Kyungsoo let himself into the motel room, dripping from the pouring rain, and immediately let out a sigh of regret. He hadn’t even been gone that long, yet everything was so much worse than he remembered. Animal prints assaulted his eyes from every surface— carpet, wallpaper, bedspread, even the towel he used to mop his face dry. Rhinestones sparkled from the edge of the hot tub as he wrung the water from his clothes before tossing them over the curtain rod to dry. The shelf full of scented and textured ‘adult necessities’ glistened in their shiny packaging, and Kyungsoo had to cover his eyes with one hand as he gingerly brushed them into the wastebin. Despite the garish decor and embarrassing amenities, the love motel was a perfect hiding place for Korea’s Most Wanted. It was cheap and, most importantly, anonymous, the room keys ordered from a faceless, cash-only kiosk at the entrance. In the city’s current state, a safe place to sleep was luxury enough, everything else would just have to be endured. He wrapped the towel around his middle before padding barefoot from the bathroom.

Yeol whistled appreciatively from where he sprawled on the tiger-striped bed. “Nice abs,” he quipped as Kyungsoo walked by.

“Shut up.” Kyungsoo said, rummaging through the plastic bags he’d brought for fresh clothes. He stepped into a pair of shorts and dropped the towel, then flung a long, flowy skirt onto Yeol’s face.

“That’s for you,” he told him, searching for the skirt’s matching top. “We can’t do anything about your casts, but at least they’ll be less noticeable in a dress.” He pulled out a pair of dark-haired wigs, and held them up side by side. “These can help disguise our faces.”

Yeol whipped his head back and forth clear the cotton from his eyes. “I call the one on the right,” he said, before spluttering a bit of lint out of his mouth. “I look great in a bob.”

Kyungsoo tossed the short wig onto the bed and fitted the longer one over his own head, adjusting it in the bedside mirror. He combed out the bangs and flipped the locks over his shoulder. “How do I look? Convincing?” He batted his eyelashes in his best imitation of one of Yeol’s doe-eyed fan girls.

Yeol hiccuped, snorted, then burst out in hysterical laughter. “You look like a girl,” he chortled, “who looks like a dude!”

Kyungsoo made a face at him and turned back to the mirror, ignoring the mocking as he checked the look from different angles. He thought he looked okay. It wouldn’t fool anyone who knew him, but the cops on high alert were far less likely to look closely at a ‘girl’ than at a guy wearing a hat and mask. He combed out his bangs again. I would date a girl who looked like me.

Yeol managed to pull himself together after a few minutes, blinking away tears of hilarity. “Why the sudden gender swap?” he asked, sobering. “Are the police really cracking down?”

“It’s not just the police,” Kyungsoo said, surprised. “Haven’t you been watching the news?”

Yeol gave him a black look. “Maybe I would have if you hadn’t left the remote,” he pointed at the television across the room, “aaall the way over there.”

Kyungsoo retrieved the tv remote guiltily, and flipped to the first news channel he could find. Images of police swarming through apartment buildings and grim-faced soldiers marching through parks played across the screen as he plopped on the bed. “The army reserve is locking down parts of the city while the police and anyone they can recruit go door to door looking for us. It’s basically martial law.”

“How long until they reach this neighborhood?”

“They’re already here,” Kyungsoo admitted. “On my way back from the market, uniformed soldiers were setting up checkpoints at every corner. I think they found the last car we stole.”

“That you stole,” Yeol corrected, poking him in the side. “I don’t think grand theft auto was part of your police training.”

Kyungsoo shrugged, blushing a little. “A relic of my misspent youth. The important thing is that they know we’re somewhere in this part of the city. It’s just a matter of time until they find us. We need a plan.”

Yeol sniffed the air. “Plan later. I smell ddukbokki,” he said, his lips.

“That’s because I had some while I was out. It’s the ghost of ddukbokki past.” Kyungsoo pulled off his wig and arranged it neatly back in the bag. “There’s none for you.”

Yeol’s lip wobbled, and his eyes moistened. “None?”

Kyungsoo could only sustain the cruelty for a few seconds before the pout overpowered him. “This is why I never got a dog,” he grumbled as he pulled out a foil-wrapped package still hot to the touch. He unwrapped it as Yeol struggled to sit upright, stabbing a few pieces with toothpicks as he waited. He popped one into Yeol’s mouth when he succeeded in sitting up, and the latter wriggled around cheerfully as he chewed.

“Does food make you that happy?” Kyungsoo asked, readying another piece. “Cops could break down our door any minute, but you’re dancing..”

