Pro Bono

Kyungsoo’s eyes flew open at the blaring of his alarm. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and yawned, stretching catlike as he walked towards his bathroom. He stared at himself in the mirror and smiled faintly at his bed head and jumped in the shower.  He found himself thinking about his last case that he’d been working on and sighed. He may be the country’s best lawyer, but not every case goes smoothly and his last certainly did not. He still won the case for his client, but with a slightly higher sentence than he had planned. Biting his lip, he considered the thought that he might be losing his touch, but it was too soon.

He had become a somewhat of a celebrity after joining the EXO Law Firm, especially with such little experience in the practice. Everyone in the law firm was very young and extremely adept at what they did, so the day he received a letter asking him to join the firm, his jaw nearly fell to the floor. How could he, not even finished with law school, be asked to join the exclusive EXO branch under SM? However, after joining he soon proved his prowess by winning each case that was thrown at him, no matter how difficult it was. He was something of the legends, one of the best that EXO had and everyday he received more and more cases, and each day he turned down more and more and only took on the most difficult of cases.

Recently, though, he found his grip slipping, missing out on minor details, becoming lazy in his practice and less focused. He loved his job, he loved his life, but what he was lacking now was some passion. Still, he smiled at the thought of going in to work, earning money, and eventually securing enough funds to retire early.

Getting dressed briskly, he combed his hair back into his usual style and grabbed his keys, his thoughts still lingering on that case. He shrugged his shoulders and shook it off, hoping that some coffee would fill the emptiness that was beginning to form within him. His phone rang; he pressed the button on his Bluetooth and crammed a bite of the bagel he just bought into his mouth.

“Hello?”

“Kyungie, it’s me, Chohee.” She whined.

“Right, sorry hon, I’m driving right now so I couldn’t check the caller ID.”

“That’s fine, so I was wondering if you wanted to come over for dinner tonight.”

“Sure, that sounds great!” He paused, lips pursed. “Listen, I’ll call you on my lunch break, traffic if horrible right now.” Kyungsoo hung up and drummed his fingers on the wheel of his silver 458 Ferrari Spider; it was going to be a long commute.

Briefcase in one hand, coffee in the other, Kyungsoo rushed up the steps of his firm and was greeted by Baekhyun, another recent recruit into the firm, arriving at the same time.

“Running late too? He smiled.

“Yeah traffic was horrible today.” He nodded.

Kyungsoo liked Baekhyun; he was a nice, funny guy, who always kept the mood light in the firm. He was also recruited right after college and was only about a year older than him. He helped him learn the ropes of the firm and even gave him some advice on his first case. All in all, he was a good friend and Kyungsoo felt happy to have met him.

Kyungsoo’s desk was very neat, a pencil holder on the right with a notepad right beneath it, his work computer in the center, and a picture of him and Chohee on the left. He placed his briefcase down and opened it, removing the final files of his case to be transcribed to his work computer and sent in. He chatted briefly with Joonmyeon about going out for drinks in the next few days and with Chanyeol about a surprise birthday they had planned for Baekhyun some months down the road.

~*~

    Kai stared at his reflection in the grimy mirror in the dimly lit bathroom. There was a bruise flowering on the bottom of his jaw and some slight swelling of his lips. He breathed deeply and splashed some water on his face and smoothed back his hair. He turned around, examining his back, careful to avoid looking at the jagged scar on his right ribcage. There were a few more bruises, nothing majorly damaging, so he shrugged and wrapped his knuckles with some tape and head back out to the crowded abandoned subway.

    “Who’s up?”

    “I am.” Kai smirked and shoved his way through the mob of people.

“No way, you just fought.” The man said.

“Your point?” Kai raised an eyebrow.

“Fine. Who wants to go against him?” The man looked around the crowd, when no one volunteered; he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Come on someone has to go or we’re done for tonight.”

“I’ll go.” A blonde haired, mask wearing man stepped forward.

“Right. So the rules are as follows: anything goes.” He raised his whistle to his lips and blew it. “Go!”

Kai sized up his opponent, staying light on the balls of his feet. The blonde man had several weaknesses that Kai spotted almost immediately; he left his ribcage unprotected and gave away almost all of his punches before they happened.

Kai dodged a right hook deftly and struck him swiftly three times on his left side. The man winced and shied back. Kai took this opportunity to strike him in the jaw and circled him. His opponent shook his head, blonde hair plastered to his forehead with sweat and advanced towards Kai, his left arm swinging back. Kai side-stepped him and relished the collision of his fist with the cracking of the blonde man’s nose. The blonde man fell to the ground, raising his arm in surrender. Kai tilted his head and grinned.

Later that night, when Kai arrived home, he found that his father was already passed out, drunk, on the sofa. He crept past him and locked himself in his room. Sitting on his thin mattress, he began applying some antiseptics to his open cuts and grabbed a few ice packs