Take Cover

by almostsophie1

Summary:

Undercover officer Min Yoongi moves into a shitty apartment complex for his assignment (infiltrating a crime ring- a perfect callback to the life Yoongi tried to leave behind), only to have his new neighbor, a certain broke college student named Jeongguk, get mixed up in his life.

Chapter 1: Shouldn't Let You In (fuck, i let you in)

I.

 

“Is that everything?”

Yoongi closes the trunk, glancing at Namjoon as the taller man brushes his hands off on the dark wash denim of his jeans. There was a time when Yoongi thought it was strange to see him out of uniform, but now Yoongi even recognizes the black sweater Namjoon is wearing, the sleeves pushed up around his forearms.

“Think so,” Yoongi answers. He doesn’t have much. He managed to pack his life away in four boxes and a duffel bag. “Thanks for the help.”

The parking lot is relatively empty, no one loitering around on a Saturday afternoon. The weather is deceivingly pleasant, and in some ways it bothers Yoongi that the September sun is shining away and not matching the tension in the air, the strange sensation that hovers over Yoongi.

“No problem.” Namjoon shifts from one foot to the other, frowning slightly as he looks at Yoongi.

They’ve been partners for long enough that Yoongi can read the expression. “Stop worrying, Joon-ah.”

Namjoon rubs the back of his neck. “You know I have your back, hyung. Any time you need to get out, I’ll find a way.”

Yoongi fixes him with a level stare. “I’ll be fine. You know we need to see this through.” He puts his hand in the pocket of his bomber jacket, fingers quickly brushing against something cool and metallic. He grasps it, pulling out his badge to present it to Namjoon. “Keep it for me.”

Namjoon hesitates for a moment before he accepts it, running his thumb over the lettering. “Hyung—”

“See you around, Namjoon,” Yoongi says, clasping Namjoon’s shoulder for a moment before he opens the car door and slides into the driver’s seat. His car is almost eleven years old now—he bought it used—and the peeling silver paint on the outside matches the fraying upholstery of the seats.

“Yoongi-hyung.” Namjoon’s persistent, tapping on the window now, leaning over so he can peer through the glass.

Yoongi rolls down the window with one hand as he turns his keys in the ignition with another.

“Stay safe,” Namjoon says evenly, though there’s concern flickering in his eyes. “Will you listen if I ask you not to do anything too reckless?”

Yoongi barks a laugh, one side of his mouth tugging up into a lopsided smile. “Have you ever known me to play by the rules, Joon?”

Namjoon’s lips quirk up as well, though the worry doesn’t leave his face. “No. I guess I shouldn’t expect you to start doing it now.”

“And there’s your answer.” Yoongi shifts into reverse. “I’ll contact you once I find an in. Try not to burn down the station while I’m gone.”

Namjoon straightens up, crossing his arms over his chest to give Yoongi an unimpressed look. “I think the station’s more likely to stay intact when you’re not around, hyung.”

Yoongi snorts. “Says the man who accidentally pepper-sprayed himself in the face last week.”

He lets the window creep closed despite Namjoon’s protests, something about didn’t take account the direction of the wind, hyung and pepper spraying isn’t exactly part of officer training.

And that’s how Yoongi drives away, fond and amused.

He doesn’t look back in the rearview mirror as he leaves to see if Namjoon is waving and watching him leave, or if he’s already walking to his own car parked down the street.

This isn’t the first time Yoongi’s left a life behind. But this time, he hopes it’s only temporary.

From this moment on, he’s no longer Officer Min Yoongi. He’s former Daegu Dark North enforcer Min Yoongi. He has all the right scars. He has the black ink curled around his arm.

And if he lets himself think about it, it scares him that it feels familiar to slip back into this role—that he can’t run from his past now. Instead, he’s running right toward it.

 

II.

 

Jeongguk turns the next page of his textbook, pushing the round frames of his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose. He glances up from his reading, this section going into the technicalities of classical music theory in painful detail.

Jimin is scribbling notes furiously, his brow furrowed as he sits with his back against Jeongguk’s couch, papers spread across the coffee table. He mutters under his breath occasionally, chewing on the end of his pencil.

Taehyung lies on his stomach a few feet away, sprawled on the stained carpet and using his Organic Chemistry textbook as a pillow, currently the least productive of the three of them.

The apartment is dark, partly because Jeongguk keeps forgetting to replace one of the lights overhead and partly because he lives in one of the basement rooms, the only window located over the kitchen sink. Jimin and Taehyung insist that Jeongguk’s apartment is better to study in than theirs, but Jeongguk knows it’s just because it’s quieter here. They have two other roommates who are easily some the noisiest humans Jeongguk has ever encountered.

“Hyung,” Jeongguk says when he can’t focus on his reading any longer. “You’re drooling all over your textbook.”

Taehyung mutters something in his low rumble of a voice before snuggling down into the book like it’s significantly more comfortable than it looks.

Jeongguk sighs, glancing at the time on his phone. The screen lights up after several attempts at pushing the home button, the device showing its age. But Jeongguk doesn’t exactly have extra cash to burn, his scholarship only covering tuition and his job at the convenience store giving him barely enough to pay rent once a month.

It’s nearly 6 o’clock, and just as Jeongguk’s stomach growls in complaint, there’s a knock at the door.

Taehyung scrambles to his feet in an instant, startling Jeongguk as he flies to the door. “Dinner!”

Fresh autumn air filters into the apartment almost immediately, along with the scent of fried chicken. It’s significantly better than the slightly damp and moldy smell that Jeongguk exists in most of the time.

Jimin finally sets aside his notes as Jeongguk stands, fishing his wallet out of his back pocket.

Taehyung is practically bouncing on his toes as Jeongguk approaches the deliveryman, who honestly looks a little intimidated by Taehyung’s enthusiasm for the food.

Taehyung takes the chicken as Jeongguk digs out a few crumpled bills, and from behind the deliveryman, he sees a man in a sweatshirt carrying a cardboard moving box coming down the stairs, and Taehyung takes notice of him too, craning is neck to see around the deliveryman.

“Is that your new neighbor?” Taehyung asks, probably at a volume that this potential new neighbor can hear.

The man does, indeed, seem to hear, dark eyes immediately sweeping over Jeongguk, Taehyung, and the chicken deliveryman over his moving box. He doesn’t look much older than Jeongguk, a small frame swallowed up by an oversized black sweatshirt, pale skin and a delicate, frowning mouth.

Fading sunlight filters in from above the steps, and Jeongguk blinks a few times.

The man makes it to the base of the stairs, and Taehyung immediately grins widely and steps out to the concrete of the basement patio—just an empty space with the occasional stray cat and roaches during the hottest part of the summer. “Hey! Are you moving in there?” Taehyung gestures to the only other unit in the basement, where the man is very obviously heading.

The man looks over Taehyung with an unnervingly neutral expression—it’s usually impossible for people to resist Taehyung’s smile, but he does it with an air of coldness. “Yeah.”

“Cool!” Taehyung says, none of the brightness of his smile dimming.

Jeongguk, realizing he’s been ignoring the deliveryman, quickly passes him the money and thanks him with a bow.

When the deliveryman turns to go back up the stairs, Taehyung launches himself out onto the patio, turning to follow Jeongguk’s new neighbor a few steps toward the other apartment unit, still holding the cartons of chicken. “I’m Taehyung. I don’t actually live here—I’m just around a lot. Jeongguk’s the one who will be your real neighbor.” Taehyung points at Jeongguk, where he stands propping open the door and watching the exchange nervously.

Jeongguk’s apartment complex is not known for housing friendly people.

In fact, Jeongguk’s apartment complex is known for housing people involved in activities that aren’t exactly legal.

Jeongguk always has to rush past the entry alleyway and down the stairs to the basement level to avoid the men smoking out front, because he can see the bruises on their knuckles and the same tattoos on the side of their arms. They all seem to belong to the same gang—one with the insignia of a coiled snake, tongue out and hissing.

His last neighbor disappeared without a trace. Jeongguk had never seen a snake tattoo on the guy’s arm, only noticed that he was twitchy and nervous all the time. He and Jeongguk had never tried to interact with one another.

Last month, the police came by to ask Jeongguk if he knew the guy’s whereabouts, and Jeongguk could only answer that he honestly had no idea. He preferred not to think about it for too long, really, because if the man wasn’t on the run he might be dead.

“Hyung,” Jeongguk says quietly. “He looks busy.”

Both Taehyung and the new neighbor look at him, the unfamiliar man’s eyes unnerving and cat-like as they bear into him.

“Oh, right,” Taehyung says immediately, turning back to the man. “Do you need help moving boxes? Jeonggukie’s really strong, you should put his muscles to good use.”

Jeongguk immediately flushes, heat creeping up his neck and undoubtedly onto his face as well. He isn’t sure how to answer, maybe to protest Taehyung’s comment that he’s strong, or to offer his help, but the man speaks first.

“It’s fine. This is the last box.” He has a slight slur to his words, a rasp to his voice that doesn’t match his delicate features.

“Perfect!” Taehyung is clearly unstoppable, and Jeongguk just wants to steal the chicken from him and go back inside. This is what he gets from being friends with extroverts. “You don’t have any groceries yet, do you? We just ordered chicken. You should join us.”

Jeongguk blinks rapidly, trying to process that Taehyung invited his new neighbor for a meal. It’s probably the hospitable, neighborly thing to do. But Jeongguk never knows how to interact with people he’s just met, always prone to stuttering and staring at his shoes. That’s where he attempts to look now, except he’s barefoot save for Iron Man socks, and he immediately glances up again.

         His new neighbor also appears to think Taehyung’s invitation is unexpected, and his lips that already seemed to be pouting turn down a little more. “Thanks, but I have to unpack, and—”

         “I’ll help.” Taehyung practically shoves the cartons of chicken into Jeongguk’s hands with an attempt at an intimidating expression, about as convincing as an angry golden retriever puppy. “Don't eat all of it without us.”

         With that, Taehyung opens the door to the new neighbor’s apartment and goes inside, the shorter man following with a brow furrowed in confusion. Jeongguk honestly doesn’t blame him.

         Wondering if he’s dreaming, Jeongguk steps inside and lets the door close behind him.

         “What was that all about?” Jimin asks, clearing his notes away to make room on the coffee table. Jeongguk doesn’t actually have a dining table or chairs—the wobbly coffee table and patchy sofa purchased at a garage sale are the only furniture Jeongguk has in the main room.

“Um. There’s a guy moving in next door, and Tae invited him in for dinner.” Jeongguk says slowly, setting the chicken down.

Jimin snorts. “Did I tell you the first time that we came to your apartment, Taehyung tried complimenting the snake tattoo of one of the men who are always drinking out front?”

Jeongguk winces. “You didn’t.”

“Yeah. The guy thought Taehyung meant something by it, maybe that he was from a rival gang and mocking them. When he got defensive, Tae just asked him if he knew snakes had internal ears rather than external ones.” Jimin shakes his head at the memory as Jeongguk groans.

“You know I worry about you two coming here sometimes, especially after dark,” Jeongguk “And we worry about you living here sometimes,” Jimin answers, his expression turning serious. “Jeonggukie—”

“I’m okay, hyung. I can take care of myself,” he says, and Jimin should know it’s true.

Jimin presses his lips together, worry clear in his eyes. “I know you can. But just because you’re not in Busan—”

“Hyung. Really. I’m okay. I’m a lot stronger now than I used to be. I’m not a little kid anymore,” Jeongguk goes into the kitchen, which is really only a pace away from the main room. He opens the fridge, pulling out four beers and hugging them to his chest to balance them all.

“Yah, you’ll always be that little eight-year-old kid to me. It doesn’t help that you’ve still got a baby face,” Jimin says, lightening his tone to tease.

“I don’t have a baby face,” Jeongguk retorts, setting the beers down beside the chicken, accidentally knocking one over in the process. Jimin quickly rights it.

“Sure, Jeonggukie. Whatever you say,” Jimin pats his leg patronizingly as Jeongguk sits beside him.

