"Is there a problem, Mr. Kyungsoo?" Ms. Yeong stepped gingerly around him and practically floated across the floor to stand next to her husband, who hadn't risen from his seat. Jinah's phone was off and she was watching the exchange with a carefully blank expression. Kyungsoo's head spun with options. He still didn't fully want Kai to understand what was going on, but from what he could tell, the night could only get uglier. Kwangseok didn't have that shine in his eyes he got when he was sure of something, or when he felt secure that the room believed who he was. 

He didn't have that shine for a reason; Kyungsoo had almost given him full rights to all his music before he'd found out that the only reason Kwangseok was allowed to get so close was because his company knew he was just a grifter, and let him get close to Kyungsoo in order to obtain evidence against him.

Kwangseok got away anyway. Needless to say Kyungsoo was just a step away from punching the man in the face. "Yes," he replied, his jaw clenched. "Please get the goddamn grifter out of the house and we can get on with whatever buisness you had planned."

Of course, it was possible Kwangseok was playing them all: Kai, his parents, and Jinah. But Kyungsoo just doubted it, and the twitch in Kai's father's face told him everything he needed to know. Kwangseok slid his eyes towards Kai's father under the pretense of polishing his glasses. Is it the ing nineteenth century? Kyungsoo felt Kai's breath on the back of his neck.

Kwangseok bowed slightly, clearing his throat. "I apologize for intruding in your buisness. I didn't realize Mr. Kyungsoo would be here." He turned to Kai's father. "I believe you'll find sufficient clause in our contract. I hope everything goes well."

"You hope everything goes well?" Kyungsoo repeated, still not able to fathom that this was happening. But the grifter was already slipping past him, his cologne making Kyungsoo fight to not wrinkle his nose. Mind flooded with adrenaline, Kyungsoo turned immediatley to Kai's parents. Ms. Yeong was leaning down and her jaw was working next to his ear. His expression stayed stone-cold, his slightly drooping, hooded eyes hiding any expression. 

"What was that?" Kai's rumbled under his breath, still slightly behind him.

"It was a grifter," Kyungsoo replied, his quiet voice betraying a little more of his consternation. "Trust me, you don't want to be mixed up with that. Do you... do you want to leave?" Kai might have said very little about it, but Kyungsoo knew that whatever guest had been lined up had been the least of Kai's worrys about the night.

"Like... trying to steal stuff? From my parents?"

"You heard him." He'd had a contract. He'd been working for them. The only logical conclusion was that Kai's parents had hired Kwangseok to lure Kai into some sort of meeting. 

"So are we gonna eat or just sit here and speak all hush-hush and then go home and plan the next ten moves of chess?" Jinah sat up in her chair, her eyes snapping around the room, equally judgemental of both couples. "Because that's not what I came for."

"What's going on, Mr. Dayung, if I'm not needed then I can just leave," said Kai, finally coming in front of Kyungsoo to stand at the other head of the table, his hands sitting easily in his pockets, looking perfectly put together.

"No!" It was the first time Dayung had spoken, but he spoke sharply and immediatley, his voice even deeper than Kai's. 

"Please," followed Yeong, gesturing to a chair for Kyungsoo to sit in. The table was already set as if for a wedding dinner, with multiple cups, mulitple knives, plates, spoons, forks, bowls, bread, salad, water. Kyungsoo and Kai sat down in almost the same movement. Jinah had put her phone away and everyone seemed to be expecting Dayung to speak.

"You've climbed significantly in your short career," Dayung began, folding his hands as Yeong slid fluidly into her own seat and motioned for a server to begin pouring wine. "It's incredibly impressive, and it was kind of you to attend. Unfortunatley, it appears Mr. Kyungsoo has known Mr. Kwangseok previously, but it isn't important. What is important is the principle. You've gotten very far based on anonymity, and we recognize that, we recognize that. The Kiwi Foundation, however, has built itself on a platform of transparency. So we've called this, well, you could call it a meeting of sorts, to try to reevaluate how much farther anonymity can get you versus how much farther than that a name can get you."

