Today is just not my day, Luhan decided, feeling rather sorry for himself that he had to come to such a dreary conclusion a mere three hours into the start of said day. It wasn’t as if any other conclusion was really possible, though, considering he was stuck in a cramped car with his home under surveillance by the enemy, his friends hours away, and possibly the most tepid conversationalist in the world as a companion. Yep. Not my day.

“Do you really think Xing’s going to be alright following Kim Joonmyun on his own?” he asked Tao, wrapping his fingers around a steaming cup of vending machine coffee. “I’m worried about him.”

“Mm.” Tao didn’t bother looking up from the laptop screen, eyes fixed on two blinking red dots.

Luhan huffed, reclining his seat back. “I don’t know why I bothered asking you. It’s a lost cause, isn’t it?”

Tao grunted.

Giving up, Luhan sighed. “Fine. Do you want some coffee? The targets haven’t moved for hours, and I don’t think they will any time soon. They’re probably sleeping.” Like any other sane person at this hour, he thought in disgust. The sun was still barely visible at the horizon, faint reddish-orange streaks of light bleeding into the edge of the midnight sky, and as pretty as the view was, Luhan decided he would much rather be sleeping.

Finally tearing his eyes away from the screen for a moment, Tao fixed him with that dead black gaze, not sparing a glance at the proffered cup. “No. Coffee is for the weak.”

Wow. Definitely not my day.

Luhan eyed the cup of coffee, shrugged, and took another sip. “Oh well, more for me. And if that were true, then Kris would be the weakest person on Earth. I don’t think he can survive without eight or nine cups of the stuff every day.”

Tao’s head snapped up, his eyes narrowed.

Crap. I forgot the guy idolizes Kris. Luhan grinned and put his hands in the air.

“It was just a joke, Tao. No harm intended.”

“It had better be.” The threat in his voice left nothing to be imagined, and Luhan gulped, hoping his long-standing friendship with Kris would be enough to save him from getting disemboweled by an angry assassin.

Much to Luhan’s relief, his phone rang, interrupting Tao’s (probably) violent intentions.

“Ah, what an excellent time you chose to call,” he said, jotting down a mental reminder to thank Kris later for calling at such an opportune time. “What’s up?”

“Oh, I’ve reached you at a good time, then?” the voice asked, sounding deeply amused. “I was so concerned you might be busy, Mr. Lu, considering how much work you still haven’t finished for me.”

Checking the caller ID, Luhan cursed under his breath. At Tao’s questioning glance, he mouthed, it’s Senrima. He cleared his throat.

“Apologies. I was expecting a phone call from someone else.”

“And would that phone call happen to be one telling you all the information you have been charged with finding?”

Luhan winced. “We just need a little more time -”

“You have two weeks and two weeks only remaining, as agreed upon from the beginning.” There was clearly no space for negotiation in the voice’s tone. “Preferably earlier. A little bird told me that Magnolia has gotten its paws on some of the camera locations, no doubt from Jade Dragon, and your friend Xiumin is going to start losing a finger for each location you lose to them from now on.”

“What?” Luhan barely managed to mask the alarm in his voice. There were hundreds of pages to the document in Chaeyoung’s briefcase, and as far as he knew, dozens of them had already been recovered by Jade Dragon with more on their way. “That wasn’t part of the agreement.”

“Neither was losing classified information to our enemies.”

Taking a deep breath, Luhan forced himself to think clearly. Losing it and screaming insults would not help Xiumin’s situation. He needed to focus. Focus and learn as much as he could from each phone call. Unnoticed, his fingernails bit into his palms, drawing blood. “Don’t hurt him. Just… we’ll get you the information. In two weeks.”

“Preferably earlier,” the voice reminded.

“Yes. Now please, can I talk to Xiumin?” Luhan prayed Xiumin was still unharmed, or as unharmed as he could possibly be as a Senrima prisoner, and in a good mental state. He knew Xiumin couldn’t explicitly tell him anything about his whereabouts, but maybe if he asked the right questions he could give them a hint in case the situation with Jade Dragon went awry?

“Fine, fine. Here he is.”

There was a brief pause, and then, “Lu? Lu, is that you?”

“Yeah, it’s me.” Luhan made a strange choking sound halfway between a laugh and a sob. Calm down, Luhan. If you sound so panicky, you’ll only worry Xiumin. “I don’t know why you always ask that, Xiu, because it’s always me. Who are you expecting? Pizza delivery?”

