Warnings for slight suggestion of adult themes, dark imagery, violence, mild language.

— is a perspective change, —— is a time skip, and indent+ital is a memory. Sorry for all the confusion ;;; ^^

Word count: 3460 (no joke)

———

The inner pocket of his jacket was emblazoned with the name Kim Seok Jin, which he hadn’t noticed until that day.

Not Jin?

And Seokjin woke up.
Just like that.

He had already technically been ‘awake,’ milling about and generally being conscious; but this wasn’t that kind of woke up.

It was easy, almost deceptively so, and so fast a change.

One moment he was standing in front of the door to the sleeping quarters (he shared his room with three others, whose names he’d either forgotten or had never deemed important enough to remember), and the other he was.. well, standing in front of the door to the sleeping quarters. 

But now he was alert, finally coming to his senses in a world he had always resided in. He thought about how that crack in the wall next to his bed had always bothered him at least a little bit. He thought about how he usually disliked the taste of anything served at the cafeteria, but continued to consume regular portions of it, three times a day, despite that. He thought about the most mundane things, not about suspects or targets or weapons, but about little pieces of hair stuck to brushes and about what kind of wood they might have used to fashion his bed frame.

He was alive.

He went out in the morning for the millionth time, to a cafe he’d been to a million times, arriving, as always, exactly when the first batch of morning bread came out. He had the same breakfast every day without fail, a blueberry muffin and a cup of strong black coffee, but today the food tasted different. Bolder.

Jin was sipping at what would have been the last of his coffee when she entered the shop, chatting with another girl and looking around the room for a table to sit at before ordering anything. When her eyes fell upon his police officer’s uniform, she kind of stiffened for a second before snapping out of it and beginning, with renewed vigour, to converse animatedly with her companion.

Maybe Jin had seen her here before, or maybe he hadn’t; he couldn’t really be sure. But he saw her now, really saw her, and he immediately committed her features to memory. It hadn’t been voluntary, merely an instinct born of hours, weeks, years of training to accurately recognize — and find — any interesting people’s faces. It mildly disgusted him, actually, that he had just done that, like he had been analyzing some target to shoot, to track down and dispose of after his job was done. 

Nonetheless, he guessed that, to be fair, he hadn’t really known what to do other than to scan her like that; he was just too used to it.

She was beautiful.

So he sat and stared, until she let out a laugh in response to something the girl sitting across from her had said. Clearing his throat and pushing back his chair to get up, Jin peered into his paper cup, noticing then that it had been empty for quite a while. He got up and paid for his half-eaten muffin and long-finished coffee, putting down exactly the amount that he owed, as always.

He couldn’t help but think of the girl, and of how she had stilled when she’d seen that he was an officer, seen that emblem that meant he was DANGER in all capitals. 

It had always been taught to him that he should feel some sort of pride to be bearing that symbol, but now the silver-gold badge resting false-proudly over his heart gave him a sort of creeping shame. She’d been afraid of him for the reason that he wore it, and that made him feel uneasy about the meaning of all this. His life.

Maybe it was time to go back. He felt like he didn’t really belong here, in this realer version of the world he had once known. 

The merrily tinkling bells near the door made a pretty sound as he brushed past them, a sound that he’d never really noticed, much less appreciated, until then. 

The walk back to the station was rather quiet, except for the bustling traffic and the occasional message being transmitted through Seokjin’s earpiece. He turned it off.

He thought about the past as he walked slowly along the sidewalks, swinging his arms a little and singing a vague-but-familiar tune somewhere in the back of his mind. 

He thought about the past, but found that there were no meaningful memories to remember. It wasn’t amnesia, he knew who he was and where he had come from (Seokjin from the police force, obviously (though, until very recently, just “Jin”)). 

It was only that, before the previous day, he had been so out of it, following the strict rules of existence in that damned place, that he hadn’t had so much as a thought of his own for the past however-many years, reducing that time span to a complete blur in Seokjin’s mind.

The walk back to the station seemed to get quieter still.

He wind blew in his ears.