The door opens then, revealing Taehyung and Jeongguk’s new neighbor. Taehyung is beaming at them, obviously pleased at making a new friend, while the man’s face is unreadable. Taehyung kicks off his shoes.

“Jimin, Jeongguk, this is Yoongi-hyung. He’s from Daegu, too. So now when you two go off in your Busan satoori I have hyung,” Taehyung babbles as he throws himself down on the ground on the opposite side of the coffee table.

Jeongguk’s neighbor—Yoongi—stands awkwardly, a brief flash of emotion crossing his face, his eyebrows drawing together for a moment. “I, uh,” he clears his throat. “I’m not really hungry—”

“Just have beer then?” Taehyung asks, his eyes bright as he looks up at Yoongi. Jeongguk knows Taehyung misses Daegu—he hears it in his voice whenever Taehyung calls his mother and switches into Daegu satoori with a grin. Jeongguk just doesn’t know how to read Yoongi’s reaction to Taehyung’s enthusiasm.

The man in question shifts his weight from one foot to the other, glancing at Jeongguk.

Jeongguk realizes then that he hasn’t actually invited Yoongi in. He’s so used to Taehyung’s mannerisms—letting Taehyung and Jimin speak instead of him around other people—that he forgot his shyness could just as easily come off as aloof.

“Um. I got four cans out,” Jeongguk says tentatively. “And there’s enough chicken if you decide you want any later.”

Jimin leans against Jeongguk’s side as if to reassure him. “We have too much chicken, actually. Taehyung ordered enough for eight people. Please join us if you have time, Yoongi-ssi.”

Yoongi rubs the back of his neck, as if still uncertain, but then Taehyung cracks open the beer that Jeongguk had knocked over earlier and the foam goes everywhere.

“Tae!” Jimin exclaims, and Jeongguk is already jumping up to grab paper towels from the kitchen, bringing them back hurriedly to mop up the mess on the table as Taehyung licks the beer from his fingers.

“Sorry, sorry!” Taehyung says.

Jimin immediately locks eyes with Taehyung from across the table. “Sorry, sorry, naega, naega—”

“No,” Jeongguk tries to protest, but Jimin and Taehyung are already singing together and Jeongguk crumples up a clean paper towel and throws it at Taehyung.

Yoongi snorts loudly, and Jeongguk turns to him as Jimin and Taehyung continue imitating Super Junior, Taehyung trying to do the dance sitting down, spilling more beer over himself in the process. When Taehyung and Jimin want to, they can sing quite well. This is obviously not a time in which they want to sound even halfway decent.

“I, um. Welcome to the neighborhood?” Jeongguk says through a cringe.

Taehyung takes a piece of chicken with his free hand and continues to sing into it like it’s a microphone, and Jimin’s peals of laughter fill the apartment alongside Taehyung’s warbling.

But the tension is broken, and Yoongi’s mouth is slightly parted as if in confusion, taking in the scene with an air of incredulity.

“This is… normal?” Jeongguk tries to inform Yoongi, but it comes out as a question.

Yoongi looks at Jeongguk, and then he lets out a chuckle, eyes crinkling and a gummy smile making its appearance, bright and infectious, completely catching Jeongguk off guard. “It’s not normal, kid, but it’s definitely something.”

Jeongguk huffs out a laugh as Taehyung finishes the chorus and Jimin claps for him loudly. “Yeah.” Jeongguk sends a half-hearted glare to Taehyung. “Hyung, stop spilling your beer and let Yoongi-ssi sit.”

Yoongi finally slips off his sneakers and steps over to the table, Taehyung wriggling over and patting the floor beside him. “Just hyung,” Yoongi says, throwing it out casually as Jimin opens a beer and passes it to him.

“Yoongi-hyung,” Jimin affirms, handing Jeongguk a can and taking his own. “Let’s say ‘cheers’ to your new apartment!”

Jeongguk scrambles to open his beer and raise it, gently tapping it against the other three, and drinking.

“To new beginnings,” Taehyung says brightly.

Yoongi’s smile, however, falters for a moment. The darkness in his eyes returns, but he just raises the beer to his lips. “To new beginnings,” he murmurs.

 

III.

 

Yoongi’s apartment is barren. He’s sleeping on torn blankets stretched over a broken down mattress that’s too big for the sheets, and his clothes are still in one of the boxes in his room. He has a rickety table out in the main room, two folding chairs accompanying it that he picked up the day before at a nearby pawnshop.

Usually, Yoongi likes the quiet. This apartment is often silent, save for the frequent police sirens wailing by at various points in the day, or the television that plays for about an hour each evening. But Yoongi’s been here for two days, and all he’s done so far is watch.

He knows what time members of the Keomeun-Baem congregate for a smoke. Even if they didn’t have their tattoos on display, he recognizes their faces from the pictures that he’d gone over with Namjoon back at the station. Yoongi spent most of yesterday sitting in his car in the parking lot, slouched over and taking notes.

 There seemed to be four members of the Keomeun-Baem that lived in the complex, which is fewer than he and Namjoon had initially gathered. Other members of Keomeun-Baem, however, were constantly coming and going. It was almost like the shitty apartments were some kind of social hub, since the men never seemed to carry anything with them. Hoseok had mentioned at one point that this could potentially be one of Keomeun-Baem’s distribution points, but there was no indication that the gang members were stopping by to pick-up orders. It could, however, be an information hot spot.

It was time for Yoongi to find out.

Yoongi fished out the pack of cigarettes he’d bought at the convenience store today, opening it up and throwing a couple down on the table to the pack didn’t look brand new before pocketing it.

Grudgingly, he took off his sweatshirt, shivering slightly as it only left him with a sleeveless black tee. It was only the beginning of fall, but Yoongi was known for wearing sweaters in the summer. He liked to be warm—sue him.

He ran his hand once over the tattoo on his arm as he moved to the door, opening it and stepping out onto the patio. He passed by his neighbor’s apartment on his way up the stairs, thinking briefly of dinner two nights ago, sitting on the floor around Jeongguk’s table, the kid blushing furiously and smacking Jimin’s side at his friend’s teasing.

It made Yoongi miss Hoseok and Namjoon from the station, the easy banter he had with the other officers after two years of working side-by-side with them. He could imagine Hoseok fitting in best with Jimin and Taehyung, loud laughter and brilliant smiles. He thought Namjoon would like Jeongguk as well, and could actually see some of his friend in Jeongguk, in the way that Jeongguk always seemed to think before he spoke, bright eyes and careful words.

Yoongi reaches the ground level, the alleyway stretching out on either side of him as smoke wafts his way, accompanying several voices of men, all of different timbres.

He notes the typical Keomeun-Baem members to his left from the corner of his eye, but chooses to ignore them. He shuffles a few steps away from the stairwell to lean against the concrete side of the apartments.

He shivers once, because it’s fucking cold and he’s not wearing his beloved sweatshirt. The sky overhead it dark, no stars visible thanks to city’s own shine. Seoul’s skyline doesn’t reach a neighborhood like this, though. There’s a flickering streetlight illuminating the alley, throwing shadows over dumpsters and broken down boxes.

The voices of the Keomeun-Baem grow quieter, and Yoongi chooses again not to look their way, though he can sense that they’re watching him. He’s sure most of the residents in the area try to avoid being near them, either out of fear or prejudice. Or both.

Yoongi lets out a low sigh, reaching into his pocket and grasping the pack of cigarettes. His fingers have a slight tremble—initiating first contact is crucial. He’s spent over a month planning this operation with Captain Yoon, Namjoon, Hoseok, and even Analyst Kim. Hell, half the station was involved, really. He can’t screw this up now.

He pulls out a cigarette and places it between his lips, slipping the pack away before he pats at his dark jeans again. He makes sure that he checks his back pocket next.

His lighter is sitting on the folding table beside the two cigarettes he tossed out earlier—right where he left it.

Yoongi sighs as if it’s a revelation he doesn’t have his lighter, and he pushes off the wall with a jerk to his shoulders, finally looking over at the Keomeun-Baem men. There are six of them tonight, and Yoongi saunters over to them with his head cocked to the side, taking the cigarette out of his mouth to roll it between his thumb and his pointer.

The men watch him approach. Two are sitting on turned-over empty crates, the others standing near or leaning against the wall. Yoongi can name the four that live in the apartment and another that is frequently around, who the officers had thought might’ve lived there. They all have criminal records. The one who seemed to be in charge, Kim Minhyuk, is the one leaning on the wall closest to Yoongi.

Arrested for a drunken brawl three years ago, beat the victim until the victim had a broken rib, “Got a light?” Yoongi asks.

Minhyuk smirks, like he finds Yoongi’s question funny.

One of the men sitting on the crate stands. Shin Kiseob. Arrested four years ago for drug possession, served three years in prison, released early for good behavior. “Look here, asshole—”

“Yah,” Minhyuk says, not even turning around to face Kiseob, who immediately falls back onto his crate. “Show some hospitality.”

The man behind him, one Yoongi recognizes from his surveillance but never had the name of picture of back at the station, steps forward, holding out a lighter.

“Thanks,” Yoongi says, reaching forward to accept it. He runs his thumb over the switch, a small flame flickering to life and reflecting in Minhyuk’s eyes. The man is smiling, but it doesn’t travel past the slight curl to his lips.

Yoongi touches the flame to his cigarette before passing the lighter back, taking a long drag of smoke, letting it fill his lungs before he exhales again.

“Don’t recognize your sign,” Minhyuk says. His voice is thin, a little forward and nasally, but it’s predatory. He’s looking at Yoongi’s tattoo.

“You wouldn’t,” Yoongi answers before taking another slow breath in. “It’s from Daegu.”

Minhyuk hums, still smiling coldly. “And what’s a Daegu boy doing in Seoul with the real men?”

Yoongi flicks some of the ashes from his cigarette, crushing them under his boot. The nicotine is already calming whatever nerves he’d had about first contact. Everything about Minhyuk and the Keomeun-Baem is familiar. Yoongi spent years with men like this—he once was like this. He knows how to play this game.

“What’s it to you?” Yoongi drawls, not bothered by the way the men behind Minhyuk tense, readying for orders from their unit superior to tell them to teach Yoongi a lesson in respect, or something equally charged by testosterone.

But Minhyuk laughs. “Do they not have designated territory where you’re from, D-Boy?”

Yoongi smirks back. “We do. But if you haven’t noticed, I’m not tied here. Not tied to anyone now.”

“No? Leave your gang behind with your tail between your legs and ran to Seoul?” Minhyuk asks lightly. He reaches back, plucking an opened soju bottle from the man behind him. He takes a swig from it, like he’s not actually interested in Yoongi’s answer.

“Something like that,” Yoongi says blandly, matching Minhyuk’s feigned disinterest.

“Fucking stray,” Kiseob mutters.

A stray. Yoongi’s heard the slang before—a runaway who abandons his gang brothers.

Yoongi lets his eyes flick toward Kiseob, blowing a slow wave of smoke from his lips. “Not a stray when everyone’s dead.”

That catches Minhyuk’s interest. Yoongi can tell from the way the man’s head turns sharply toward Yoongi, his posture straightening. “The hell happened?”

Yoongi shrugs, skin prickling at the cold and feeling pissy again that he’s not in his sweatshirt. “Went off to military service with another enforcer. Our Headman wanted us to get the training, return, recruit, and expand. Twenty-one months later we came back after our service ended, followed a message from the headman’s left hand about where we should go to meet at a new base, and got jumped instead.” Yoongi watches their expressions, Minhyuk’s still neutral.

“Change of order?” The man with the lighter asks.

Yoongi nods. “The left hand took over while we were gone, betrayed our headman by double-crossing us with the gang on the south side of the city.”

“I heard about this,” another mans says. Nam Shihyun. Arrested two years ago under suspicion of involvement with drug distribution. Released under lack of evidence. “You with the Daegu Dark North?”

Yoongi just nods again, leaning against the wall as he takes another slow drag from his cigarette. “ Was with them. They don’t exist anymore.”