Kyungsoo could see where Kai got his eloquence. Kai's face looked tight, like it had when he'd had a headache coming back from the concert. Somehow Kyungsoo could tell that Kai wasn't liking the color of his father's voice. "I have a name," Kai replied curtly. "I also have a manager, and I'm capable of hiring consultants for that sort of thing. It appears that I could be very concerned about who you brought in to have a conversation with about me—a conversation, for the record, which is totally inappropriate."

Dayung clearly didn't have a response, but he opened his mouth all the same, his words cut off swiftly by Jinah's high voice. "Look, that was just because they thought they'd have to prove that this was important. Sure, he wasn't a real buyer, but he also thought it would be better if you gave the world a name. A real name, Jongin. That people would recognize. It'd get press and everything."

"I could get press all on my own if I just gave them a face," Kai responded, raising an eyebrow. Jinah, shocked looked from Kai to Kyungsoo and back to Kai again, suprised that he hadn't commented on her calling him Jongin instead of Kai. Kyungsoo had to stifle a laugh.

"You'd get more if you were Kim Jongin," his mother said. Her voice was smooth and Kai's eyes snapped to her immediatley, softening from their previous iciness. What a seductive offer, Kyungsoo thought. He hadn't known Kai for very long, but he knew his life, and he knew that it wasn't just solitary, it meant no family, no past, no hometown, no nothing. There, sitting in front of him, was the offer to get it all back in the snap of a finger, an oops! We made a mistake! He's not dead, he's right here! He became a painter instead! 

And his eyes were soft when he looked at his mother. Kyungsoo almost thought he would do it until he opened his mouth.

"Eomma, one of my paintings went missing recently. I'm still an amateur in some respects, and one of the is I, for some crazy reason, though a lock and the security at the front desk of my apartment would be enough to keep that from happening. Would you have any advice in that vein?"

"If something's stolen from you, you either get it back or you get a better one of whatever it is," Dayung said sharply.

"Come on, I'm sure it will turn up," Jinah said, her voice cracking casually.

"See that's what I'm assuming, especially beause it went missing after I visited you at your apartment that I'm paying for. And, since I'm speaking to a money crowd, it might interest you all that that painting could have paid for my comfortable living, and the comforable living of a thousand poor starving children, for life."

"Look, I'm not the one who stole it, if that's what you're suggesting." Jinah narrowed her eyes, ripping her bread roll open from the middle. 

"Someone ing did."

"Jongin." His father, and all of them really, had dropped all pretense of not knowing one another, and Kyungsoo could already see old patterns of arguing bubbling up in the defiant eyeroll the jongin elicited from Kai.

"First of all, I'm a goddamn adult and I may swear whenever the I want. Second of all, my name isn't Jongin anymore, or did you convienently erase that from your memory just becuase I made a little money?"

"We always knew you were going to be successful," Kai's mother said softly. "You just needed to be cut off from us for a little while, and we from you. Look how far you've come!"

"Cut off! It was a rolls royce," Kai said his voice like knives hanging menacingly just beneath the chandalier high above them. "And the seats were black leather, and I had one duffel bag, and I watched you bury an empty coffin and give a speech about how you had to move on from me."

"Oh Jongin, you know me," Dayung said, his voice fraying velvet. "I go overboard on everyting. It's always worked, not because of luck, but because anything half-assed isn't worth the effort.

Kai was shaking his head. "Excuse my intrusion," Kyungsoso interjected, and immediatley Kai looked up at him, his face relaxing a little in gratitude. "But reliving the past, especially in front of guests, is rude, at least where I'm from. I'm curious. Why now? A few months ago, you reach out to your dead son and invite him over like you're inviting him to enjoy all the benefits of being part of the family. It--"

"I was suprised he brought you," Jinah said, finishing her bread. She was the only one eating, and she was the skinniest one there. Ironic. Her voice was different than it had before, softer and less confrontatinoal. "I don't know anyone he's trusted with anything excet with S-- except with a few people. Look, I thought this was the best thing. My husband needs to get away from painting. What do you think? Wouldn't a little fame be good for him?" 