Jin turns the corner to another hallway, his hard, shiny shoes making quite a bit of noise against the equally hard, equally shiny floor beneath them. He is thinking hard while walking, recalling precisely the face of the man he has been sent to kill. 

He fixes his tie with his left hand, but only because his right hand is occupied.

His right hand holds a gun.

The instructions echo through his mind again as he stops in front of the door numbered 120 and starts to wait silently by the wall adjacent to it: “This is your next target. Namjoon will tell you the details of his location and how heavily guarded he is. Don’t come back until he is dead.“ 

His instructions are almost always the same.

He knocks twice on the door, the way Jeon Jungkook is expecting his boss to knock for their scheduled meeting. 

Jin can hear a sudden, excited shuffling and some muffled greetings spoken through the door before it is finally pulled open. 

Jung Kook looks up from his 45-degree bow, and is suddenly confused: he doesn’t see TaeTae, er, Mr. Kim, anywhere. 

When he turns his head, Jin is already facing him, handgun poised to shoot. 

Jung Kook can’t surrender properly, because he only gets time to raise his arms halfway.

BANG.

“Are you done?” a voice asks in Jin’s ear. 

“Yes.” 

“The security cameras will unfreeze in 4 minutes.”

The line goes dead.

If he had any time for personal thoughts, Jin would be disappointed that Namjoon only ever speaks to him in that even, monotone voice and never stays to chat.

But even if he did linger to have some small talk, Jin would probably get annoyed with him.

Jin likes to believe that all the people he is sent to murder are inherently bad, that he is doing a service to the community and to his government, his country. He lets himself think that every person he extinguishes deserves it, deserves everything from the first threat to the final gunshot.

But somewhere, so deep in his conscience that he isn’t aware that it is there or even that it exists, he knows that the corruption of the police force has gone too far for even half of his targets to be actual criminals.

What used to be the proud protector of millions of men and women and children througout the nation has sunk slowly but surely to a private assassination organization, swayable insofar as one can pay. At first it was small favors and deals made in secret by the heads, but soon enough it descended into nothing but a helpful service that is guaranteed to kill your target without repurcussions; the department is still technically a sector of the government.

Jin doesn’t love killing, but he keeps doing it nonetheless. He thinks he’s free, but in reality he is just repeating a false truth to himself when he wonders about things like whether or not it was right to kill so-and-so:

Killing isn’t really wrong, it’s just what people like him do. 

It’s his job.

As always, Seokjin was headed to Yoongi’s for some small talk before lunchtime, but today he got pulled over by a scarily neutral-faced Jimin. “You’ve got something, Jin.”

‘Something’ meant another mission. Another murder he would commit, he thought. He was frozen for a second, wondering what that meant.

He followed his higher-up into the room anyway, breathing deeply but discreetly, like he’d learned to do to calm himself down without making too much noise before a job.

A large colour photograph slid onto the table. 

“Here she is,” Jimin said, sighing slightly in a way that only meant that it was routine, an everyday occurrence, for him to be showing pictures of strangers to police officers for them to kill.

“Works at the Hyundai Department store — fifth floor, where they sell the patbingsu — her break starts in about half an hour, so you’ve got a while. But remember, don’t be late, ‘cause Min can’t bail you out any more.”

Seokjin remarked internally that if said man were standing in the room, Jimin would have fainted upon seeing him. Of course Yoongi could bail him out.. as long as he was negotiating with Park Jimin, of course.

“Don’t worry about it; I’ll get it over with as soon as I can.“ 

Seokjin reflected for a moment, before asking, “Is Namjoon busy?”

“Namjoon’s with Yoongi, which is why I’m the one assigning you today. Just do this quick and you can see him after dinner, hmm?" 

”..yeah. Sure. Uh-huh.“ Seokjin started to back out of the room, grabbing his supplies and continuing to talk at Jimin.

Unimpressed, the later waved him off with a slightly annoyed expression. Jin had always wondered what he was thinking that made him so irritable all the time.