“But you survived?” Shihyun passes his own bottle of beer to Yoongi. He’s the oldest of the group, pieces of graying hair shining under the streetlight.

Yoongi takes a swig. Beer and smoke. Dark alleys and shadows. He knows this. He knows this too well. He feels too comfortable here. “I survived,” Yoongi agrees, handing the beer back. “Took down the left hand and the men he sent, too. Was hospitalized for a week after, but they didn’t send anyone else.”

“And the other enforcer? The one who did his service with you?” Shihyun asks.

Yoongi meets his eyes steadily, reads the darkness in them, swirling with something like sympathy. He remembers some like Shihyun. They were always Yoongi’s favorite. Yoongi raises his cigarette to his lips again. “He died.”

Silence settles over the alley, and Yoongi takes one last puff of smoke before dropping the stick and crushing it under his boot.

“Thanks for the light,” Yoongi says, turning and letting his heavy steps carry him back toward the stairwell.

“Hey, D-Boy.” It’s Minhyuk’s voice, and Yoongi stops slowly, turning around with a lazy tilt of his head. “You looking for new work?”

Yoongi hums, the sound trapped in his throat, somewhere between skeptical and disinterested. “Depends. What work are you offering?”

Initial contact success , Yoongi thinks. Now for the infiltration.

 

IV.

 

Jeongguk leaves the studio late, slinging his backpack over his shoulder as he locks the door behind him. The music building on campus is relatively new, the hallways long and narrow with monotonous white walls and gray tile on the floor. It makes him a little dizzy as he walks to his professor’s office, and he realizes he forgot to eat lunch again.

He knocks on the door that’s slightly ajar, and receives a “come in.”

Jeongguk enters with a bow, hurrying over to Professor Lee’s desk and holding out the keys with both hands. “I locked up the studio, professor.”

“How did it go?” Professor Lee asks, taking back the keys and opening a drawer, dropping them inside.

Terrible, Jeongguk wants to say. I spent four hours and I hated everything I tried. “I think I need more practice,” he murmurs, clasping his hands in front of him and doing his best not to stare at the wall.

Professor Lee tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, the rest of it pulled back in a low ponytail. “Do you need any help with your recording?”

Yes, Jeongguk thinks. “Thank you, but I think I can figure it out, Professor Lee.” Jeongguk bows again, ducking his head.

“Alright,” Professor Lee says mildly, and Jeongguk finally is able to meet her eyes. She has a kind but tired face, and is one of Jeongguk’s younger professors, likely in her early thirties. She’s teaching the course on songwriting, which Jeongguk was thrilled about up until he realized he was terrible at making his own music. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

“Yes, thank you.” Jeongguk isn’t sure if he’s been dismissed or not.

Professor Lee shuffles through some of the papers on her desk. “I saw your performance at last semester’s evaluations, Jeongguk. It was clear that you have raw talent. And I can see now that you also practice diligently.” She puts a paperclip on a stack of pages, looking back up at Jeongguk. “But I detected something at the performances—and in the lyrics you turned in for the composition you’re working on. There’s a disconnect in the emotions of your music. You practice every note you sing, and write down every word using the correct theme in the prompt, but you don’t seem to feel it.”

“I understand.” Humiliation is creeping up his neck, making his face hot with embarrassment. He doesn’t get scolded often, and even though he understands this is constructive criticism, he still feels like he’s failed somehow. “I’ll work harder.”

“I think that’s the problem,” Professor Lee says gently. “You have all the technicalities—maybe you should take some time to rest, reflect on your lyrics, on the emotions you want to put into this recording. Let yourself feel it. Okay?”

Jeongguk can only nod. He has no idea how to just let himself feel his lyrics. He wrote them last week, following their prompt of childhood memories. He thought of plenty of horrible ones—flashes of fists coming down across his face in the school bathroom, of having his books spilled out across the classroom, of Jimin dabbing different creams across the cuts on his cheeks, of his parents murmuring in concern, asking him if he wanted to transfer schools.

He couldn’t write about that.

He wrote instead on summer days, of innocence and sun-kissed skin and strawberry ice cream. He knows that they’re lacking.

“Thank you, I’ll try.”

Professor Lee sighs, and Jeongguk feels like he’s unable to do anything correctly at this point. “Goodnight, Jeongguk. I’ll see you in class tomorrow.”

Jeongguk bows again, hurrying out of Professor Lee’s office and closing the door behind him. He goes back down the white and gray hall to the door at the end, pushing outside to a quiet campus.

A breeze rustles through the trees as Jeongguk hurries to catch the bus, eventually having to run when he sees it at the stop. Once safely on board, he huddles in a seat, taking off his glasses to rub his nose before he checks the time.

He’s five minutes late to his job at the convenience store, and his co-worker glares at him as they switch shifts and Jeongguk pulls on the ugly neon yellow vest that comprises of his uniform.

He spends the next several hours scanning items and bowing to customers, his mind on Professor Lee’s words. He doesn’t know if he can feel anything else with the song he wrote on summers as a child because there’s no emotion there. But if he writes something else—something too personal—it would be exposing the parts of himself that healed in jagged lines—or maybe haven’t healed at all.

When Jeongguk’s shift ends at ten, he leaves the store with sagging shoulders, his backpack weighing him down. He walks back to his apartment complex in the dark, ignoring the man standing on the street corner who asks if Jeongguk is looking for a woman to show him a good time.

The first time the man had asked him, almost a year ago, Jeongguk had spluttered and turned red, nearly blurting out that he was gay before sprinting all the way back to his apartment. Now it feels like a routine to hear the man’s query, an indication that Jeongguk is almost back home.

Jeongguk catches sight of the old woman who lives on the first floor of the complex, struggling to carry several grocery bags down the street once Jeongguk rounds the corner into the alley.

“Halmoni!” Jeongguk rushes forward, Ms. Park’s crooked form turning toward him. “Let me carry those,” Jeongguk says quickly, slipping into satoori.

Ms. Park shouldn’t be out this late, particularly in their neighborhood, but the woman wouldn’t listen every time Jeongguk suggested that she only run errands when it was safer in the daylight. “Oh, thank you, Jeongguk-ah.” She has to raise her hand up off her cane so that Jeongguk can slip the handles of the grocery bags from her arms. “I can’t say I have muscles like yours anymore.”

Jeongguk smiles, strolling beside her at her pace. “Did you used to lift weights, halmoni?”

Ms. Park snorts. “Never. But I worked on the docks in Busan when I was your age, right alongside all the men flexing their biceps.” The curl of her words are comforting. They remind Jeongguk of the sea. “I once challenged another worker my age to an arm-wrestling context.”

Jeongguk notes that the usual group of men with snake tattoos isn’t outside smoking, but he figures it’s a bit early for their nightly meetings. He tries to avoid passing by whenever they’re around. “Did you win?” Jeongguk asks.

“I did,” Ms. Park grins. The sound of her cane clatters lightly through the alley. “He asked me to marry him.”

Jeongguk blinks in surprise. “That was your husband?”

“You bet your ass he was,” Ms. Park answers with a snort. “For thirty years.”

They make it to the stairwell, and Ms. Park slows, shuffling over to a taped box shoved against the first step. “Ah, a delivery from my granddaughter.” She leans down over her cane.

“Wait, wait, I can get it,” Jeongguk protests, but he doesn’t actually have a free hand with Ms. Park’s four grocery sacks.

“Don’t let me get lazy, Jeongguk-ah,” Ms. Park mutters, trying to lean her cane against the wall and reach down for the box. She struggles for a few moments, and Jeongguk hurries to adjust his grip on the bags so he can pick it up instead.

But then a figure appears in the stairwell, coming up from the basement. It’s Yoongi, and Jeongguk quickly ducks his head in greeting.

“Ah, who are you?” Ms. Park asks, grabbing her cane again and looking at Yoongi calculatingly.

Jeongguk looks from Ms. Park to his neighbor. “Halmoni, this is Min Yoongi. Hyung, this is Ms. Park.”

Yoongi dips his head respectfully, albeit stiffly.

“Min Yoongi, hm? Take this box for me, will you?”

Yoongi stares at her, and for a moment Jeongguk thinks he’s going to say no, or simply walk away. But he bends down, scooping up the box in his arms.

“See, men can never resist a chance to flex their muscles,” Ms. Park says under her breath, though Jeongguk and Yoongi can clearly hear her.

Yoongi coughs.

“Come on, come on.” Ms. Park starts walking again, cane clacking as she starts up the stairs, makes it to the top at an impressive speed, and then clatters through the open-air hall. She stops in front of her door to dig her keys out of her purse. “You’ve offered your help, so bring it all inside now, boys.”

Yoongi glances at Jeongguk, his eyebrows knitting together. Jeongguk shrugs helplessly as they follow Ms. Park inside, kicking off their shoes next to the door as Ms. Park flicks on the light switch.

“Min Yoongi, do you talk?” Ms. Park asks as Yoongi tries to set down the box in the main room. “No, no, not there. Bring it to the table.”

Yoongi looks disgruntled for a moment, but he does as he’s told. If Jeongguk had found Yoongi and his dark stare intimidating before, that image was shattered now. Yoongi was letting himself be bossed around by an eighty-year old woman, looking mildly confused as he places the box on Ms. Park’s table.

“I talk,” Yoongi mutters.

“Ah, he does,” Ms. Park says. “Can you use that knife over there to open up the box, Min Yoongi? Jeongguk-ah, don’t just stand there. Bring the groceries to the kitchen.” She sets her cane down beside the door.

Jeongguk hurries to the kitchen, where Yoongi’s grabbing a serrated knife from the counter top. “She’s a force of nature,” Jeongguk whispers, opening the refrigerator and beginning to put the groceries away.

Yoongi grimaces. “I can tell.”

Jeongguk swallows back a laugh at his displeased expression. “It was nice of you to help, hyung,” Jeongguk says. “Ms. Park really is kind. Just a bit, um…”

“I’m old, not deaf,” Ms. Park intones as she hobbles into the kitchen. “I’m bringing over side dishes tomorrow. You’re too skinny. Min Yoongi, your apartment is the one next to our Jeongguk-ah’s?”

Jeongguk has a feeling Ms. Park is referring to Yoongi by his full name because she finds it amusing to keep the formalities between them, probably a reaction to Yoongi’s stiffness. She doesn’t miss anything.

Yoongi’s mouth twitches. “I don’t need—”

“Jeongguk-ah, is his apartment next to yours?”

Jeongguk, quickly avoiding making eye contact with Yoongi, nods. “Yes.”

Yoongi huffs, sliding the knife through the box and opening it up. “If that’s all—”

“Jeongguk-ah will pass along the banchan if you’re not home when I stop by, Min Yoongi,” Ms. Park pretends not to hear Yoongi speak, and Jeongguk does his best to hide a smile as Yoongi gives in with a sigh.

“Yes, Ms. Park,” Yoongi mutters. “Good night.” He leaves quickly, closing the apartment door behind him, Jeongguk watching him go before he resumes stocking the refrigerator.

“He’s a good man,” Ms. Park says suddenly.

Jeongguk looks up at her. “Yoongi-hyung? You were giving him such a hard time, halmoni.”

Ms. Park sinks down at the table and pulls the box toward her. “He’s rough around the edges, Jeongguk-ah. Most in this area are. The difference is that he’s trying to protect a soft heart.”

Jeongguk purses his lips slightly, giving Ms. Park a skeptical look. “You can tell all that from him carrying box inside?”

“I could tell all that from how he acted when he first walked up the stairs from the basement.” Ms. Park answers, patting the curls of her permed hair as she leans back in the chair. “You can’t tell someone has a soft heart by staring a hole in their chest, Jeongguk-ah. It’s in the little things that they try to hide. Min Yoongi stepped closer when he saw a little old lady trying to pick up a box, raised his hands for a moment and everything. Then he stopped himself, and I watched his eyes flick around like he was worried someone would see him about to help.”

Jeongguk closes the refrigerator doors, straightening as he frowns slightly. “I didn’t even notice.”