Kyungsoo wanted to shout at her that no, fame wouldn't be good for anyone except an exceptional few. "Jinah, do you really want to know what I think?" Kyungsoo raised and eyebrow. "I think that in order for contraband art to be sold, the buyer needs to trust that the artist and the organization behind them won't rat them out. No one's going to buy something if someone could identify it and have them arrested on a dime. I think the main purpose of contraband art is networking, and the ability to move money between individuals without pesky things like taxes."

"I think you have my painting," Kai finished for him, looking his father right in the eye. "I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt right now, and I'm going to ask you again. Do you have my painting?" Kai's chest was moving up and down a little faster now and he his lips. 

"Actually, we found it." His mother murmered. Dayung stayed stone-faced, but she seemed a little nervous, wetting her lips similiar to her son. "It was sold to us for something like two thousand dollars, and so we've kept it safe."

Kai's chair made an echoing, sickening crack as it fell against the floor when Kai stood suddenly. "Where is it, then? Did you put a nice little bow on it for whatever cold sick immoral wants to look at Kyungsoo's face all day?" There went the pretense that he and Kyungsoo were just acquaintences. "How many others do you have? Did you buy those too? I bet you have Zitao, I bet you have Jongdae, I bet you have ing Junmyeon. Do you have Junmyeon too? Do you want to keep him? Hang him on your wall?" But he didn't stay to hear the answer. He was already stalking out of the dining room, moving into the living room and then out of sight of the other four. A slow, silent few seconds passed. "I know it's in here!" There was a crash and that's what jerked Kyungsoo into action, bolting up and half running, half walking after Kai. 

As he moved through the house he watched Kai get increasingly distressed. At first things were just rearranged, then droors were left open, then there was a chair on its side, then, through the door to the study, Kyngsoo saw paper everywhere and the remnants of a light bulb. 

Jinah flew past him like a gazelle, her long legs passing him in one stride and then dissappearing around the corner to the stairs. Kyungsoo swore and began to jog after her, his heart pounding. The house was eerily silent for a moment and then there was a shriek of "Jongin!"

"Jongin! JONGIN!"

Kyungsoo rounded the corner to the master bedroom, a room at least as big as Kai's entire apartment, and caught his breath, leaning against the door frame. That painting took him by suprise all over again, as if he'd never seen it in his life, his own eyes staring back at him, his skin glowing, and Jinah and Kai touseling beneath it. Slowly Kyungsoo's eyes drank in the rest of the room. Paintings were leaning everywhere, Kai's paintings, in various states of disarray. Some had ragged slashes through them, some had giant gaping holes kicked in them, and for some, the frame itself had been cracked in two.

Jongin was destroying his own paintings.

Beneath the painting of him, Jinah was trying to keep Kai from making a huge slash in Kyungsoo's chin with a very large knife he must have lifted from the kitchen. One of her hands was locked around the wrist of the hand holding the knife and the other was on Kai's other hand which was pulling at her hair and looked very painful.

"Jongin!" Her shrieks were painful even to his ears, but they made Kai crazy, a silent, energy-saturated monster that scared Kyungsoo. But he didn't want Kai to destroy that painting; not that one, because it hadn't done anything wrong, and it wouldn't punish Kai's parents so much as Kai himself. 

Jinah was strong; she managed to keep the knife well away from the painting and sweep her foot under Kai's legs, bringing him to the flor and then tugging him away from the painting like it was something holier than her own life, which Kyungsoo worried for considering the size of the knife. 

"STOP!" His voice echoed aorund the room and mocked him as he ran to where they struggled, deflecting off them without effect. "STOP!" he thundered again, but Jinah was doing something to Kai's wrist and then she was the one with the knife and trying to wriggle away from Kai, shreiking at the top of her lungs the whole time. Kyungsoo tried to get a hold of Kai, tried to yell at him, whisper to him, talk him down, but it was all underscored by Jinah's awful shriekng as he clawed long red marks down her legs as she got farther away from him. 

