Chapter Text
Ahn Gi-seok’s everything hurt. The undercover NIS agent from the International Organized Crime Bureau sat on a wire chair in Toto’s restaurant, Arno, nursing a towel full of ice on his bruised and battered cheek. His entire being throbbed; a split lip, cuts and bruises littering his face and his chest, maybe even a cracked rib or two. He had read that undercover work could be dangerous, but he had not been expecting a beating from Park Seok-do’s men to be delivered to him out of nowhere. The message had been received, though he still wasn’t sure why it was delivered to him of all people. He was a no one at the plaza; no one knew his job, or why he was really there, he was just an assistant chef who chopped vegetables and delivered plates to tables. Park’s men had no reason to suspect he wasn’t what he claimed, either.
It was nice, of course, to see everybody at Geumga Plaza coming to his defense, running in, drunk as they might be, with makeshift weapons of flour and flags and drums and the rage to fight off their assailants, and it was nicer still to have Ms. Hong Cha-young, lawyer extraordinaire, and Vincenzo Cassano, the mafia consigliere (and target of Ahn’s undercover work), get them out of trouble by being able to prove that Park’s men had started wailing on Gi-seok unprovoked (oh, the foresight the consigliere had, knowing that something was going down and having Kim Young-ho film it on his phone!) The people here had accepted him as one of them and there was more than a small part that felt that he belonged here.
It was not so nice to feel like his head was splitting in two and to feel the swelling that came with being beaten with bats and crowbars. Toto was fussing over him, making him sit down with ice packs and making some tea. Other residents of Geumga plaza filtered in and out of the restaurant to clap Ahn on the shoulder and tell him that he was a hell of a man for withstanding Park’s assault, and that they were all going to go out for a late dinner to celebrate their victory as soon as everyone was ready to go; Gi-seok and Vincenzo would be the patrons of honour.
Gi-seok leaned back in his chair and moved the ice cubes from his cheek to the corner of his lip, hissing softly at the sudden pain that flared up in his mouth and the tang of iron that came with it as a droplet of blood filtered through his teeth.
“They beat me just because I was wearing red!” he complained to Toto, who tutted from in front of the stove. The taller, larger man wasn’t wearing his chef’s hat, proud in showing a large bruise on his eye that he had gotten in the scuffle. “What are they, bulls? They see red and attack?”
“They’re uncivilized,” the chef grumbled, waving his hand enthusiastically in the air in an approximation of an Italian gesture. “But you got lucky, Gi-seok. You weren’t here when they took the building over.” He paused and stared at the wall in thought before returning his attention back to the kettle that was slowly warming up.
Gi-seok leaned forward in his seat, frowning as much as he could with a face that felt like ground mulch and ribs that felt like they were on an operating table. That was an invitation to ask more, if he ever heard one, though he had the feeling that he might not feel as lucky as Toto claimed. Or maybe that feeling was just his ribs screaming as he leaned forward. Who knew?
“What did they do?”
Toto wheeled around, holding his chef’s hat in his hands, wringing it like it was a towel filled with water and he could get all of the last drops out of it. He frowned as well, looking at Gi-seok and his obviously interested expression. With an explosive sigh, Toto leaned against the counter. He raised his head upwards, one of his hands holding the hat going to his chin to hold it as he spoke dramatically.
“The former building owner refused to sell to those Babel bastards. We never believed him though, he was always acting strange. Then, Mr. Cassano came on the scene and it was even more suspicious, as they were plotting together – we all thought they were going to steal the building from us. Mr. Cassano told us that the building was taken from them illegally and he was going to get it back...You came into the picture not long after that.” He leaned forward a little more, as though he was sharing a secret, even though they were ten feet away. “What he didn’t say back then was that Babel held the owner’s family hostage to make him sign the building over to them, and then tried to kill him with a truck to...” He dragged his finger across his throat, no more words needing to be said.
Gi-seok’s expression widened, at least momentarily, as the pain that came with that was too much. He winced and pressed the ice to a sore spot on his jaw.
“They tried to kill him with a truck?”
Toto smacked his hand against the counter and excitedly said, “Wham! Rammed his car at full speed! He was in the hospital for months, apparently. Mr. Cassano started the fight to get the building back immediately, and those thugs won’t give up, even now. But now we’ll fight back too! This is our home, our gold!” The chef smartly shut himself up after the word ‘gold’ spilled out of his lips, and busied himself with preparing the teabags instead.
Leaning back in his seat, Ahn contemplated this; not the gold, but the fact that the former building owner had been in hospital for months, but here he was, standing. Then again, though those weapons might have felt like a truck, it wasn’t an actual truck. Maybe he should feel lucky. He shuddered to think about being in the hospital – it was not a place he liked to be, even to visit others. On the other hand, maybe Director Tae would visit him there and maybe he’d get a medal. Silver lining!