“You haven’t lived as long as I have, Jeongguk-ah.” Ms. Park smiles crookedly. “I raised a son just like him, you know. Kind and good, but only when dangerous eyes weren’t watching, afraid to let their kindness be used against them. But even the best people can fall into unkind ways.” Her smile softens into something sad, and she gently traces her fingers alongside the edge of the box. “My son only has about half a year left in prison. I wonder sometimes if there’s any chance he still has a good heart after all this time.”

Jeongguk steps toward her unthinkingly, placing his hand on her shoulder. He didn’t know Ms. Park’s son was in prison, had only ever heard her mention a granddaughter in college. “I think he does, halmoni.”

Ms. Park reaches up, patting Jeongguk’s hand. “That’s good of you to say, Jeongguk-ah. I suppose we’ll see.” She shifts in her chair, grabbing the edge of the table for support as she stands. “You look like you had a long day, Jeongguk-ah. Eat some japchae before you go home. You’re too skinny and I don’t think you’re taking care of yourself.”

           

1.  

“Is it safe to talk?”

Yoongi rolls his eyes. Namjoon’s always overly cautious. “I wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t, Namjoon.” He’s in his car, parked on the side of the road a few streets over from his apartment.

Namjoon sighs on the other end of the phone. “It’s been over a week, hyung. I was starting to worry.”

“Like I would blow my cover that soon,” Yoongi mutters. “I didn’t call because I didn’t have any updates. I made contact a few days ago, and today I’m going with Kim Minyuk to meet the area coordinator. Minhyuk calls him the big boss, but I highly doubt he’s the headman.”

There’s some shuffling on the other end of the line, and Yoongi glances out the window into the darkened street. There’s a pharmacy right across from Yoongi’s car that still has its lights on despite the late hour.

“Hyung!” It’s Hoseok’s voice now, and Yoongi winces for a moment at the volume. “Hyung, we miss you. Yesterday Namjoon lost the keys to his handcuffs and you weren’t there with the spare.”

Yoongi snorts. “Where’s the spare?”

“Namjoon lost it.” Another voice is added to the mix.

“Analyst Kim, this is a private matter,” Namjoon starts to say.

“Don’t you Analyst Kim me, Namjoon,” Seokjin retorts. The voices sound farther away now, and Yoongi pictures Namjoon holding the phone above his head. “I know very well that Yoongi’s undercover right now. It’s not exactly a secret in the station.”

“Still,” Namjoon huffs, his voice getting a little closer again. “I’m technically the only one supposed to have contact with him—”

“Joon-ah, I need to head out soon,” Yoongi says, trying not to sound too amused at the antics. “If this is actually the area coordinator I’m about to meet, I’ll have another name for you soon enough, as well as a location. We might go to a distribution point to meet him.”

“Got it.” Namjoon returns to being professional, but Yoongi can hear Seokjin and Hoseok cackling in the background. Yoongi misses them. “Thanks for the update.”

“Yeah.” Yoongi grabs his keys from the cup holder and puts them back in the ignition. “The spares for the handcuffs are probably in your desk, Joon. Bottom left drawer.” He hangs up, carefully driving back through the narrow streets. The parking area on the back side of the apartment complex is full of broken bottles and double-parked shitty cars, but he finds an empty spot and gets out of his car, walking around the building with his hands in his pockets.

There are only three of the Keomeun-Baem outside today, including Minhyuk. Shihyun, and Kiseob. He’s five minutes early to their designated meeting time, but Minhyuk and the others are smoking.

“Just get back from something?” Minhyuk asks, the light from his cigarette reflecting in his eyes.

“Yeah,” Yoongi grunts, not bothering to come up with a lie. It’s always more suspicious to make excuses. He accepts the cigarette from Minhyuk, taking a few drags before passing it back.

Minhyuk doesn’t press, only finishes his smoke in silence before jerking his head to the side, the other two Keomeun-Baem members straightening, stopping their own murmured conversation. “Let’s go.”

Yoongi follows them back around the building and into the parking lot again. Minhyuk’s car is the nicest one in the lot, but that’s hardly saying much. Yoongi climbs in the front seat when Shihyun and Kiseob in the back. The seats smell like smoke just as much as Minhyuk does, but there’s also a dark stain of what looks a lot like blood on the headrest of the passenger’s seat.

“You’ve been a runner before?” Shihyun asks.

Yoongi slouches in the seat. “Years ago.” He started when he was fifteen, to be exact.

“I think the big boss has other plans for D-Boy here,” Minhyuk says, flashing Yoongi a cold smile.

Yoongi doesn’t react, staring straight ahead. It doesn’t seem like they’re leaving the district—only going deeper into it. He files away the street names as they make several turns. It’s past midnight, and there are a few women on street corners, many drunk men staggering, several homeless people huddled at bus stops.

They eventually stop outside a bar, a flickering neon sign casting red light across the front windows, which have dark curtains pulled closed. Yoongi slides out of the car, carefully arranging his expression into mild disinterest to keep any uncertainty off his face.

Minhyuk steps in front of him, pushing open the door without knocking. Yoongi follows, Shihyun and Kiseob behind him. It’s still dimly lit on the inside, a few tables to Yoongi’s right and a bar to his left with only five stools. It’s a small institution, which only adds to Yoongi’s suspicion it’s just a front for a distribution point.

There’s a man occupying the last bar stool, two others standing behind him silently. It makes for an intimidating image, the man at the bar tossing back something from a foggy glass before setting it down and looking at them.

Yoongi doesn’t recognize his face. He’s not in any of the case files that Yoongi’s seen, at least. But then again, they didn’t know about this location either, so it’s hardly a surprise.

“Boss, I brought the guy from Daegu,” Minhyuk says, for the first time using honorifics in his speech, bowing slightly and not approaching the man further.

“Min Yoongi, yes, I got your message.” The boss runs his fingers around the rim of his glass. He’s likely in his early forties, face beginning to take on hard lines but his hair still jet black. He has a scar running down from the corner of his eye to his cheekbone, a wide mouth and a small nose. “Former member of the Dark North.”

Yoongi bows rigidly, his eyes narrowing at the boss and his two lackeys. They’re all dressed far too nicely for a bar like this—one that smells like cheap alcohol and has creaky floorboards underfoot.

“I was surprised to hear there were any of you left alive,” the boss drawls, and Yoongi feels his shoulders tense slightly at that. “Oh, I had no hand in your destruction. In fact I had quite a few connections with Lee Haneul in his last years.”

Yoongi’s former headman. Yoongi schools his expression again, only staring silently at the boss and waiting for him to continue speaking.

“If the story Minhyuk told me is true, you remained loyal to the end. Didn’t go crawling to the South Dogs like the rest of the fucking traitors.” The boss shifts on the barstool, angling his body to face Yoongi directly. His movements are all lazy, but his eyes are sharp “There aren’t enough men like that anymore.”

Yoongi lets the right side of his mouth quirk up, the following words tumbling out of his mouth. “Most of them are dead.”

The boss chuckles, nodding to himself. “True. But you’re not. Which either makes you very, very strong or a very, very good liar.”

Yoongi feels his pulse spike, but he keeps the smirk planted on his face. “A third option,” he says. “Very, very lucky.”

The boss seems satisfied by this, chuckling again. “I could use a man like you, Yoongi. Young, but still hardened. Loyal enough to understand what brotherhood means to people like us.” He grabs the bottle of whiskey sitting beside his emptied glass and refills it. “I heard you’re looking for work.”

“Mm. Looking for something,” Yoongi replies evenly.

The boss raises his glass to Yoongi before taking a sip. “You experienced with running?”

Yoongi nods. “Was a runner for two years before the headman made me an enforcer.”

“Ah.” The boss smacks his lips. “An enforcer.”

“He said he took down Daegu North’s left hand, Sir. Along with some of the other traitors,” Minhyuk supplies.

“Is that so?” He tosses back more of his whiskey. “We’ve been having trouble with some of our runners recently. One ended up with a broken arm and all our goods stolen on a more dangerous drop. I’m thinking we need to send an enforcer to places like those. What do you say, Yoongi?”

Yoongi lets himself mull it over for a moment, feeling all eyes on him. “Might as well be a runner myself for the dangerous areas,” he says simply. “It’d be a waste of manpower to send two people. Sir.”

The boss smiles tightly, tilting his head slightly. “Ah, it would, wouldn’t it? But you’re still untried. And I’ve taken your word, Yoongi, but I need more than that.” He drains the rest of the amber liquid in his glass, setting it down with a clink. “You’ll start immediately. Minhyuk has the schedules and the locations. You have your own car, yes? You’ll pick up our runners at a designated location and accompany them on their drops.” The boss has an air of dismissal in his tone. “You should probably bring a baseball bat.”

Minhyuk bows. “I’ll have him accompany Kiha tomorrow, Sir.”

“Good. You may leave.”

Yoongi presses his lips into a thin line, but bows all the same, turning and exiting the bar with no confirmation on who the boss is or what exactly the bar serves as within the Keomeun-Baem. The night air is a welcome change, at least, and Yoongi takes a slow breath through his nose as Minhyuk and the others get back into the car.

“Don’t fuck this up,” Minhyuk says once Yoongi slides back into the passenger’s seat. “You do well, the boss rewards both of us. You step out of line, both of our necks will be cut clean through.”

Yoongi lets his head rolls slightly on the stained headrest as they make the return drive through the district. Streetlights flash by, but Yoongi is trying to figure out how his station had no intel about the boss in all their digging into Keomeun-Baem.

“The boss doesn’t usually take in new assets?” Yoongi asks.

Minhyuk gives Yoongi a sideways glance. “Not unless someone vouches for them. I don’t know what the Dark North was like, D-Boy, but here we run things carefully. Last thing we need is a traitor in our ranks.”

Yoongi nods, turning back to stare out the windshield and feigning boredom. “Dark North might still be around if we’d been more careful.”

That seems to lower Minhyuk’s guard, the man sighing as he makes a left turn. “The boss learned from experience. I heard he used to be a lead enforcer for the Jugeun Jangmi, up in one of the eastern districts. A rat sold them out, and they scattered, most of them caught by the cops. The boss took the enforcers he knew were loyal and made the Keomeun-Baem, rebuilt old connections that hadn’t been compromised.”

Yoongi hums noncommittally, not ready to ask follow-up questions and raise further suspicion.

Jugeun Jangmi.

The name is unfamiliar, but at least it’s a start.

 

1.  

It’s another one of Jeongguk’s late shifts, and he has his classical music theory textbook open behind the counter. He tries to focus on the words, but his vision keeps blurring under the fluorescent lights, so he reaches under his glasses to rub his eyes.

A customer places a small tower of ramen on the counter along with two bottles of soju. Jeongguk blinks in surprise, quickly pushing his textbook to the side.

“Oh. Hey.”

The voice is rough but quiet, and Jeongguk glances up to find Yoongi on the other side of the cash register.

“Oh. Hi, hyung.” Jeongguk nods to his neighbor. They don’t see each other often around the apartment building, but when they do, they exchange a simple ‘hello.’ Jeongguk doesn’t really know how to make small talk, and Yoongi certainly doesn’t seem to care for it.

“Haven’t seen you working here before,” Yoongi says.

Jeongguk grabs the scanner and makes his way down the stack of ramen bowls. “My shifts change a lot,” he explains, moving onto the soju. “You might see me here more often if you come by a lot from now on, hyung.” He offers a small smile to Yoongi, tentative and thinking of Ms. Park’s analysis of his neighbor.

“Huh.” Yoongi scratches the back of his head with one hand, passing Jeongguk a few bills with the other. “Guess I will.”

Jeongguk puts the ramen and soju into a bag before getting out Yoongi’s change. The doors clatter opened with a strange screech and customer comes in, a drunk man in a black business suit and tie staggering through the doorway muttering under his breath. It’s an average Wednesday night working at the convenience store, really. Well, minus Yoongi’s presence.

Yoongi glances over his shoulder as the drunk man practically body slams the window. Jeongguk winces, but Yoongi frowns. “When does your shift end?” Yoongi asks as he turns to face Jeongguk again.