Before he left, though, he called over his shoulder: "That’s Yoongi-hyung to you, NoJams.”

It was the first marginally rude thing he’d ever said to anyone in the building other than his best friend, and it came surprisingly easily. It sort of scared him, on some level, but it also gave him a thrill he was sure he’d never have gotten from firing his .45.

Seokjin didn’t realize that he hadn’t actually looked at the picture before stuffing it into his memory.

—

You took off your apron, waving and smiling casually to your co-workers to let them know you were going on your break now. You made your way to the elevators, and, when one came to your floor, got in and hit the button for the rooftop.

You stepped out of the elevator, breathing in the fresh air and taking in the greenery that’d been installed by the gardeners that the company had hired a cope of years back. There was so much of it that one could barely see the concrete half-walls surrounding the roof, making the place that much more relaxing to be in. You sat down at a round table, contentedly crossing your legs for a nap in the late-morning sun.

——

You woke to the insistent ringing of your watch alarm, jumping up immediately for fear that you’d be late to get back; your break was only twenty minutes long, after all. 

You dusted your clothes off and tied your hair back up properly, simultaneously starting your walk back to the elevator.

The sight that greeted you when you stepped around the last corner before the elevator made you falter, step back a little on instinct; you were absolutely certain that you’d seen that figure before. He was blocking the only exit from the rooftop, and every potential escape route around you was just air, a six-story free fall.

Great. Just fabulous.

“I’ve been waiting for you.” The police officer was leaning there against the wall with his arms crossed. He had stood up straight when he’d spotted you, having expected you. “Look, we don’t have much time, so please hear me out.”

"No, no! I know who — what you are, you’re here to kill me! Tha- that’s what you people do! I-I won’t let you take my life!” You were trying and miserably failing to sound strong and not-defenseless. 

Damn it, damn it, this was going nowhere and you really needed to get back to the cafe without dying at the hands of the police and you just didn’t see a good way out of this.. Could you just push past him to get to the elevators? Jump off the ledge and hope for the best? There was really no way to help your situation and the man was starting to step closer and you turned around to look behind you for some sort of refuge but saw more people dressed in police uniforms and you whipped your head back at the first man who was now no more than two metres from you and you were starting to sweat and-

“Please,” the man said, stepping still closer, “it’ll be quick.”

“I — don’t — want — to —”

You were completely trapped, and you were beginning to imagine your own obituary in the newspapers — only you wouldn’t have an obituary in the newspapers, because your death had been brought about by the police. You imagined your nothingness, rather; your grave would hold nothing but dirt, there would be no ashes to keep safe.. Dark.

“I’m not going to come with you!” You barked, as a last-ditch effort, and took a big step back when the male reached out for you.

“______!” He demanded, “this is an order from an representative of the police!”

You rushed your decision, making to lunge past him and get to the elevator. But it wasn’t ever going to be that easy, now was it? The last thing you saw before the lights winked out was his blocking your way. You felt a sudden blow to your stomach, knocking the air from your lungs and making your head spin. Your whole body stung from both the pain of impact and that of defeat.

Pathetic, you thought for just a moment, before you lost the battle against the black spots dancing in your vision.

“My apologies.”
Seokjin’s words went unheard.

——

“This is why I told you to be quicker this time, you had to go and make this one unnecessarily dramatic and loud and call all those other guys to help you make this— this flamboyant plan of yours come to life and then you had to go and bring her here instead of killing her on the spot and-” Jimin was spluttering, the situation robbing him of much-needed words.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t originally plan to make this so big, I won’t-”

“You are abusing your position as a senior officer to- Gah!” The speaker yanked at his red hair, messed with his glasses. “Just make sure the job gets done, alright? She needs to be gone by the end of the week. Now get out of my sight!”

Seokjin quietly complied, closing the door calmly but firmly behind him.

He had honestly planned to get on with the job as efficiently as possible, really, but the second he checked back to see what his target looked like he had changed plans immediately. It was her, the girl who’d so intrigued him that morning at the cafe. He couldn’t just let her die. 

