Myungsoo maintained that it was Kai’s curiosity that had spared his life.  Kai thought it was more likely to have been stupidity, or just the fact that the man was a good friend.  He’d pointed his gun at L on Brooklyn Bridge, yes, but he wasn’t sure if he would have actually fired it.

Or, at least, he probably wouldn’t have fired it into Myungsoo’s head.  Or heart.  Not without talking to him first, but Kai had known that probably meant he wouldn’t be firing it at all.

Then again, Kai supposed the man had had a point on the curiosity front, because after the threat of the gun had had the agent raising his hands in surrender, the first words out of Kai’s mouth were “why are you throwing away your life like this?”

There hadn’t been a long silence, but neither had the response tripped smoothly off Myungsoo’s tongue.

“To stop you from throwing away yours,” the man replied quietly.

K frowned, but made no move to lower the gun.

“My life is peachy,” he said.  “But I don’t understand why you’re doing this when you could have literally any other job that wouldn’t involve you getting killed when you slip up.  You could have gone on to be an investment banker or a lawyer or running for president or something, but instead you choose this.  Don’t you have a family to look after?”

Myungsoo glanced at the files K was still holding.

“You went through my entire file, didn’t you?” he observed.

“No,” K admitted.  “But I saw enough.”

Seeming to sense that K wasn’t really threatening him, Myungsoo slowly let his arms fall and leant back against the car window behind him.

“You missed the most important bit, then,” he said.  He seemed terribly resigned, and his body slumped as though he was many years older than K knew he actually was.  “Back when my big brother was around your age, he fell in with the wrong people and ended up with a heroin addiction.  It tore our family apart.  Our mum was already a violent drunk and my dad was a gambler, and then my brother had gangs after him because he wasn’t paying them money he owed and Dad was losing what little money my brother made by gambling it away, and then he started getting into trouble with the police for robbing people to get the money to pay for his addiction.  He was in and out of rehab for a while, and then juvie, and then he finally got killed during a deal.  My mum kind of broke and my dad didn’t even notice.  I knew there were loads of other teenagers who get hooked on that kind of thing at similar ages and decided I was going to devote my life to trying to make the world safer for them.”

K just blinked at him.

“I can see my brother in you,” Myungsoo added.  “Not because you’re part of a cartel.  It’s your personality.”

“But you’re in the middle of trying to ruin my life,” K pointed out as a car whizzed past them, momentarily putting Myungsoo’s face into even deeper shadow since his back was to the light.  “Those guys are my brothers.  That cartel’s my home and family.”

“And who was your best friend there?” countered Myungsoo.  K bit his lip.  Gina didn’t really count since they were dating, which left—

“Well... you.”

“And you’re fifteen.  You’re very bright, K, and you’ve got your whole life ahead of you.  It would be such a shame to waste your talent on crime that could well see you locked up for life if you’re caught.”

“If I let you walk away from here, that’s exactly what’s going to happen to me.”

“You’re fifteen,” Myungsoo repeated.  “You’re a minor.  You’d get juvie and a short sentence, but I was actually hoping to take you with me, in which case you wouldn’t get either.”

“Take me— what?”

Myungsoo let out a strained smile.  “I’ve cleaned up how you shoot.  I’ve tried my best to stimulate you intellectually, to broaden your knowledge and your observation skills.  I’ve got you to analyse characters during movie night and think strategically during game night.  I put that effort in because I saw potential in you, and I still see it now because you haven’t killed me.  You’re a nice kid.  I want to give you a good life.”

K slowly lowered the gun.

“I could have shot you when you drove up,” he pointed out.

“Your thirst for knowledge saved me.”  An edge of L’s usual jocular tone crept back into his voice.

K put the gun away altogether, chewing on his split lip.  “I just didn’t understand,” he said.  “I still don’t.  The gang’s one of the biggest in North America; the police who were supposed to be investigating it are corrupt; my boss has bought the FBI department that specialises in drug felonies – and you thought it was a good idea to infiltrate this?”