“About ten more minutes,” Jeongguk says. The drunk businessman heads straight for the liquor section.

Yoongi hums an affirmative, taking the bag from Jeongguk. He hesitates then, one hand holding his purchase and the other shoved in his pocket. His eyes move over Jeongguk before they flick to the drunk and then return to Jeongguk again. “Uh. You heading home after this?”

“Yeah,” Jeongguk answers, momentarily distracted by the drunk man nearly losing his balance in the snack aisle.

Yoongi looks mildly uncomfortable now, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “You okay?” He clears his throat. “To walk back alone, I mean.”

Jeongguk stares at him, and Ms. Park’s words echo in his mind—people like Yoongi have soft hearts that they try to hide. “Are you worrying about me, hyung?” Jeongguk blurts before he can stop himself.

Yoongi coughs. “Not worrying. Just… I can wait. For you. To walk home. Since we live next door and all.” There’s a distinctive pink appearing in Yoongi’s cheeks, and Jeongguk finds himself almost incredulous at the thought that Min Yoongi blushes .

“It’s okay. I have to walk alone a lot.” Jeongguk says, trying not to smile. “I’ve been fine so far.”

“So far,” Yoongi repeats skeptically, the color already fading from his face. “It’s not a problem, kid. I’ll just wait outside for you to finish.”

Jeongguk wrinkles his nose. “I’m not a kid,” he says, a little more boldly than he usually would. But he’s also running on four hours of sleep and exhaustion tends to make his mind a little muddled.

Yoongi raises an eyebrow. “Sure. Kid.” He casts another glance back at the drunk man before he leaves the store. Jeongguk can see him through the glass doors, his head ducking as he pulls out his phone.

Jeongguk still doesn’t know much about Yoongi. When Taehyung and Jimin had pulled the man inside Jeongguk’s apartment for dinner the day Yoongi moved in, Yoongi had only mentioned that he’d moved from Daegu a few years before and had been working odd jobs in Seoul ever since.

A couple days ago, Jeongguk had seen Yoongi in conversation with some of the men that smoke outside the apartment—men that Jeongguk has a feeling are involved with one of the local gangs. They all have the same tattoo of a snake winding up their arms. But the image of Yoongi smoking with them contrasts with the Yoongi who laughed at Jimin and Taehyung’s antics, did whatever Ms. Park asked of him, and blushed when trying to do something kind for Jeongguk.

The drunk man finally makes it to the register, slurring unintelligibly as he slams down a massive bottle of soju so hard that Jeongguk flinches, fearing shards of glass. But the bottle remains in tact, and the man stares at Jeongguk.

Jeongguk scans the soju quickly. “Six thousand won, sir,” Jeongguk says quietly, the man leaning over the counter as he breathes through his mouth, staring at Jeongguk with unfocused eyes.

“S-Sir.” Jeongguk says, struggling to keep his voice even. “Your total is—”

The man grabs Jeongguk by his work vest, seizing the fabric of his black, long-sleeve shirt beneath it. “Son of a bitch,” the man hisses.

Jeongguk’s throat tightens, his whole body tensing as the man yanks him forward, over the counter.

He knows that he should know how to get out of a hold like this. He took taekwondo—years of it. But all he can see is the boys in their school uniforms that match Jeongguk’s, cornering him with sneers.

“Sir,” Jeongguk chokes out, trying to lean away, but the man’s grip only tightens. “P-please let go.”

“Six thousand won?” The drunk man spits, pulling Jeongguk toward him again over the counter. “Do you think I’m fucking stupid?”

You’re so fucking stupid, Jeon. 

Always stuttering like an idiot whenever he’s scared.

Look at him, little bucktooth rabbit, so eager to make friends.

A fist comes into contact with the drunk man’s cheek, and he staggers to the side. Jeongguk immediately gulps down air, his hands scrabbling at the edge of the counter for support. He shudders once, trying to take in the last ten seconds, and how a punch came out of nowhere to throw the drunk man off of him.

Min Yoongi stands on the other side of the counter from Jeongguk, dark eyes staring at the drunk man who’s now clutching the side of his face and swearing.

“Get out.” Yoongi’s voice is deadly.

The drunk man tries to straighten up, hissing out a string of insults. Yoongi grabs at the back of the man’s collar and drags him across the store, shouldering the door open and tossing the drunk man out into the street.

“You will never come back again.”

Jeongguk almost doesn’t catch the words, Yoongi saying them barely above a growl as the man stumbles away, throwing slurs over his shoulder.

Jeongguk shivers again, leaning into the counter as his legs shake. He tries taking a slow breath, his first instinct to call Jimin. It’s what he did when they found him again his last year of high school—he’d avoided them for years after he’d transferred schools. But then they’d seen him leaving a PC-Bang, recognized the Jeon rabbit. 

“Hey. Jeongguk.” Yoongi appears over the counter again, hunched shoulders and giant sweatshirt. “He’s gone.”

“Right.” Jeongguk doesn’t mean for his voice to crack, but it does anyway, and he quickly ducks his head as he fails to suppress the next shiver. “Thank you.”

“Did he hurt you?” It’s tense, but quiet all the same.

“No. I’m alright.”

“Jeongguk—”

“He just grabbed my vest. It’s not a big deal.”

Yoongi sighs, muttering something under his breath before saying, “That piece of shit isn’t coming back. If he does, you call me. Okay?”

Jeongguk finally manages to look up at Yoongi. The terrifying expression that had previously occupied Yoongi’s face is completely absent, replaced by concern, a little furrow in Yoongi’s brow, pink lips turned down in almost a pout.

“Okay.” Jeongguk takes another slow breath, and the embarrassment kicks in. He’d freaked out over a drunk man grabbing his shirt. He hadn’t even managed to wrench himself away—which he could’ve done so easily if he’d just been thinking properly.

The door opens again and Yoongi whirls around, Jeongguk’s head whipping to the right as well. But it’s just Jeongguk’s co-worker, who greets Jeongguk with a wave and a yawn, oblivious to the events that occurred only moments before.

“Let me put this back,” Jeongguk says quickly, taking off his vest and grabbing the soju bottle. He shelves it again before placing his textbook in his backpack and slipping it on.

Yoongi’s waiting for him by the door, and they step out on the street together. Jeongguk can’t stop himself from looking nervously around him, half-expecting the drunk man to appear again.

If Yoongi notices Jeongguk’s fear, he doesn’t comment. Instead, he starts walking toward their apartment building. Jeongguk falls in step beside him, watching the sidewalk and fiddling with his beanie, fingers tugging at the fabric and pulling it down over his hair.

Their pace is leisurely even though the air is growing colder at the recent turn to October, the only sounds a distant siren and Yoongi’s plastic bag occasionally hitting his leg.

“This the first time something like that happened?” Yoongi asks after they turn off from the main road onto a smaller side street.

Jeongguk hesitates, biting his lip. “The first time at the store. There were times in Busan-” Jeongguk cuts himself off quickly as Yoongi looks at him from the corner of his eye. “Um. One of my co-workers was working when the store was robbed last month, though. Our manager was worried.”

“Your manager should be worried,” Yoongi mutters. “It’s a fucking dangerous area to be working alone after dark.”

“It’s usually not too bad,” Jeongguk says honestly. He kicks a pebble with the toe of his boot. “Have you had problems since you moved, hyung?”

“Nah. Unless you count there being no hot water a problem,” Yoongi answers gruffly. Jeongguk has a feeling that even if Yoongi did have any real problems, he wouldn’t tell him.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there’s probably not going to be any hot water. Ever.” Jeongguk says instead of pressing.

Yoongi sighs. “Fucking fantastic.”

They round the corner to their alley, and Jeongguk eyes the plastic sack in Yoongi’s hand, thinking of its contents. “Um, hyung? If you ever need to borrow pots or pans to cook, I have a few I bought last year.”

Yoongi looks at Jeongguk with an amused expression, holding up the bag of ramen and beer as if he’s showing it off. “Easy cooking right here.”

“That’s not cooking,” Jeongguk replies, unimpressed. “All you have to do is add water.”

“That’s why it’s easy cooking,” Yoongi answers in a low voice, but his eyes are bright, crinkling around the edges.

Jeongguk shakes his head incredulously before his mouth drops open and he stares at Yoongi. “Ah, I forgot to pass off the banchan that Ms. Park made for you. I’ll give it to you when we get back.”

“You can keep it, Jeongguk-ah. I have all the food I need right here.” He shakes his grocery sack of ramen and soju again.

Jeongguk is torn between insisting that ramen isn’t enough for Yoongi to eat every meal and blurting out that Yoongi just called his name affectionately. Instead, he grasps the next closest line of thought. “Ms. Park is a really good cook,” Jeongguk says, but his stomach does a little happy flip at Yoongi saying Jeongguk-ah . “You should at least try it.”

“Sure, kid,” Yoongi says as they reach their building. “But take whatever you want first.”

“She made a whole set just for you, hyung,” Jeongguk answers as they walk down the stairs, careful not to slip in the dim light. “Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

Jeongguk unlocks his apartment and scurries inside, nearly tripping over himself when he tries to get his shoes off. He throws open the fridge and takes out the banchan Ms. Park prepared, running back through the dark main room to push the door open.

Yoongi is standing right where Jeongguk left him, head cocked to the side. Jeongguk holds out the stack of banchan. “Here.”

“Thanks.” Yoongi accepts it, carefully placing it in his bag on top of his ramen.

“Um. Hyung?” Jeongguk curls his toes into the concrete, leaning against the open door. “Thank you again. For tonight.”

Yoongi rubs the back of his head with his free hand. “Yah, there’s nothing to thank me for.” His lips part slightly, and he hesitates. “Let me give you my number. If anything happens again, call me.”

Jeongguk stares. “I don’t want to inconvenience you—”

“It’s not an inconvenience, Jeongguk-ah.” There it is again. Jeongguk can’t resist Yoongi saying his name like that, warm and protective. Jeongguk pulls his phone out of his pocket, opening up his contacts list before passing it to Yoongi. “Here,” Yoongi says after a moment, placing the phone back in Jeongguk’s hands. Their fingers brush for a moment, Yoongi’s colder than Jeongguk’s, calloused but still gentle.

With that, Yoongi turns and leaves Jeongguk standing on the porch. Without waiting for another ‘thank you’ from Jeongguk, or even bothering with a ‘goodnight,’ Yoongi goes inside his apartment.

Jeongguk just thinks that Ms. Park was right.

Yoongi undeniably has a good heart.

And Jeongguk might like that a lot.

 

VII.

 

The room is dark when he wakes up, but Yoongi’s grown accustomed to this given that his bedroom has no windows.

He pushes himself up into a sitting position on the mattress, his legs tangled with the ratty gray sheets. He rubs his hand over his face as he checks the time.

Nearly three, Yoongi notes, realizing he’d slept through the morning and early afternoon. After he’d walked Jeongguk home the night before, the kid passing off the halmoni’s homemade side dishes, Yoongi had pretty much eaten his weight and fallen asleep.

Yoongi stretches, stumbling to the bathroom, discarding his sweatpants along the way before he climbs into the shower. The water is lukewarm at best, and he washes quickly, shivering a bit as he towels off and changes.

He’s got another run to enforce tonight. The last week of working for the Keomeun-Baem has been smooth enough. Yoongi picks up the runners from wherever Minhyuk tells him, and the runners tell Yoongi where to drive, usually to some dark street or noisy club. Yoongi hasn’t had to do much so far other than stare down the client, standing back as the runner makes the deal, exchanging little packets with white powder or small pills for wads of cash.

Yoongi shuffles over to the loose floor board at the edge of his bedroom that he’d pried up completely the day after he moved in and takes out his burner phone from underneath the panel.

Tossing on his sweatshirt, he heads out of his apartment.

When he opens the door, however, he has to squat down to move a brown paper sack out of the way. Something green sticks out of the top, and Yoongi frowns at it.

The green things are the tops of green onions, and upon peering inside the bag, Yoongi finds a carton of eggs, carrots, bean sprouts, and a tub of yogurt. Yoongi turns the bag around, finding a yellow sticky note pasted on the other side.