So he’d called for reinforcements.

Walking down the halls to visit her and to explain himself, Seokjin looked around. He only now noticed how harsh, how cold and sterilized and blindingly bright the place was, how strange it was that he was there without the mind-numbing Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V of his previous life.

He had to find a pattern now, purposefully, unlike he had ever had to before. He felt so out of place here, because those people he’d thought of vaguely as brothers and friends before seemed so alien and distant all of a sudden. It gave him the impression that he had lived life completely numbed to all the sensations around him, and that unsettled him.

He unlocked the door to his private room in the building, not his bedroom (which wasn’t even really his) but his ‘business room’, which had held everything from interrogations to casual meetings in the time that he had occupied it. Right now, it was being used to house ______, as he’d learned her name was from Jimin.

Seokjin strode into the room, soundlessly shutting he door behind him and locking it. He watched ______, who had been bound to a single wooden chair in the middle of the room. She was asleep, still out cold since an hour ago.

An amused smile formed on his lips, and he leaned forward to wake her, blowing in her face. This startled her awake; ______ stared dazedly at him for a moment, until she tried to reach up and wipe her bleary eyes and found that her hands had been cuffed behind her. All at once, her annoyance found you again and ______ started to glare up at him in earnest. He kept smiling at her.

—

You heaved a sigh, sinking further into the chair and eyeing him dangerously.

“Why didn’t you kill me before? In want of a personal wore?” You tried to sting as much as possible with every word you spat out.

Seokjin took a step back from you. That wasn’t what he’d really been expecting to hear.

“I hate you and the entire organization that you work for. Everyone who’s at least a little right in the head hates you all, but no one has the guts to say it, 'cause they’re afraid you’ll take them away, too.”

Then he started laughing, and between the evil look you were giving him and the biting things you’d said you really didn’t know what was so humorous about anything in this situation.

—

Seokjin laughed, partially because of the irony and partially because she was everything he’d thought she would be when he’d seen her that morning at the café. Bright and fiery and strong-willed, she showed him a different side of life, an exciting, eye-opening experience that he wanted to harness and keep with him forever. Her spirited attitude, although it was being used with malice towards him, emitting rays of don’t-touch-me everywhere, filled him with a simply unknowable joy.

He was so, so glad he’d decided to save her.

—

“Look, I’m not really with them. Well, I am, sort of, but I’m not..”

“Not what?”

“I’m- I’m here to stop you from getting killed, alright?” He coughed a little afterwards, because it had sounded so much better in his head.

You were skeptical, but what other choice did you have? You stopped and looked up at him.

Taking this as his cue, he started talking.

“I’m sorry for punching you, and for taking you without your permission,” he sounded so polite for someone who was supposed to be out to kill you. Who the hell needed permission before abducting someone, anyway? “Are you okay?”

You stayed silent.

"Now we have to get going or we’ll miss the ferry!” he suddenly raised his voice, something like excitement or anticipation escaping his lips.

“Ferry?”

He took out a knife that was serrated near the handle and cut the ropes binding you to the chair, shushing you when you knocked the chair over as you stood up. “Comes in and out of this wretched building for transportation every day. It’s almost six now, it comes then and leaves three minutes later. We have no time to waste.”

“What makes you think I’ll go with this plan of yours? It could be a trap, I’m not that stupid, you know.”

“It’s perfectly understandable if you want to be stuck here through the night and be found dead tomorrow morning.” he smirked. You were not appreciating the sarcasm, and probably would have hit him if your wrists hadn’t been hurting from having been tied with rough rope.

But this actually gave you hope, sort of. You were about to try a risky gamble, but it just might be worth it. And then you could see your loved ones again. Keep working towards your PhD, maybe. Add 'have escaped police’ to your list of achievements. 

Life was good, and you were about to jump right back into it.

The nameless policeman was already standing by the door, having looked out into the corridor to check if the coast was clear. 

He gestured to you to follow him, smiling slightly. “Now come on! Hurry!”

You were going on the adventure of your life… and, hopefully, you’d make it out alive.