“Is he alright?” Ahn asked, maybe for the sake of his own body and own brief thought about a hospital stay with his name on it.
“Who? Mr. Cho? I think so, but I haven’t seen him around much since then. Probably scared of Babel. I feel bad to have doubted them,” Toto lamented with a sigh, his hand going to the small mustache on his face and trailing the curl of it slowly. “Now we’ll make it up to them and fight alongside them.”
“Yeah!” Gi-seok bolted upwards as he exclaimed, his knee cracking painfully against the underside of the table with a loud thud. His eyes watered as the new pain mingled with the old pain and a new concert of throbbing intensity joined the old one. Toto looked at him strangely before yelling at him to sit down. Gi-seok obeyed immediately, collapsing into the seat, moving the ice away from his jaw and holding it in his hand, the melting water starting to drip down his wrist as it permeated the soaked towel.
Ow.
~
May 26, 2013
“Ahn Gi-seok! Get in here now!”
Director Tae’s voice thundered through the halls of the National Intelligence Service, echoing down the corridors and through the bullpen. Like a sonic wave, heads turned towards Ahn’s small office, the single room in the entire building that was dedicated to the International Italian Organized Crime Affairs department, informally just known as the Italian Desk. Gi-seok heard the roaring voice and jumped backwards in his chair. The momentum – Newton’s law or something scientific that he might have known at one point to sound smart – was just enough to start tilting his chair. His hands flailed as he reached out to grab the desk but it was too late; the chair tipped backwards and he shrieked as he fell along with it, stopping with a mighty crash. His head was cushioned by the comfortable padding but it still throbbed with the sudden whiplash of falling and the embarrassment that came along with it.
That initial embarrassment was nothing compared to the fact that he kicked his legs like a turtle that was stuck on its shell.
It took him twelve seconds to roll over the armrest of the upturned chair and to clumsily get to his feet, and another two to do a small hop and adjust his blazer to straighten it from its crumpled mess. Raising his chin confidently, Gi-seok let out a deep, centering breath.
He got this!
The NIS agent picked up the chair, hiding the grunt of exertion that he gave out while lifting the heavy rolling base from the crowd that was watching him curiously. The entire office had stopped when he had fallen, the silence punctuated with the sound of ringing phones or beeps from computers and other devices as searches, scans and queries ran in the background. At least they weren’t aware of Ahn’s little...mishap.
Gi-seok gracefully slid out of his office and shut the door behind him, head held high, like that little stunt hadn’t happened and he was, in fact, firmly and crucially in control of the situation. He began to walk through the rows of desks in the bullpen, ignoring the whispers and the eyes that were boring holes through his back. The NIS already knew that Agent Ahn Gi-Seok was a bit of an odd duck, to be polite, his three years with the agency had proven that to everyone who looked at him. It didn’t affect his confidence; he was good at his job, even when no one else believed in him.
“Now, Agent Ahn!”
The angry voice of the Director came down the hall, and Ahn immediately hurried his steps, speedwalking the rest of the bullpen and making a dramatic flourish of a turn into a hallway. His fingers steepled against each other in an unconscious movement, the tips pressing together just to threshold of pain. A pair of agents walked towards him, deep in their own conversation. Gi-seok gave them a deep nod and a knowing smile. They stared at him in return and eventually bowed their nod.
Ahn pivoted on his foot and twirled around them instead of barreling through the middle of them.
After another quick turn to a separate hallway, Gi-seok stood in front of a door which was ajar, but not open. He let out another deep breath and rapped his knuckles rapidly on the door. A deep grunt came from inside, more of a grumble than anything else, and Ahn stopped his knocking immediately to poke his head in the opening like a gopher who came above ground only to see if it was raining.
“Sir?” he asked, peering at the director’s desk.
Director Tae Jong-gu looked like you wanted a director to look. He had a serious demeanour, broad shoulders, stood straight and tall, even when he was sitting, and had a piercing gaze that could see right through you, even hidden as it was behind a pair of thick glasses. Confidence, loyalty, admiration, all those traits were exuded and accepted in equal parts by Tae. Right now, though, he looked upset, impatiently waving Ahn to get into his damn office and shut the door behind him.
Knowing this hand wave by now, Ahn slipped in like a cat and leaned against the door until it audibly clicked behind him. He cleared his throat and took some large, confident steps forward, only to be stopped by Tae standing up out of his chair and casting an imposing shadow. His steps became much smaller after that.
“Your last report,” Tae said, his gravelly voice low, “was a complete mess. How could you do this to me?”