“Yep.”

K let out an incredulous snort.  L was beginning to sound more like his natural self.  “You’re an idiot, you know.”

Myungsoo laughed.

“A brave idiot,” K added, almost under his breath.

“Thanks, kiddo.”

“A brave, genius idiot.”

“That’s an oxymoron.”

“Oxymoron itself is an oxymoron.”

Myungsoo seemed to take the random fact as K’s acceptance that the man had been an undercover agent.

“Are you going to kill me?” he asked lightly.

K’s lips almost pulled up into a smile.  “No.”

“Then there’s somebody I want you to meet.”

Thant looked identical to his FBI profile photo, though K suspected it had something to do with the fact that it was 1.30 in the morning and L hammering on his door had dragged him out of bed.

“What do you—is this the boy?” he interrupted himself when he caught sight of K peeking curiously around Myungsoo’s shoulder.  Myungsoo nodded.

“Lemme get coffee,” Thant yawned.  “Come in.”

Three minutes later, K felt the most like a young teen that he had ever done.  He was curled up on an enormous sofa, Myungsoo sitting at the other end of it, swathed in a duvet, clutching a gigantic mug of steaming hot chocolate laced with cream, and with a substantial supply of sweets and crisps right beside him.

He decided he liked Thant.  Especially when the man absently handed him a large slab of chocolate.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you back here so soon,” Thant commented to Myungsoo as he poured them both coffee.  He was beginning to look a little more awake.  “You only left an hour and a half ago.”

“I wasn’t either,” Myungsoo admitted.  “But since I was in the New York area, I was asked to pick K up.”

Both men looked at K, who was happily shoving fistfuls of peanuts into his mouth.  He froze like a rabbit caught in headlights when he realised their attention was on him, but Thant only gave a soft chuckle and Myungsoo winked at him, so he assumed it was acceptable to continue stuffing his face.

“And how come you were in Manhattan at this hour?” Thant asked K.  “Myungsoo told me that the nearest two safe houses you use as bases are in North Carolina and Maine.”

K blinked at him, pausing momentarily with peanuts bulging his cheeks out like a hamster’s.  For a few seconds, he panicked about what to say, but then he realised that Myungsoo would talk anyway and it was best to do it on his own terms, whatever he planned to be doing with his life afterwards.  He liked Myungsoo – admired him, even, after seeing his name in that file and hearing why he was reckless enough to put his life and career on the line when he had so much going for him – but he wasn’t totally sure about this whole “being rescued” thing, and considering there were now two FBI agents with him, he couldn’t really do or say anything they would think meant he was against them.  K wasn’t really sure where he stood at the moment, but he wasn’t an idiot.  Myungsoo was risking a lot by taking him to meet Thant, but if he didn’t play ball, he’d be the first person in the cartel to be chucked in prison.

“My boss sent me into the FBI headquarters to find out who the mole in the cartel was,” K admitted, eyeing the bowl of peanuts and then the bowl of haribos, unsure which one to go for next.  “Didn’t seem to trust anybody in the FBI he’d bought enough to ask them to check.”

“Yeah, that man has trust issues,” Myungsoo chipped in.

“And the security’s sh*t, by the way,” K added, looking up at Thant.  “I mean, the security is dreadful.  I still don’t know how I managed to get in so easily, but I know I shouldn’t have done.  I think I’d have more trouble trying to break into a high school.”

Thant took it completely in his stride.  “I’ll pass that on.”

“And I set fire to some documents as a distraction so I could get out again,” K added, deciding it was best to just air everything.  He went for the haribos.

“I won’t pass that on.”

K decided he really liked Thant.  But it didn’t stop him from looking up in surprise.

“But that’s arson,” he pointed out.  “I don’t know if there was anybody in the building at the time or how much I damaged it, but it could be anything up to a Class B felony.”

It was Thant’s turn to look surpr