Chapter 11

Telling the Sicari that he had killed Kim Jongin would probably be the worst mistake of his career, and it was all Jongdae could think about when he exited the Sicari’s building, head spinning as he tried to plan out when the best time it would be to break such a news to them in the most strategic way possible. He would have to be completely sure that Kim Jongin was willing to actually work with him (which would really mean house arrest for an unknown amount of time), and it would also mean that he had to get it over quick enough for the hit to seem believably done.

There were way too many variables to consider, too. The Sicari hadn’t mentioned why they wanted Jongin dead even when he had tried to ask again, and neither did they give much more information on him except more pictures that didn’t help him at all. Jongdae tossed them into the nearest trash can he found afterward, frustrated and unsure of what to do.

By the time he got back to the apartment and bought take out for both him and Jongin, it was nearing eleven o’clock. Part of him was slightly tempted to text Yena—there would be many reasons to, really, especially concerning Jongin and she had told him to keep her updated on her cousin—but then the action seemed a bit intrusive and Jongdae went with dropping his phone back into his pocket, indecisive.

Jongin was on his couch. He looked asleep at first glance, so Jongdae crept into the kitchen to set down the food, but then from the living room, Jongin hollered, “Did you get noodles?”

Before Jongdae could reply, he had vaulted over the tea table and arrived at the counter where had had put the two boxes, still warm to the touch. Slightly miffed that he was going around the house in such a way after being there for barely half a day, he frowned at the other. “Yes?” he finally managed, “You can’t really leave the house right now, so I just bought take out. I don’t know what you like to eat, though, so I got you spicy seafood udon.”

Jongin’s eyes widened almost dramatically. “Oh, no. I can’t eat spicy.”

Previous worries disappearing for the moment, Jongdae took them out of the plastic bag. “I can’t either,” he said, “I think it’s mild, so it shouldn’t be that bad.”

“I can’t eat any spicy,” Jongin protested, folding his arms. Jongdae had half the mind to wonder if they really were debating about spicy foods—supposedly two of the Sicari’s best assassins, and it was a ridiculous thought that apparently neither of them could handle spicy. “Anyway, I’m not going to be able to eat it. It doesn’t matter if it’s mild. My taste buds are too sensitive.”

It was, by far, the weirdest thing he had heard Jongin say all day which was really saying something, and Jongdae did a double take at him for a couple of moments before managing to regain his composure. “I can’t eat any spicy at all,” he protested. “I bought milk too, so maybe you’ll be fine if you drink it—”

“No, I won’t, and I’m literally going to die,” Jongin cut in, and that was apparently that.

***

Diluting the noodles sounded like an absolutely disgusting idea, but it was the only option left. Jongin, having decided that all the food Jongdae touched would kill the person who consumed it (“You can’t kill what’s already dead, and food is technically dead,” he had told Jongin, but the protest went unheard), had begun the process of separating the spicy noodles from the soup first before running hot water over it. Jongdae still hadn’t wrapped his head around the whole situation and each passing moment with Jongin seemed to get more and more bizarre, and watching him filter the noodles carefully before mixing the mildly spicy ones, now drained of all soup, with the beef broth was downright strange. He hadn’t taken Kim Jongin in to expect such behavior.

Five minutes later, however, Jongin was finished. It didn’t look that much different than before except there were more noodles, but still, he eyed the bowl of noodles suspiciously when Jongin set it down in front of him.

“I don’t get why you did this,” Jongdae started, picking up a single noodle with a chopstick when he sat down. “It was just excessive.”

Jongin had already stuffed his whole mouth with noodles. “Itth good,” he told Jongdae through a mouthful, then the moment he swallowed it (way too quickly, too—had he chewed at all?) he managed, “Spicy, oh my God, where did you put the milk—”

Confused, Jongdae pointed at the fridge. Jongin swept through the cupboard, grabbed a cup that Jongdae was pretty sure hadn’t been touched in a good couple of years, picked out the carton and then demanded, “Do you drink milk?”

Dumbfounded and noodles forgotten, Jongdae shook his head. He was barely finished when Jongin unscrewed the carton and was gulping from there, cup forgotten.

Silence reigned until he had finished drinking. As if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, Jongin sat back down across from him, went back to enthusiastically slurping his bowl of noodles as Jongdae watched him, wide eyed and too confused to say anything else. Maybe he was too tired, or maybe the whole situation with Kang Yena was screwing with his head, because Kim Jongin confused him so much that he was getting a headache, and he hadn’t really gotten one for years. He was already acting like it was his home, and while that might’ve been his personality, it had also been exactly ninety six years since somebody had been so intrusive in his property. Paired with the fact that he was supposed to kill Jongin but couldn’t because his cousin was a doppelganger of Yujin, everything was awfully confusing.

“What?” Jongin finally demanded, looking up from his noodles. “Why aren’t you eating?”

Jongdae frowned at him, the words I can’t quite figure you out lingering at the tip of his tongue, though instead, he managed, “That was absolutely disgusting.”

“Yeah, well you’re too old and formal to know the joy of drinking milk out of the carton,” Jongdae shot back, completely unfazed. He slurped up the next noodle extra loudly, and Jongdae took a hesitant bite of his own.