“Luhan -”

“We’re going to get you out of there, okay? With ten fingers and ten toes, too. Just hang in there for another two weeks.” A bitter taste filled Luhan’s mouth. He hated making promises he wasn’t sure if he could keep. His head swam, and the muffled background noise from Xiumin’s end wasn’t helping. Honestly, why was there always so much background noise whenever he talked to Xiumin? Perhaps he was being held near a construction site? But no, the sounds in the background were too high-pitched to be any construction drill Luhan was familiar with.

“Look, Xiu, I need you to -”

“Time’s up, Mr. Lu.” The background noise cut off abruptly with the return of the voice, and Luhan frowned. There must be a door separating Xiumin’s cell from wherever the phone is located.

“Wasn’t that too short?” he protested. “The phone calls have been getting shorter and shorter each time. He hardly spoke two words to me.”

“No can do. That’s what happens when you don’t get us results.”

Luhan’s grip on his coffee closed into a tight fist, crushing the paper cup and spilling piping hot coffee all over his pants, and he barely restrained the urge to scream, more out of frustration than pain, although the two were becoming remarkably indistinguishable lately. Yep. Definitely not my day.

---

Kris hung up the phone and promptly face-planted into his desk, letting out a tormented groan.

Cut off a finger for every letter lost to Jade Dragon? What kind of messed up motivation was that supposed to be to retrieve the letters? It wasn’t like this was some James Bond movie with two-dimensional villains cackling as they hatched plans to dominate the world. Senrima could at least be a little more creative, he grumbled internally. I’d bet my best laptop the Senrima boss is a James Bond fan.

Luhan, unlike himself, had not appreciated this comment when Kris voiced it during their phone call earlier. Kris couldn’t really blame him; his friend had sounded like he was about to have a breakdown when he called, barely staying calm enough to coherently pass on the message from Senrima.

How long can we keep this up? Kris raised his head just to drop it back onto his desk again with a thump, ignoring his aching nose and forehead. Luhan sounds like he’s going to break soon -- and he’s never cracked under pressure before, never!

Honestly, Kris didn’t know how much more he could take either. He had done his best to hide it from Luhan, although he was sure his friend had noticed, but he was overextended as it was trying to handle his work at MSS, keep his correspondences with Luhan secret, track the Jade Dragon letters, and monitor Luhan’s apartment.

“Aw man, long day, Kris? Those numbers not crunching properly or something?”

Oh God.

“Kris, buddy, you alright there?”

No. No, no, no, I don’t want to talk to you. Go away. Kris thumped his head into his desk again. Go away. Thump. Leave me alone. Thump. Go away, Henry, no one wants you or your stupid llama videos here. Thump.

A gleeful guffaw. “Dude, you’re a straight savage when you’re tired. Need a Snickers bar or something?”

. Did I say that last part out loud?

“Yep!” Henry popped the ‘p,’ rolling up beside him on his favorite spinning chair. “C’mon, tell your bestie what’s wrong. Girl trouble again?”

Kris groaned. Ever since he told Henry about his “girlfriend” to cover up his phone call with Luhan, his supervisor had not left him alone, always giving unsolicited advice and begging for tidbits about his (nonexistent) love life.

“Sure, Henry, girl trouble again. It’s always girl trouble with me.” Kris flung his hands up in the air, but the sarcasm of the action was apparently lost on his supervisor.

“Aw.” Henry slung his arm around Kris’ shoulders, ignoring the fact that his employee was still slamming his head against the desk as if hoping to kill any and all remaining brain cells. “What’d you do this time?”

“Um.” Think fast. Kris raced to conjure up a reasonable relationship blunder. “Last time I was home, I... accidentally threw away something that was really important to her.”

“Daaaaamn, you done messed up.” Tucking his legs up onto the chair so he could spin even faster, Henry an imaginary beard. “Is it something replaceable? Maybe you can just mail her another one.”

Willing to say anything to get Henry out of his personal space, Kris sighed. “Yeah, sure, it’s replaceable, it’s just a… a book. I’ll buy her a new one.”

Slowing to a painfully sluggish spin, Henry brightened. “Hey, I was online shopping the other day, and I’ve got a free shipping coupon code, but I need