They were a team, him and Jinah, although Jinah was more than half the problem, trying to get Kai away from the painting, away from the knife... and Kyungsoo's mind spiraled... away from this house, out of this country, to somewhere warm where all the colors were sure to be beautiful and vibrant. Finally, with heaving breaths, Kai gave up on Jinah and she fled to stand in front of all the other broken paintings, her chest heaving and her eyes wild.

"Jongin, listen to me! Listen to me! You don't want to do this! Screw the folks over, whatever! If it won't make you happy, what the ever!-- Jongin!"

"My name," Kai roared, "Is Kai!" And he lunged at her again. She moved off to the side, towards the door, with another involuntary "Jongin!" and Kyungsoo couldn't hope to hold him back. Kai moved totally detatched from his customary grace, as if his vision were clouded red and some absurd concoction of drugs pumped through his blood. He'd found something as he'd risen on the side table, and when Kyungsoo realized what it was he shouted himself. Kai struck frantically at the matchbox, getting a flame after the tenth try and holding it up triumphantly, a crazed smile taking over his face.

He threw the packet to Kyungsoo, who had to dive out of his path towards Kai to catch it. When Kyungsoo reached him, Kai dragged him forward by putting a big hand on the back of his neck, his breathing heavy and labored and his pupils looking like pinpoints. "Come on, baby," he whispered, letting Kyungsoo go and dropping the first match, "Burn them all."

Kyungsoo just had the first match stamped out when Kai struck a second one, and this one caught onto a canvas rather quickly, sending up black wisps of smoke as it caught. Kyungsoo went to put it out, hearing himself shouting, but Kai held him back, his arms scarily strong. "Burn them all, no one deserves these, especially not them," he repeated. He swayed in front of Kyungsoo and Kyungsoo stopped screaming, his hand shooting up automatically to keep Kai standing, but Jinah shouting could be heard screaching again at the growing fire at their feet.

Then Kai tripped over his own feet and there was a whirling moment when Kai seemed to flail in the air, his stomach out first, his head whipped back, his suit dirty, tha time stopped.

Kai fell with an inhuman crunch, his body collapsing in on itself, and after a few seconds he let ot a long groan. Jinah made to go to him but the look Kyungsoo sent her had her cowering. "Out." It was a command, and she seemed perfectly willing to follow it, her footsteps echoing down the hallway. Kyungsoo wondered, in the back of his mind, where the Kai's parents were. 

At first touch, Kai's back shuddered and the man opened like a petal to a honeybee, uncurling until he lay flat on his back, a weaker groan escaping his mouth as Kyungsoo shivered in horror at what he saw. Protruding from Kai's abdomen sat a broken piece of wooden frame, connecting with his body in a bloody, chipped mess. Kai's head slowly lolled back and his eyes looked glassy and if Kyungsoo hadn't been panicking, he really was now. 

Call 911. He fumbled in his pockets for his phone and punched in the number, setting it on speaker and then taking some piece of clothing from the bed and tentatively pressing it against where wood met flesh, wincing at the blood that bubbled up and the even weaker groan that practically died in Kai's throat. His eyes were closed now.

"911, what's your emergency?"

"Yeah, th—this guy—Kai has um—there's ing wood coming out of his stomach? Like a huge piece of frame for, for like, for a painting?" Kyungsoo's voice shook and each scentene ended in a question. "It's in his ing stomach I think he's unconcious? And I think there's a fire?"

"What's your location?" The voice was cool and impersonal and intimidating and made Kyungsoo's mind go blank with fear for a moment. "ing hell, where else would I be?"

Author's Note: yes. i am... im sorry. don't worry, the next update's coming right after this! Comments and upvotes and subscriptions are much loved... does everything make sense now? Well... almost everything... let's see what Jinah has to say...