, but I'm not in the mood to joke around."
Changbin snorts. "I'm starting to think we should stay for Seungmin's protection."
"You wanted to shoot him less than twenty-four hours ago." Interesting how they all have bonded. Hyunjin isn't sure how he missed that part.
"Not to point out the obvious, but so did you." Changbin reaches across the table and grabs a water bottle from the stack in the middle.
"Where are we on the stupid plan?" Stupid plan. That's how Hyunjin prefers to call it, because it's easier than saying suicide mission, which is what he fears it actually is.
"The ALN agent is on the way to the drop site," Chan says.
Seems his boss isn't in a sharing mood, so Hyunjin turns to Seungmin. "We know his name, but what else do we know about this guy?"
"Enough." And that's all Seungmin says.
The argument, if it can even be called that, doesn't move Hyunjin at all. "He could bring you in and turn on you the next second."
"He doesn't get any benefit from that," Minho answers.
Hyunjin glares at him. "You act like this isn't kill-or-be-killed work."
"Felix could have sold me out a long time ago and didn't." Seungmin twists the cap back and forth on the bottle.
"Felix." Hyunjin repeats the name.
Seungmin nods. "Lee Felix. You're not going to touch him."
As if he's going to promise that. Hyunjin almost laughs at the thought. Almost. "And how did you know Lee Felix before you met at the District?"
It isn't as if all special-ops teams from every agency or country hang out together on their off time. Some work on joint task forces and multinational operations, but those are specific circumstances with very few crossovers.
The idea of them randomly running into one of those task members again on a new job isn't exactly a high probability. It’s definitely something else.
"He's a bodyguard there." Seungmin picks at the paper banding the outside of the bottle. "There's talk about assigning him to the youngest brother, Jeongin."
Interesting, but not half as interesting as Seungmin's sudden vomiting of irrelevant information. He hasn't even come close to answering the question. "So, you guys started talking and, what, traded spy-craft secrets? Like it was no big deal you were both there and undercover. Fuck protocol."
"No."
Exactly. "Then explain it to me."
Seungmin watches Hyunjin now. "It doesn't matter."
"This is almost painful to watch," Changbin quips.
"Uh-huh." Jisung nods. "But I'm not stopping."
"Gentlemen." Minho's frustrated voice cuts through the room. "We're on a timetable."
"And you're supposed to be grown-ups." Chan mumbles the comment under his breath. Though, he doesn't actually step in to stop Hyunjin.
Which is good, because Hyunjin isn't about to let it go. "You were fine spilling secrets to some guy from ALN when you wouldn't tell people at SKZ—namely me—what you were doing?"
"I knew him." Seungmin reaches for the water bottle again.
"I don't get it."
Seungmin freezes with the bottle in midair. "Yes, Hyunjin. You do."
Jisung gasps. "Oh, shit."
They all start to shift around. Changbin fidgets, and both Chan and Minho look like they want to be anywhere but in the room.
Hyunjin hears it, senses it—a red haze clouding his vision, the sudden, sharp claws of hurt, of another important thing kept from him, digging its way in his chest. He grabs onto the chair in front of him to keep himself from lunging across the table. "You've been fucking him too?"
Tension whips through the room. Seungmin must have felt it, because he stands. His hands come up and his voice drops to placating mode. "I knew him before you."
"What does that even mean?" Seungmin has to spell it out, to stop playing games.
"I think I can help here." Minho steps in closer. "They were on a joint task force together a few years ago."
Hyunjin keeps his attention on Seungmin. He appreciates Minho's toughness. In a fight, might even pick him over Changbin. The man doesn't scare easily, but now is not the time to help. "I want him to answer."
"I just did."
But only half of it. "And you slept together."
Seungmin exhales. "Yes. It was a long time ago, long before you. It meant nothing."
Hyunjin already expected the response, even saw it coming. Still, the words slam into him with the force of a racing freight train, unable to contain itself from spilling. "You seem to excel at those types of relationships."
A charged silence lights the room. For a second, no one moves. Seungmin tenses, but then his shoulders fall, and fury sparks in his eyes.
Pushing Changbin aside, Chan moves to the head of the table. The not-so-subtle gesture reminds them he is the leader. "There's probably a better time for this."
"Exactly." Minho lifts his chin and waits until Chan looks at him. "We have to move."
"There's a rendezvous time and place," Seungmin says, and before Hyunjin can interrupt again, he continues. "Felix set it. We get the rest of the directions on the way."
"That's not suspicious," Jisung says.
Hyunjin’s world starts spinning. Once again, he finds himself standing right there on the edge. He's just thought about moving the relationship into something real and now, a new problem arises—a man from Seungmin's past who can ruin everything.
Hyunjin doesn't care that they've both been with other people. Hell, he likes that, because Seungmin knows what he is doing and what he wants in the bedroom.
But Hyunjin also can't help but feel like— like once again he's almost found somewhere to belong, a person who could care about him, and it is all about to be taken away.
Chan clears his throat. "It's solid protocol. We'd do the same thing."