Please eat healthy, hyung! 

Yoongi stares at the note. There’s no doubt that it’s from Jeongguk. Jeongguk, who keeps doing things that make it hard for Yoongi to ignore him. God, it’s just hard to ignore Jeongguk in general.

All it takes is one look from Jeongguk’s doe-eyes and Yoongi starts to let down his guard. Getting involved with Jeongguk in any way is a distraction.

He doesn’t know what possessed him to walk Jeongguk home the night before, what compelled him to hit the drunkard manhandling Jeongguk, what drove him to put his number in Jeongguk’s phone.

That’s a lie.

Yoongi knows—he’s drawn to Jeongguk, the boy seeming shy in all the places Yoongi seems cold, Jeongguk shining almost too bright in the moments he smiles, letting out Yoongi’s warmth.

Yoongi picks up the bag of groceries and goes back inside his apartment anyway. I can’t throw out perfectly good food, Yoongi reasons as he opens his empty fridge and shelves the things Jeongguk bought him.

Contrary to what his friends at the station think, Yoongi can actually cook. He just chooses not to. Maybe tonight after the drug drop he can come home and make something half decent.

Yoongi actually leaves his apartment after that, making sure he locks the door behind him and still has his burner phone in his pocket. He slouches as he walks around to the parking lot and clambers into his car.

It feels strange to be out in the sunlight, Yoongi’s eyes struggling to adjust as he pulls into the streets, squinting unhappily at the brightness.

He checks to see if he’d being tailed a few times, precaution more than paranoia, and eventually stops at a post office the next district over. He goes inside, giving a false name in a low tone, asking for a package that should’ve been sent over earlier this morning.

Yoongi takes the office-sized envelope and heads behind the building with his head down, only looking up to scan for security cameras in the backstreet. He doesn’t want to talk in the car. Granted, he’s checked for rudimentary listening devices after some of the runners have rode in the passenger’s seat, but he can’t be too careful.

Precaution again. Maybe Namjoon rubbed off on him a little too much.

He dials Namjoon’s number from memory, holding the phone between his ear and his shoulder as he opens the tape holding the envelope closed.

“Is it safe to talk?”

Yoongi sighs. “Joon, I’ll never call you when it’s not safe.”

“It’s protocol, hyung,” Namjoon sighs back. “I need to check.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Yoongi mutters, fingers fumbling for the contents of the envelope. “I just picked up the package. Wanted to call you in case I recognized anyone.”

“I hope you do. Hoseok gathered as much intel as he could about the Jugeun Jangmi—he visited some inmates to try to figure out who this guy was.” Namjoon’s voice sounds tired, and Yoongi pictures him sitting at their desk, his head in his hands.

Yoongi pulls out the first photo, a slightly blurry one of a man getting out of a car labeled ‘Min Chanyeol.’ “Definitely not Min Chanyeol,” Yoongi says, flipping to the next photo. It’s a slightly clearer picture, but the man looks nothing like the boss. He shuffles through the next three, muttering under his breath who it isn’t to keep Namjoon updated.

The sixth picture, however, makes Yoongi pause. It’s two teenage boys, arms slung around each other. The boy on the right is circled with Lee Jihoon scrawled across the page. “This guy, Lee Jihoon. How long ago was the photo taken?”

“Lee Jihoon?” Namjoon repeats, and Yoongi hears the clattering of fingers on a keyboard. “Oh, we got that lead from one of the ex-Jugeun Jangmi members in prison. He’s actually the guy on the left—Nam Woohyun. Nam told us about Lee—an enforcer with the Jugeun Jangmi who managed not to get caught when all hell broke loose by abandoning them and going off grid. But Nam said he’d heard rumors in prison that Lee’s doing well for himself. Hoseok visited Nam’s mother and asked for any of Nam’s old photos. We took them back to the prison, and Nam identified that guy as Lee. He said the photo was taken over twenty years ago.”

Yoongi exhales slowly. “I think it’s him. Obviously he looks a lot older now, but I’m pretty sure the local boss I met is this Lee Jihoon.”

“Everything Nam said would back that up.” Namjoon starts typing again. “There aren’t any public records on Lee, but I’ll do some digging.”

“What about that bar? Did you pull up anything on the owner?” Yoongi glances down the street as he stuffs the photos back inside the envelope.

“Not much. Everything about it is perfectly legal. It’s owned by a woman named Kang Hyeri, and she doesn’t have a record or any paper ties to the Keomeun-Baem.”

“You think it’s a front?”

“I’d bet that it is. I’d assign someone to keep an eye on it, but I don’t want to raise any suspicion for you.” More typing. “Have you had any problems?”

Yoongi folds the envelope with some difficulty, the photo paper inside making it stiff. “Nah. All of the drug runs have been pretty tame. The most I had to do was pin a guy against the wall when he tried not giving the runner the agreed upon amount.”

There’s a moment’s hesitation on Namjoon’s side of the call. “You know what’s next, though, hyung, don’t you?”

“Get close to Lee,” Yoongi answers. “Figure out the distribution point, and who else is up there in the hierarchy. Lee manages the drug running, but I’ve heard enough from the local coordinator—Minhyuk—to know there’s more going on with the Keomeun-Baem. I think they’ve got their hands in prostitution rings and extortion of smaller businesses, too.”

“Christ,” Namjoon mutters. “I know the captain suspected that there was more going on, but prostitution too? You think they’re involved with human trafficking?”

“I don’t know.” Yoongi shoves the folded envelope inside his sweatshirt pocket. “Give me a few more weeks. Gangs like this are all about hierarchy, Joon. My affiliation with the Dark North gave me some credibility, but they’re not going to let me know about their operations until they think they can trust me.”

“Right.” Namjoon clears his throat. “Hyung… I know we talked about this before, but if you’re doing what you have to in order to gain their trust—”

“Yeah.” Yoongi’s fingers tighten around the phone, but he keeps his voice flat. “The captain and I talked protocol. My priority is to get access to the headman and figure out their distribution points so we can make arrests and dismantle them from the top down. I’ll do what I have to.”

Namjoon sighs, the chair squeaking on his end of the call. “I’m sorry, hyung.”

“Don’t be, Joon. I agreed to this.” Yoongi answers. A woman appears at the edge of the alley, walking quickly as she casts a nervous side-glance at Yoongi. He understands—he’s hanging out in a dark alley and they’re alone. He waits until she passes. “I need to go. See if you can pull up anything else on Lee.”

“Understood. And hyung?”

Yoongi, about to hang up, presses the phone to his ear again. “Mm?”

“Whatever happens there, you have to come back to the station. Your home is with us now.”

Yoongi’s throat tightens. “Yah. I’ve only been gone for two weeks, Joon. Don’t get sentimental on me.”

Namjoon laughs quietly. “Fine. Kim out.”

Yoongi smiles into the phone. “Min out.” He ends the call, swallowing back the rising affection.

He ends up back at his apartment, hiding the envelope with photos under the floorboard in his bedroom along with his burner phone. He has a few more hours before his assigned run for the night, and he spends them sleeping.

It leaves him a little groggy when he goes to pick up the runner at the address Minhyuk gave him. It’s the kid Kiha again, who looks about sixteen, narrow eyes and dyed red hair that sticks up in all directions. He never shuts up, really, babbling in the passenger’s seat like he doesn’t have illegal drugs shoved in his backpack.

“So I told her that we could still see each other, but she had to stop being so clingy, you know?” Kiha looks at Yoongi expectantly.

Yoongi grunts.

“Yeah!” Kiha throws his hands up. “But she just said it was over. It’s ridiculous.”

Yoongi stops the car in front of a rundown hotel, and he frowns as he parks. “You been to a drop here before?”

Kiha clambers out, taking his backpack from his lap and slinging it over his shoulder. “Yeah. Just once before. Clients are on the third floor.”

“What about the owner?” Yoongi asks as he gets out of the car, locking the doors behind him.

“He didn’t even notice last time.” Kiha says. “Come on, hyung.”

Yoongi sighs, following Kiha as he bounces to the hotel entrance. The building is only four floors high, bars on the windows on the ground level. Yoongi never liked hotel drops in Daegu. He once had a fellow runner get arrested because the police were monitoring the security cameras after the manager reported in.

“Slow down, kid,” Yoongi mutters as Kiha scurries inside. The front desk is occupied, an elderly man sitting there.

Kiha doesn’t look his way, so Yoongi doesn’t either, simply moving past the desk and heading straight to the stairwell.

Kiha takes two stairs at a time, and Yoongi keeps up with a grimace. “Fucking teenagers,” Yoongi grumbles under his breath when they make it onto the landing of the third floor.

“You’re not that old,” Kiha says with a roll of his eyes.

Yoongi glares at him, but doesn’t bother with a response.

They walk down the hallway together, Yoongi scanning the ceiling for security cameras. The air is musty inside the hotel, and there are a few concerning cracks in the walls that makes Yoongi vaguely wonder if the building is up to inspection standards.

“Here.” Kiha says, stopping in front of room 312. He knocks twice, calling in, “delivery!”

Yoongi crosses his arms, sniffing once as he waits for the door to open.

It does after a few moments, revealing a burly man dressed in velvet jacket that strains at his shoulders. “In,” the man says in banmal, stepping aside.

Kiha walks in the room without hesitation, and Yoongi fixes the man with a blank stare as he enters.

“I’ve got two orders for Bang Dongho,” Kiha says, taking off his backpack and sitting on the edge of the double bed with a yellowing blanket.

Yoongi has to struggle to keep his posture slouched, fighting the urge to straighten when he realizes that there’s another man in the room, sitting on the window sill and playing with an army knife.

“Show me.” The man in the velvet jacket—the one Yoongi assumes is Dongho—orders Kiha.

“Where’s the payment?” Yoongi asks, keeping his voice at a low rasp.

The man with the knife snorts. “You’ll see it when we see our goods, asshole.”

Yoongi frowns, and Kiha pauses with his hands on the zipper. “That’s not protocol,” Yoongi mutters, leaning against the closed door. “Show us you have the payment.”

Dongho takes a step away from Kiha, turning on Yoongi and towering over him. “What the fuck are you doing here anyway?” He hisses.

“The Keomeun-Baem are sending enforcers with their runners now,” Yoongi drawls. Dongho’s posturing is so fucking typical. “To make sure dishonest clients don’t think they can pull shit on the runners.”

“Is that so?” The man with the knife asks with a laugh. “They’re getting smarter, aren’t they? But not smart enough.” He stands from the windowsill, taking a few steps toward Kiha.

The kid has the sense of mind at least to grab his backpack and jump up from the bed. “Hyung,” Kiha squeaks. “Hyung I think they’re going to take the order.”

Dongho reaches in his belt as well, pulling out his own knife, one that’s long and jagged. Fuck.

Yoongi’s pulse spikes, and he unfolds his arms. “Stay down, kid.”

 

VIII.

 

“If you have any questions about your grades, come speak with me after class.” Professor Lee says, clicking off the projector as she smiles. “I’m very proud of what you all produced.”

Jeongguk glances down at page of notes he received only moments before, passed back by Professor Lee. A giant “A” is written across the top of the page, and Jeongguk stares at the letter, rubbing his finger over it to wonder if it’s real.

Jeongguk, this is an excellent first composition. I noticed your lyrics changed significantly after our talk last week. The emotions came through beautifully in your recording. If you just hadn’t written about something you connected to before, it’s clear now that you truly feel the content of this composition. I look forward to your future compositions. –Professor Lee

Beneath the initial paragraph is the rubric, a block for technicalities, a block for content, and a block for expressiveness. Jeongguk had earned a 97 for expressiveness.

He stands slowly, gathering up his things in a daze. He’d rewritten the lyrics for the chorus completely after his talk with Professor Lee and conversation with Ms. Park.

Somehow, the song changed from being about the innocence of youth to the loss of innocence, about hiding your heart away, about finding that feeling again despite all the hurt.