It tasted fine, really—he had no idea how Jongin even found them spicy in the first place, because there was barely the hint of any spicy. For a little while, Jongdae ate his noodles in silence, slightly bothered by how loud Jongin was being but unwilling to actually mention it. It was only when Jongin had finished practically all the soup when he blurted, “How the hell did the Sicari even recruit you?”

Jongin looked up. “Are we talking about that now?” he asked, confused. “I thought we were doing that tomorrow.”

“I just want to know how somebody like you ended up as an assassin,” Jongdae replied. “No offence, you’re not exactly the first thing people would imagine when assassin is brought up.”

“You are, though.” Jongin set down his bowl. “Dark, mysterious, skilled. I’m kind of just a wannabe. Couldn’t do it right but they decided to take pity on me, you know.”

“If I hadn’t been working there for over eighty years, my successful hits wouldn’t be as high as yours. If I didn’t have… this power, there’s no way I would be able to be as good as it as you are. I checked your profile. You’re one of the Sicari’s best assassins ever—you have nearly a perfect record, you can use a pistol and a knife efficiently, and you’re quick with the hits. Why and how did you get on their bad side?”

“Maybe the Sicari still thought I was stupid,” Jongin replied with a shrug. “Let their guard down. Like I said, I took something I shouldn’t have, then found out what they have been trying to hide. That’s how I managed to get it. Because even after everything, they didn’t quite take me as seriously as they should have.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Threaten? You?” Jongin shook his head. “No, not really.”

Maybe it wasn’t a threat, but in a way, it was at least a warning, a hint. Jongin, despite the way he chose to act most of the time, wasn’t such a good assassin for a reason, and behind the facade was a brilliant mind, smart enough to outsmart an organization so big and powerful and get away with it. There was virtually nothing Jongin could do to him, but he still filed his words into the corner of his mind. Careful was never too much.

“Well,” Jongin finally said. “I’ll do the dishes. Like I said, I’ll see you and then tell you in the morning, unless you’ve reconsidered and decidedly to kill me. In that case, I guess it’s goodbye once and for all. Please make it quick and painless. Tell Yena I never gave her her charger back.”  

Terse, Jongdae frowned. “I’m not going to kill you.”

“If that’s your decision, great! Now let me wash the dishes.”

***

Yena was pretty sure she had deleted the text over fifteen times when she had finally decided that it sounded casual enough, yet also polite. For a couple of moments, she reread the two lines, debating, and then pressed send.

Me, 11:29 PM

To: Kim Jongdae

Hey! How’s my cousin? I hope he’s not causing too much trouble. Is there anything I can help with?

At second glance, it seemed too formal and the text was sent, which meant there wasn’t anything she could do. Frowning at her phone, she tossed it to the side, just in time for the text tone to sound. She picked it up immediately.

Kim Jongdae, 11:30 PM

He’s doing fine. Would you like the address to the apartment if you would like to visit him in the future?

Me, 11:32 PM

To: Kim Jongdae

YES, PLEASE. Keep him on a leash for most of the time, honestly, or he’ll never stop getting into troble.

Me, 11:32 PM

To: Kim Jongdae

*trouble

Her phone went off before she could see Jongdae’s reply. Yena dragged the call screen down, half hoping that it would somehow be Jongdae, however stupid was, but instead, Kyungsoo, in his usual monotone voice asked, “How’s everything? Did you see the stalker again?”

Said stalker’s housing my high school dropout cousin because loan sharks are apparently after him, she thought numbly, but shook her head before remembering Kyungsoo couldn’t see over the phone. “No, and he’s not a stalker. Seriously.”

“That’s what you all said about Yoona’s stalker. Oh, he probably really likes the coffee here and also who makes it. It was just a little bit weird that he kept on requesting for Yoona.”

“Jongdae doesn’t care who it’s made by! And he hasn’t even been to the shop that many times.”

“Because five isn’t suspicious at all.”

Yena hesitated. Part of her wanted, really badly, to tell Kyungsoo about the whole situation with Jongin and Jongdae, because as stupid as Jongin’s decisions were sometimes, at least he was trustworthy. If he knew Jongdae that well, then it meant that Jongdae wasn’t a terrible person.

Still, there was so much about the situation that didn’t seem to match up. No matter how many times she thought about it there wasn’t anything else but coincidence that could explain it, but there was only so far coincidences could go. Telling Kyungsoo would just worry him, and he was already putting an extra hour into driving her home after every orchestra practice. There was no need to add more to his plate, especially when he was dealing with his parents again.

“I don’t think he’s a bad person,” she concluded pitifully, and she could almost see him rolling his eyes at the other side of the line. Hurriedly, she added on, “Is there a reason you called me?”

“Oh, right. Conductor Oh cancelled practice for all of next week. He’s leaving Seoul for a while and he called a break, though I think it’s because Sehun was complaining about being overworked. Want to do something on the weekend?”

She perked up at that. No practice freed up hours and hours of her time, and it gave her time to work properly at the cafe without having to rush place to place. “We should get food.”

Kyungsoo snorted. “What kind?”

“I want Italian. There’s one close to my apartment, and then you can come over if you want.”

“And finish your theory homework?”

“Marathoning movies,” she corrected. “And then theory.”

“Uh huh. See you then. My brother’s calling me. Bye.”

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