Hyunjin pushes back from the table and starts to pace. Seungmin's life is in the hands of a man he has never met. No matter how he turns the plan over in his head, it ends with Seungmin dead. "So, we put you in without eyes or ears?"
Seungmin doesn't back down from Hyunjin's sarcastic tone. "Felix will report back when possible."
"The guy we don't know we can trust."
"We can."
And that pisses Hyunjin off more than anything else. "Because you fucked him once a long time ago."
The tension keeps ratcheting up. With every word, every phrase, the walls seem to close in and buckle. The air sucks out of Hyunjin's lungs, the tight fist of pain in the center of his chest begins to pound.
"Technically," Jisung says, "he never said it was just once."
"This is starting in ten," Minho interrupts. "Either get on board or get out of the way."
And just with that, Minho leaves the room, taking Seungmin with him. Neither of them looks at Hyunjin as they leave.
Fine with him. Hyunjin has what he needs—a moment alone with his team.
"You done being an ass?" Chan asks.
Hyunjin doesn't care what anyone thinks of his behavior, not when his gut feeling just screams wrong . He'll apologize later. "I'm going in as backup. The three of us. Changbin and I will be on the ground. Jisung can relay messages to you so Minho is kept in the dark as long as possible."
Changbin nods. "So far, I like this plan."
"And if I say no?" Chan sighs. "You're too close of a target to this one."
"You won't."
They both know Lee Minho is taking a risk. Neither do they fully trust the ALN.
They also both know that if anything goes wrong, Hyunjin will make a move to save Seungmin. Chan can't stop that. But he can still make sure he has a say in how Hyunjin makes it happen.
For a second, Chan just stands there regarding him, and then the team. "Changbin is lead. You follow his orders. If you don't, these two have permission to shoot you and leave you behind. Got it?"
Hyunjin knows that's the best he's going to get. "Done."
They're down to a half hour, and Seungmin is pretty sure his headache is never going away. It starts at the base of his skull and radiates up behind his eyes. He's taken migraine meds, but nothing helps.
"Wait a second," Changbin calls out, following him down the hall toward the weight room.
Seungmin keeps walking even though he has no idea where he can still go. "I've had about all I can take from your team."
"You were more than a one-night stand to him," Changbin says, then stops.
So does Seungmin. He actually debates pushing the entire conversation off. "You think I— that I wanted what I have with Hyunjin to spin out this way?"
"I think you were in denial about how the relationship could end."
"Probably." That one Seungmin can admit—he went in smart, but then the world tipped sideways on him. "Honestly, I'm not really thinking ahead. For once, I just went with it."
For a brief second, Changbin doesn't say anything. Then, gentler, "You actually care about him."
Seungmin leans against the wall and exhales heavily, letting the coolness from the stone seep into his skin. "No offense, but this isn't your business."
"Yeah. Well, Hyunjin has his head stuck up his ass at the moment. I'm acting on his behalf."
It looks like Changbin understands Hyunjin pretty well. It's probably good if someone does. Someone that isn't Seungmin... though that stings a little more than he cares to admit.
But at least, when all this ends, there's a small chance Hyunjin will let his guard down. Even if Seungmin doubts it.
"I just— I need all of this to mean something. Hurting Hyunjin, breaking the rules, compromising the mission, taking all those risks, and ignoring the shit I've seen over all those months in the District." Almost out of breath even when he was just standing there, chest constricting. He rubs the back of his neck with a sigh, but the headache still pounds. "I just— I started this. I need to be the one to end it."
Changbin shifts his weight to his other foot, tilts his head as if easing the words in. "What if you never see Hyunjin again?"
The very mention has the twisting in Seungmin's gut roaring back to life. He has to look away, hide how unbearable and helpless it makes him feel. "I can't,” he swallows the cold, hard lump he feels in his throat when the words come out weakly. “I can’t even think about that right now."
"Fair enough." Then Changbin holds out his hand, and Seungmin sees him smile. "For the record, I'm happy I didn't kill you back at the river." He shrugs. "Mostly."
A welcome rush of relief hits Seungmin unexpectedly. He looks at it stunned at first, before he reaches forward and shakes Changbin's hand. Tightly. With newfound respect for each other. "The feeling is mutual."
As their hands drop, Seungmin feels that understanding settle in both of them, the kind of trust, the kind of agreement that only comes with knowing that they're on the same page in the end—that they both care deeply about the same person. In their own ways, amidst all the anger and fighting and sharp words, they’ve shown each other that.
Seungmin watches as Changbin checks his watch, and when he nods to Seungmin, the solemnity in his eyes is enough to let Seungmin know what he's about to say before he even says it.
“ It’s time for us to move.”
This is it, Seungmin thinks, and it’s like a huge, rusty anchor sinking deeply and heavily in his gut. Just a few more minutes, and everything finally goes down. Seungmin won't be able to hide from it anymore. Even when he’s desperate not to think how this can be the end, even when he prays beyond hope that it won't be… he will have to say goodbye to Hyunjin.
Maybe for the last time.