Jeongguk leaves the classroom trying to suppress a grin as it sinks in. He managed to pull his composition together—managed to write and sing about something and actually feel his emotions, and Professor Lee could tell.

He’d thought of Yoongi when he wrote it, the contrast between his dark eyes and contagious smile.

He calls Jimin as he waits at the bus stop under a cloudy sky, phone ringing a few times before his friend picks up.

“Jeonggukie! Tae and I were worried you were dead.”

Jeongguk rolls his eyes. “It’s been two days since I’ve seen you.”

“A lot can happen in two days,” Jimin answers seriously. He sounds a little bit out of breath.

“Are you at dance practice?”

“Yeah. But we’re on break. What’s up?”

Jeongguk hesitates. “Are you and hyung free sometime? I got my first composition back and wanted to celebrate.”

“Really? How did you do?”

“Not bad.” Jeongguk says, smiling to himself and ducking his head to his chest. “I was surprised.”

Jimin laughs. “I know you, Jeonggukie. ‘Not bad’ means ridiculously well. I’m proud of you.” His breath is evening out a bit. “I think Tae is working at the lab until around eight, but we can come over after?”

“Okay. Friday then?”

“Perfect. I’ll order chicken,” Jeongguk says.

“We’re celebrating you. I’ll pick up jajangmyeon with Tae when we come over.”

The bus reaches the light further down the street. “You don’t have to, hyung. It’s really not a problem if I—”

“Nope. I’m bringing dinner.”

Jeongguk laughs. “Thanks.”

“Of course. This is why you love me.”

“When did I ever say I love you?”

“Excuse me?”

Jeongguk grins into his phone. “The bus is coming. See you later.”

“Yah, Jeon Jeongguk—”

Jeongguk hangs up, cackling to himself a little bit at teasing Jimin. He rides home in a good mood, not even particularly bothered by the usual men outside the apartment complex.

He almost skips down the steps, but when he looks down, he finds a trail of splattered dark drops on the concrete.

Jeongguk’s mood plummets instantly, his pace slowing as he peers down the stairwell into the patio, half expecting to find a corpse at the bottom. He wouldn’t put it past the neighborhood.

But the patio is empty, bathed in gray light from the overcast afternoon sky. The trail of what must be blood droplets streaks a bit, but it definitely goes right to Yoongi’s door.

Jeongguk stares at it, clutching onto his backpack straps. Is that Yoongi’s blood? Jeongguk wonders in horror, his heart pumping a little bit faster. He swallows hard, inching away from the base of the stairs and to the left.

He walks to Yoongi’s door a little too aware of the way his breathing is unsteady. Maybe it’s not blood. Maybe Yoongi was walking down the stairs carrying something that was dripping dark red all over the place. Maybe Jeongguk is going to knock on the door and look like a complete idiot when Yoongi opens it eating a cherry flavored popsicle.

Jeongguk turns around, then back again, raises his fist to knock, drops it again. He’s clenching his jaw so hard that it hurts when he finally gently taps on the door with his knuckles.

There’s no answer, and Jeongguk is actually shaking from nervousness when knocks again, louder this time. “Yoongi-hyung? It’s Jeongguk. Um. Your neighbor?” He winces a bit, heart pounding in his chest. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Yeah. Um.”

Jeongguk pulls down his beanie a little further as he waits uncertainly.

There’s a clatter from inside Yoongi’s apartment and Jeongguk freezes, eyes fixed on the door. “Hyung?”

What if there’s a fight going on inside? What if it’s actually a murder scene and Yoongi’s killing someone or someone’s killing Yoongi and—

The door swings open, Jeongguk tripping back to avoid getting hit in the face. Yoongi hunches over on himself on the other side, his hair matted to his forehead and wearing a loose red plaid over shirt, one of his hands clutching at his side. He has a bruise blossoming across his cheek, his lip split.

Yoongi looks up with a glazed look in his eyes. “Jeongguk-ah?” His voice is raw and scratchy, more so than it’s usual gravelly tone. “You okay?”

“What? Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. I just… there’s blood on the stairs.”

Yoongi glances over Jeongguk’s shoulder. “Oh.”

Jeongguk bites his lip. “That’s your blood.”

Yoongi hesitates for a moment, tries to shift his weight and winces, his hand tightening around his side. “Fuck.”

Jeongguk finds himself wincing right along with Yoongi. “I’ll be right back, hyung.” Jeongguk turns, rushing to his apartment, fumbling with his keys and throwing his shoes and backpack off the second he gets the door open.

His first aid kid is in the cabinet beside the kitchen sink, and he grabs it before running back to Yoongi, not bothering to put his boots on again.

Yoongi’s still standing in the doorway, but he’s bracing his shoulder against the frame. 

“First aid kit.” Jeongguk says a little breathlessly. “Jimin bought it for me last semester.”

Yoongi stares at Jeongguk for a few moments before stepping aside, Jeongguk entering his apartment and blinking into the darkness. Yoongi’s lights are off in the main room, which is completely unfurnished save for a table and two chairs. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” Yoongi says, but Jeongguk is already setting the kit down on the table and prying it open.

“It looks pretty bad, hyung,” Jeongguk whispers. “If you sit down I can help.”

Yoongi sighs, sliding into one of the chairs. His chin drops to his chest as he slumps a little lower. Gray light from the kitchen window barely reaches them, illuminating only the left side of Yoongi’s face and throwing shadows across the right.

Jeongguk gets out a little tube of antiseptic cream, the cut on Yoongi’s lip still open and puffy. He has to push the table a little bit back so he can stand in front of Yoongi more easily. His heart has slowed now to a more reasonable pace, his main concern now being treating his neighbor.

Jeongguk squeezes a bit of the cream onto his finger, leaning down to reach Yoongi’s face. Yoongi stares up at him with a guarded expression, angular eyes bearing into Jeongguk.

Jeongguk’s fingers are still trembling a bit as he dabs the cream onto Yoongi’s top lip. Yoongi exhales sharply but doesn’t flinch away, letting Jeongguk move onto the bottom lip, a little bit of blood caked around his mouth.

“Did you disinfect your side?” Jeongguk asks quietly as he straightens up again.

“Huh?” Yoongi’s expression has already softened, his eyes turning gentle as Jeongguk puts the tube down on the table.

“Your side, hyung. You bled a lot, didn’t you?” Jeongguk shifts away to pull out the bandage patches and medical tape.

“’s not that bad.” Yoongi says.

Jeongguk can’t help but frown at him. “Hyung. It was a lot of blood on the stairs.”

Yoongi mutters something unintelligibly, and Jeongguk squats down beside Yoongi, reaching out slowly to the hem of Yoongi’s undershirt like Yoongi’s a wild animal he’s scared to startle.

He gently tugs the fabric up, already finding red soaking through it. There’s a bandage a few inches above Yoongi’s left hip, completely covered in red. Jeongguk feels his stomach flop uncomfortably. “I think you bled through your bandage. I’m going to change it.”

“’s fine.”

Jeongguk ignores him, trying to peel the bandage away as gently as possible. There’s a thin gash on Yoongi’s side, open and angry. Jeongguk tries not to dwell on wondering how Yoongi received it. “Do you have a washrag, hyung? I don’t want to put a fresh bandage on until the area’s cleaned up.”

“Clean towel in the kitchen,” Yoongi mumbles back.

Jeongguk lets his shirt drop and stands, finding a small gray towel folded on the counter. He wets it, wringing it out a few times before going back to Yoongi, sinking down again beside him.

He’s exceedingly careful not to get to close to what can only be a stab wound, cleaning up the smear of blood on Yoongi’s side with soft drags of the cloth against Yoongi’s skin.

Jeongguk peeks up at Yoongi, finding the man’s eyes closed, damaged lips slightly open with small puffs of air escaping them. “I’m going to put the bandage on now, hyung,” Jeongguk murmurs, trying to keep Yoongi informed though he’s not sure he’s still awake.

Jeongguk exchanges the bloody towel for the bandage from where he left it along with the medical tape, holding it as gently as he can over the gash.

Yoongi still exhales sharply, his body tensing, eyelashes fluttering.

“Sorry. I’m sorry, hyung,” Jeongguk says quickly, wincing at his own actions.

Yoongi doesn’t pull away though, and Jeongguk waits until he relaxes again before he applies the medical tape, long strips across the bandage to keep in in place.

Jeongguk cleans up when he’s finished, taking the towel to the kitchen and placing it in the sink, running water over it in an attempt to keep it from staining. Yoongi remains slumped in the chair, and Jeongguk returns to him after washing his hands.

“Have you eaten anything today, hyung?” Jeongguk asks quietly as he packs away the first aid kit. He can’t do much for the bruise on Yoongi’s cheek, a nasty purple and green covering his pale skin.

Yoongi doesn’t answer immediately, instead grimacing as he struggles to open his eyes. Jeongguk waits, Yoongi looking at him half-lidded. “Jeongguk?”

“Yeah. It’s me.” Jeongguk steps closer, raising his hand uncertainly before settling it gently on Yoongi’s upper arm.

“Fuck. Sorry.” Yoongi breathes. “Didn’t mean for you to do this.”

Jeongguk feels his throat tighten for the second time today, though it’s not in fear this time. Yoongi would’ve been alone, a bloody mess, stuffed up in his dark apartment. “I wanted to,” Jeongguk says instead. “And now I, um, I want to eat something with you, if you’re up for it.”

Yoongi tries to straighten in his chair, letting out a low hiss and clutching his side again. Jeongguk winces, dropping his hand away from Yoongi’s arm. “Do you need painkillers, hyung? I can go to the pharmacy.”

Yoongi shakes his head. “It’s fine.”

“Are you sure? It’s right around the corner and—”

“Yah. You’ve done more than enough. This isn’t that bad, kid, so stop worrying.” Yoongi gets one elbow on the table and leans into it.

Jeongguk frowns. “I think you should eat something.”

Yoongi fixes him with an even stare. “You’re being really assertive today.”

Jeongguk flushes, averting his eyes and looking instead at his toes. “You’re hurt, hyung. And besides, you helped me out at the store. I want to help you, too.”

“You don’t owe me anything, Jeongguk.” There’s a slight edge to Yoongi’s voice, one Jeongguk would almost call defensive. But then he thinks of Ms. Park, and the notion that Yoongi’s softer than he lets on.

“I want to help anyway.” Jeongguk looks back at Yoongi, setting his chin forward a bit mulishly.

Yoongi stares him down, and Jeongguk does his best not to look away, only blinking a few times. Jeongguk can tell the moment Yoongi relents from the way his posture slumps forward a bit. “You’re really fucking stubborn for such an innocent looking kid.”

Jeongguk lets relief wash over him, smiling slightly. “It’s a hidden talent?”

Yoongi snorts. “Sure. If that’s what you want to call it.”

“Yeah, that’s what I want to call it.” Jeongguk grins, oddly happy despite the circumstances that brought him over to Yoongi’s apartment. “Have you eaten at all today, hyung?”

Yoongi makes a face.

“I’ll call in soup.”

So Jeongguk orders delivery before running back to his apartment to get his music theory and composition homework and change into sweatpants, tossing his beanie off on the couch.

By the time he returns to Yoongi’s place, Yoongi’s migrated from the table to the mattress, where he sits hunched over on the edge, typing something on his phone.

Jeongguk does his homework at Yoongi’s table until the soup arrives, and Yoongi throws his wallet to Jeongguk with decent aim.

They eat dinner sitting on Yoongi’s bed, their shoulders brushing together.

“You study music?” Yoongi asks when he’s halfway through the plastic bowl of soup.

“Yeah.” Jeongguk’s a little surprised that Yoongi remembered, pausing with his spoon halfway to his mouth. “Or… I’m trying to, I guess.”

Yoongi frowns. “That’s your major, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Jeongguk admits, wrinkling his nose before swallowing another mouthful of broth. “I can’t think of anything else I want to do.”

“Parents disapprove?” Yoongi foregoes the spoon and just tilts the plastic bowl to his lips.