Ahn’s mouth dropped open.
“My last report was – it was not a mess!”
Tae scoffed, turning away from Ahn in obvious exasperation. “It read like a hundred won romance novel you’d find at the airport!
Ahn’s hand came up to his open mouth, expression going mournful at the offensive comments that he was now experiencing. “Hundred won?” he asked meekly, his voice sad, expression crestfallen. “It was...at least a thousand...”
Tae let out a noise of exasperation and wheeled around to face Ahn once more. Ahn recoiled backwards a little bit, dropping his hand from his face, though the reproachful look in his gaze was still there. People often said that Gi-seok’s eyes were overly expressive, like an anime character, and it was an asset he used to his advantage.
Unfortunately, Director Tae seemed to be immune.
“I wanted a report with facts and information about the likelihood of mafia expansion across eastern Europe and into Asia, not a doe eyed tale about the adoptive son of the Cassano family just because he’s Korean by birth!”
“But...those facts are in there,” Ahn mumbled. “I thought the--”
“Gosh, ‘those facts are in there’? After twenty pages about this single family? Get me a report with just the facts, Agent Ahn! Now!”
Ahn bowed immediately in reaction, his expression still saddened, offended, and mystified that Tae hadn’t liked his report to start with. When he rose, it was with a slight amount of deference in his posture. A miserable nod went in the direction of the Director, who scoffed at him once more, clicking his tongue and shooing him out with another hand gesture. As Ahn turned to the door, he shared another look back.
“The report was good...”
Tae took three menacing steps forward from around his desk, making Ahn back up towards the door. “Good?! Good?? Why can’t you be like that new hire on the China desk! His reports are immaculate and he’s only been here three weeks!”
New hire? Ahn furrowed his brow at the news. Was there a new agent? He usually wasn’t out of touch with announcements of staffing changes, as there was at least an email sent out organization wide. The Italian Affairs department never really interacted with the China Affairs department; the Mafia and the Triad didn’t like dealing with each other unless it was in a kung-fu movie. Still, a new hire with impeccable paperwork was not something to sneeze at. Getting into the NIS wasn’t easy as it was, and getting any kind of approval took years.
Hell, Gi-seok was in his third year here and still didn’t get that approval, based on Director’s Tae latest critique of his work.
A heavy sigh came out of his lips and his shoulders deflated. He shot a look back at Tae before his hand fumbled for the door handle so that he could exit, a little less enthusiastically than he entered. Head hanging, Gi-seok traveled the halls back to the large bullpen, the noise swelling as he got closer. People had gone back to work, doing the important tasks of keeping their republic safe.
“My report was accurate...” Gi-seok muttered to himself, raising his head and looking out at his colleagues and friends.
The Yakuza department was all gathered around one set of monitors, excitedly talking amongst each other and pointing at various things; something was going down soon, by the look of it. The DMZ division looked tense, their blazers haphazardly over the back of their chairs as they leaned forward and intently read new intel about movements. Occasionally, a note was passed between desk partners. The China desk was quieter and more subdued.
Ahn tilted his head to the side and cautiously moved closer (tripping over an ethernet cable as he did and earning an angry yell from one of their IT department), curiosity overtaking him for the new hire that was already earning praise. Song, Kim, Park, Ju, those were all faces that he knew. A couple other faces he recognized but the names escaped him. Who was the new face?
The last computer at the end of the row held the new face, a face that was deeply involved in his computer screen, eyes scanning the data he was looking at and his hand moving on the table to jot thoughts down in shorthand hangul. Gi-seok stared, looking at the man, realizing deep down that he was attractive, with a sharp jaw and a wide, bright smile that came out when he found...whatever he was looking for; Gi-seok was imagining that it was The Missing Link that would crack open a new piece of intel. His hair was swept back, not gelled in place as strands were falling over his forehead when he tilted his head. His suit was slim and tailored and accentuated his long arms and neck, and the dark colour just made the bright, analytical eyes seem even deeper. The glasses on his face were slim and rectangular, thick frames that brought attention to the right spots.
Time was slowed as Gi-seok studied the new hire. He could almost hear music in his head. Reality, however, brought him crashing down when the mail cart that was being pushed down the aisles ran over his foot like a speedbump in the road. Gi-seok’s face contorted but he refused to show the silent scream of pain that was welling up in him, lips trembling and eyes watering beyond his control.
Ow, he breathed, allowing that thought of weakness so that tears of pain wouldn’t spill out onto his cheeks for everyone to see. Heart beating in his ear, he wasn’t sure if it was because it was throbbing in time with his toe or it was the hardworking, attractive suit that joined their little justice league.