Yeol nodded and opened his mouth wide for another piece. Kyungsoo pulled it back at the last moment, struck by a spark of inspiration. Yeol’s teeth clicked shut on empty air, and he wilted instantly with disappointment.

“As long as we’re just sitting here, let’s play a game,” Kyungsoo suggested, which earned him a dark scowl from Yeol. “You get a rice cake for every question you answer. No lying.” Yeol’s expression was sulky, but his eyes were fixed on the ddukbokki, so Kyungsoo knew he had him hooked.

“The first question is easy. What’s your name?”

“Chanyeol.” Yeol stretched his tongue to touch the rice cake, the pout returning when Kyungsoo moved it out of his reach. “You promised.”

“I called you Yeol as a joke when we couldn’t identify your fingerprints,” Kyungsoo reminded him. “I want your real name. No lying.”

Yeol sighed. “That is my real name. Chan. Yeol.” He spelled out his name with his finger.

Kyungsoo scoffed sarcastically. “An arsonist named ‘Fiery?’” He ate the rice cake himself, and stabbed a new one. “Let’s try a different easy question. Where are you from?”

“My parents are Korean, but I was born in Fiji.”

“A volcanic island? Really?” Kyungsoo ate that rice cake too, fanning himself with a napkin. All the spiciness was making the room feel like a furnace. “At least make your lies believable.”

Yeol lips thinned in irritation. “Fine. I’m from Seoul.”

Kyungsoo nodded in approval. “How did you hide your identity?”

Yeol shook his head stubbornly. “One question, one rice cake.” Kyungsoo shrugged and fed him another piece. He waited until Yeol was finished eating it, then repeated his question.

Yeol smiled broadly. “My fingerprints aren’t in your database because I was born in Fiji.”

Kyungsoo glanced at Yeol’s ears, but there was no trace of a dishonest blush. “Wait, really?” His hand sagged back to the ddukbokki tin in disbelief. “You were actually born in a volcano? Your parents name you ‘Bright Fiery Heat’?!”

Chanyeol stared pointedly at the food Kyungsoo was failing to feed him, and Kyungsoo hurriedly stuffed a couple of pieces into his mouth so they could keep going. This was already more truth than he’d able to squeeze out of him in two years of prison interviews.

“The irony of my name and birthplace isn’t lost on me,” Chanyeol continued. “But it’s not like I was destined to be a pyro.” The tips of his ears went pink.

Kyungsoo spotted the telltale bloom, and tried to probe a little. “When did you set your first fire?”

Chanyeol’s gaze flickered. “Pass.”

Kyungsoo was dying to pry further into Chanyeol’s history, but he knew when to back off. Instead, he switched topics to something more recent, and more pressing. “Who are we running from?” He thought back to the hospital room. “The cops are after us for obvious reasons, but before you said something about a militia. What is that?”

“I don’t know exactly who they are,” Chanyeol confessed. “The militia is just a term I’ve picked up over the years. It’s probably not their official name, if they even have one.”

“Years?” Kyungsoo blinked sweat from his eyes, zeroing in on the word. “Years?”

“I’ve crossed entire continents trying to get away from them,” Chanyeol’s fists tightened at the memories. “Everywhere I go, they find me. Everyone I meet, they turn against me.” He bared his teeth in a humorless smile. “Every time I tried to explain it someone, they’d say it was all in my head. I thought I was going crazy, but…” He held up his double casts.

“Why?” The question had been bothering Kyungsoo from the very beginning. The events of the past week seemed like such overkill for one person-- assassins in the night, the ruined prison, soldiers in the streets. “Why do they want to get rid of you that badly?”

Chanyeol studied him for a moment, chewing his lip, before he reached out to take the empty toothpick from Kyungsoo’s hand. “Watch,” he said, then hastily added, “but don’t freak out.”

Kyungsoo stared at the toothpick as the seconds ticked by, and a tiny tendril of smoke rose from the sliver of wood. Rational Kyungsoo punched out as the toothpick burst into blue-white flame, burning more rapidly than any match, the heat singing his eyebrows. Within moments, there was nothing left but a smudge of ash against Chanyeol’s fingers. Foolish Kyungsoo, the kid who once lit an entire package of sparklers at once just to see what would happen, placed another toothpick in Chanyeol’s hand. As he met the arsonist’s anxious gaze, he couldn’t stop the corners of his lips from quirking upwards.

“Do that again.”

awesome photo credit to sooblime - http://daenso.tumblr.com/