“A little.” Jeongguk wiggles a bit. Yoongi’s mattress is surprisingly comfortable—more so than the folding chairs at the table. “They’re worried it won’t lead to anything practical. I’m kind of worried about it, too.”

Yoongi hums to himself, his eyes narrowing.

Jeongguk watches him, waits for him to say something. When he doesn’t, Jeongguk asks, “Do you think it’s impractical? If you were being honest with me.”

Yoongi raises his hand to scratch the back of his head, but he winces and immediately drops his arm, clutching his side.

“Hyung!”

“’m fine.” Yoongi takes a deep breath before setting his now emptied bowl on the floor. “If you want me to be honest, Jeongguk-ah, I say fuck being practical.”

“But… the chances of being successful in the music industry are really low.”

“Depends on how you view success,” Yoongi answers. “Does music make you happy?”

Jeongguk blinks a few times. “Yeah.”

“Then that’s success. Maybe you’ll have to do small shows, or teach an instrument or whatever—but that’s a hell of a lot better than being practical, following the rules somebody else makes, and giving up what you love.” Yoongi throws the words out in a muted voice and nonchalant manner, but Jeongguk feels them seep into his skin. “Not that it’ll be easy. But it’s better than selling out your dreams.”

Jeongguk stares into his bowl of soup. “I hope so,” he says softly. “Do you have anything like music, hyung?”

Yoongi hums. “Used to be music, actually.”

“What? Really?” Jeongguk perks up, looking back at Yoongi.

“Rap. In the Daegu underground.” Yoongi says, but there’s something hard in his eyes. “But I got wrapped up in other shit. Things that seemed more practical.”

Jeongguk’s lips part slightly, his brow furrowing. His parents in high school had made sure he’d focused on school. He’s not sure that was the case with Yoongi. “And you stopped rapping?”

“Yeah.”

They sit in silence for a few more moments, and Jeongguk finishes his soup. He stacks his bowl on top of Yoongi’s carefully. “Did you ever write your own lyrics?” Jeongguk asks.

Yoongi snorts. “I did. Called myself a genius at it, too.”

Jeongguk rolls his eyes. “Very humble, hyung.”

“Underground rappers have to have a bit of arrogance and swag.”

“Please don’t ever say ‘swag’ again.”

“Yah, respect your elders.”

“Okay. Hyung, I advise you respectfully never to ‘swag’ again. It shows your age.”

“The hell? Last time I checked I was only four years older than you.”

“Some people age faster than others.”

Yoongi glares incredulously at Jeongguk.

Jeongguk, in response, simply pulls out a piece of paper from one of his notebooks. “Want to see my new prompt for my composition class?”

“I don’t know. I might die of old age any moment now—”

“Then can you help me before you die of old age?”

Yoongi heaves a long-suffering sigh, and Jeongguk can’t help but laugh. But Yoongi agrees anyway, and they sit with their knees touching on the edge of the mattress as they go through Jeongguk’s composition assignment and lyric notebook.

If Jeongguk thinks part of the way through Yoongi talking in his low, rasping voice that his neighbor really is a potential lyrical genius, or that Jeongguk loves listening to Yoongi speak about anything at all, he definitely doesn’t say it out loud.

Instead, he falls asleep on Yoongi’s shoulder.

 

IX.

 

When Yoongi wakes up, there are three things that he immediately registers as abnormal.

One, he’s warm. He’s actually toasty, heat radiating from the right side of his mattress and it’s fucking wonderful.

Two, it’s bright overhead when Yoongi pries his eyes a sliver of the way open before squeezing them shut again. He must’ve left the bedroom light on last night.

Three, he’s not waking up to his alarm. Usually, once Yoongi falls asleep, he does a fantastic impersonation of a rock.

The mattress shifts a bit, followed by a soft sigh, likely the movement and sounds that woke him up in the first place.

Warm hands clutch at his arm, and Yoongi remembers with sudden clarity that he’s got Jeongguk sleeping on the other side of the bed—now in Yoongi’s personal space—after they’d fallen asleep last night looking at Jeongguk’s music compositions.

And now Jeongguk was trying to cuddle with him, the source of heat in the room, clinging onto Yoongi’s uninjured side.

Yoongi lets his head loll to the right, watching Jeongguk’s peaceful face, half mushed into Yoongi’s pillow, lips parted slightly.

Jeongguk is quickly becoming far too tied into Yoongi’s life. Yoongi knows he should cut it off—for the sake of his cover, for the sake of his mission, for Jeongguk’s sake.

But Jeongguk makes it so easy. He never pries by asking questions that Yoongi can’t answer, somehow just taking Yoongi as he is without seeming to care about anything else that he probably should care about.

Yoongi’s brain feels a little fuzzy around the edges when Jeongguk snuggles closer, his nose pressing into Yoongi’s shoulder.

It doesn’t make sense, Yoongi reasons as he gently pulls away from Jeongguk, pain flaring up in his side as his muscles strain. As far as Jeongguk knows, Yoongi is likely a gang member. And in all honesty, Yoongi was a gang member. Even though he’s pretending to be one now, Jeongguk can never know that he’s an officer.

Jeongguk makes an adorable noise, a tiny grumble, as Yoongi pushes himself up into a sitting position with a wince and drags himself out of bed.

Getting stabbed isn’t pleasant, but the cut was shallow and Yoongi’s had worse.

He takes a fresh change of clothes into the bathroom, deciding not to risk showering with his stab wound, even if it’s covered with the bandage Jeongguk applied the night before. So he washes his hair in the sink, clenching his jaw at the way his side screams at him when he leans over.

His hair is still dripping as he pulls on a clean shirt over his head and pads back out into the bedroom.

Jeongguk’s rolled into the middle of the bed, his mouth hanging wide open and still looking every bit as adorable as he did before.

Fuck, Yoongi needs to stop thinking like that. He really, really, needs to stop letting Jeongguk get involved with him at all.

But the kid needs sleep.

And Yoongi doesn’t want to be the one to wake him up.

So Yoongi goes into the kitchen, pulling out the groceries Jeongguk bought him that he still hasn’t used. He sets to work with his limited cooking supplies, chopping green onions and cracking open eggs. He feels a little lightheaded, probably thanks to blood loss, but overall he’s not significantly worse for wear.

There are two mugs in the sink from the tea Jeongguk made while looking through his notebook, along with take out bowls stacked on the counter.

Yoongi cooks the eggs the way his mother used to when Yoongi was in elementary school, stirring in the green onion once they’re almost done.

A low yawn makes Yoongi look up, finding Jeongguk shuffling out of the bedroom and toward the kitchen, his hair a fluffy mess of dark strands sticking up in various directions, eyes puffy and without his round glasses, oversized t-shirt hanging off his shoulder.

Yoongi wants to see him like this more often. No, fuck, stop thinking like this.

Jeongguk sniffs, wiggling his nose. “Eggs?”

“Yeah.” Yoongi says, poking at them with chopsticks to keep them from sticking to the pan.

“Thanks, hyung,” Jeongguk mumbles, a sleepy smile on his face.

Yoongi stares at him. “Who said they were for you?”

Jeongguk’s eyes fly open fully now, and he stares at Yoongi. “Oh. Oh, sorry, I—”

“Yah, I was joking. ‘course they’re for you,” Yoongi grumbles.

“Hyung,” Jeongguk draws out the word, lips turning down at the corners and— fuck, he’s cute.

“Plates are in that cabinet to your left,” Yoongi says, turning his attention back to the eggs. The eggs are safe. They aren’t about to endanger Yoongi’s mission by distracting him.

Jeongguk pulls the plates out, still looking put out that Yoongi teased him.

“When’s class today?” Yoongi asks when they sit down at the table to eat.

“At ten. I need to leave soon. But thanks for the help last night, hyung. I think that rhyme scheme will work really well for this composition.” Jeongguk shovels the eggs into his mouth at an alarming speed.

“Hell, Gukie, don’t forget to breathe,” Yoongi mutters.

Jeongguk freezes with his mouth full, cheeks puffed out and doe-eyes on Yoongi.

Yoongi stares back, taking a reasonably sized bite as Jeongguk swallows and continues to stare. “What?” Yoongi asks again.

“Huh? Nothing.” Jeongguk immediately sets back to inhaling the food. “Do you, um, have work today, hyung?”

There it is—the first question about Yoongi’s work. “I got shit to do, yeah,” Yoongi answers.

“Oh. What time will you be done?” Jeongguk asks, taking his cleared plate into the kitchen.

“I don’t start until eleven tonight. So I’ll be finished tomorrow morning.” Yoongi says evenly, but he’s watching for any change in Jeongguk’s expression.

There is none.

“I’m going to the store to pick up some groceries after class.” Jeongguk turns on the tap to rinse his plate. “Do you want to come buy real food with me?”

Yoongi feels as if he’s been thrown through a loop. He blames this on his answer. “Mm.”

Now Jeongguk’s expression does change, his teeth even showing in the smile he gives Yoongi in response. “Okay. I’ll come by later, then.”

When Jeongguk returns to his own apartment to get ready for class, Yoongi feels like it’s significantly emptier.

Yoongi changes his bandages even though he doesn’t particularly want to, and it’s around one in the afternoon when Yoongi’s jotting down notes about the latest disaster of a drug drop when there’s a knock at his door. Yoongi half expects it to be Jeongguk, quickly shoving his notebook under the floorboard. Instead he finds Minhyuk standing before him, the man wearing a jacket for the first time over his muscle tee.

Yoongi steps back, inviting Minhyuk in wordlessly.

The man doesn’t bother taking off his shoes, stomping around to take a seat at Yoongi’s table. “Kiha told me about the run,” he states, leaning back in the chair.

Yoongi comes around to sit across from him. “Good. Said that he should report to you immediately.” The failed drop wasn’t Yoongi’s fault, so he mimics Minhyuk’s casual posture. “He brought back the goods?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Minhyuk waves his hand airily. His knuckles are wrapped. “I passed it along to the big boss. He said that he would have those fuckers dealt with.”

“Blacklist them?” Yoongi asks, slouching a bit further in his chair and stifling a yawn.

Minhyuk laughs, the sound frigid. “I don't know how you did things in Daegu, but here if someone tries to steal our shit, the big boss sends out the enforcers. If they’re lucky, those men are in a hospital bed. If they’re not, they’ll be at the bottom of the Han river.”

Yoongi tenses, his stomach dropping for a moment before he just lets out a slow breath and runs his hand through his hair. “I taught them a lesson enough,” Yoongi says.

Minhyuk gives him a wolfish grin. “Probably. The boss just likes to drive points home, you know?”

Yoongi hums, imagining one of the homicide teams finding Dongho and his friend, fishing them out of the Han. They were assholes, ready to threaten their way into taking drugs from Kiha and let the kid be punished by the Keomeun-Baem. But Yoongi didn’t want them dead. “Don’t think you came to my door to tell me just that,” Yoongi says quietly after a few moments of silence.

“How perceptive of you, D-Boy.” Minhyuk tilts his chair, balancing on the back two legs. “The big boss was impressed. Which means both of us are in his good graces.”

Yoongi crosses his arms. “And our necks are safe.”

Minhyuk laughs. “Yeah. Do something else for the Keomeun-Baem and I can put in a word for you to rise in the ranks. Might be able to buy a fucking couch if you do more than just follow runners on their drops.”

“Right.”

Minhyuk lets his chair fall back to all four legs, pushing back and standing with a last empty smile. “There are eyes on you, D-Boy—not just mine anymore.”

“Good thing I’m so damn pretty, then,” Yoongi mutters under his breath.

If Minhyuk hears, he doesn’t respond, simply letting himself out of Yoongi’s apartment.

Yoongi deflates once Minhyuk leaves, propping his elbows on the table and putting his head in his hands. He’s getting a little deeper into the Keomeun-Baem. Hell, he might even be part of a murder case now, depending on how Lee Jihoon chose to deal with Dongho and his friend. Yoongi may be getting closer to Lee, but he’s also going to be under that much more scrutiny.

Which means he needs to be sure that Jeongguk stays very, very far away from it all. Away from him.