Chapter 13

Kyungsoo, for some insane reason, had decided that buying a whole ice cream cake was the only way to deal with problems, because he turned up at her doorstep with much more food that was possible to finish in a day, completely with appetizers, a main course, and way too much dessert.

Yena stared at everything he’d brought, a little horrified. “Kyungsoo,” she started. “You do realize none of us are going to be able to finish all of this?”

He dropped it all onto the table, and she continued gawking. “You’re not going to be the only one stress eating,” he grumbled. “And this isn’t just for breakfast. This is for the whole day. Prepare to explore cuisine from all over the world.”

There was nothing else she could do about it, so, still confused how he had thought that that was a good idea, she cleared everything else off the table as Kyungsoo started promptly unpacking everything he had bought from the boxes. “When’s Baekhyun coming back?” he asked.

Yena frowned. He hadn’t brought up anything that had happened the night before, which wasn’t necessarily bad, because the last thing she wanted to do was talk to him—or anyone—about it. Or at least not that moment. And as quiet as Kyungsoo was, he had a good eye for when things were or weren’t appropriate to say or do.

“His classes probably end somewhere in the afternoon,” she replied. “Takes him around forty five minutes approximately to get back from the university? I don’t think the landlady will be back any earlier than he is, either, so… what are we marathoning?”

Kyungsoo gave a nod of approval. “I like your thinking. Do you still have the Lord of the Rings disk set or did you leave it at home?”

Yena pointed at her room. “I stole it from dad. He never watches it anyway.”

Patting her back, he gestured at the table. “Put on the movie and then we can eat.”

***

Jongdae woke up relatively early (he figured it was the place; he hadn’t slept at the apartment in ages and he wasn’t used to the bed, or, really, anything in it), but when he headed into the kitchen at six in the morning, Jongin was sitting there on his own, drinking his carton of chocolate milk (which Jongdae had relented and bought).

Once he had gotten over how weird a sight he was seeing (given that no one had ever visited his apartment, seeing someone sitting at his table drinking from a whole carton of milk so early in the morning made him feel like the synapses in his brain were melting), Jongdae realized that Jongdae looked terrible. There were very obvious circles under his eyes, though it wasn’t surprising he hadn’t slept well. And as eccentric as Jongin was, he was still pretty sure that drinking chocolate milk before six in the morning wasn’t a common practice even in his book.

Jongin looked up when he stepped into the kitchen. “Lovely morning to you,” he croaked.

Jongdae made his way around the table carefully. “Did you not sleep?”

“I did. A whooping one hour and sixteen minutes. I need some sugar.”

He grabbed the tea leaves from one of the cupboards and squinted. “I don’t think that’s the suggested way to obtain sugar. Wouldn’t caffeine do better?”

Jongin gave a sound that sounded like a laugh and a sob. “Caffeine? I don’t do coffee. Or that—” he pointed at Jongdae’s tea, “—or anything bitter. I don’t understand how coffee is such a universally acceptable drink. It’s gross.”

“Your cousin literally works at a coffee shop.”

“That doesn’t make coffee any less revolting.” Jongin took another swig from his chocolate milk, and Jongdae fought the urge to gag. It was definitely a more horrifying sight than coffee, and he hated coffee too. “Now that we have established the fact that I can’t sleep—mostly because I’m sleeping in the house of an assassin and my cousin’s involved in all of this —why are you up so early?”

Jongdae stared at him. “You do realize that that you’re also an assassin, and, according to my file on you, were assigned sixteen hits in the past three months before you got on the wrong side of the Sicari, and, to top that, less than one percent total of all of your hits have been failures?”

Jongin shrugged. “Did you also know that I’m the only hit you haven’t completed successfully, which tops my less than one percent? Your point is?”

“That you’ve obviously been thinking about more than just me being a terrifying assassin,” Jongdae replied drily. “It’s whatever you’ve stole from the Sicari, isn’t it? Those files? They have something on them. And they’re related to me.”

Jongin wasn’t quick enough to hide his expression before Jongdae saw it, and it was enough of a confirmation. Still, he waited for the response, hoping that Jongin would give it before he had to press further.

Finally, Jongin, having had enough of his chocolate milk, too, apparently, set the carton down on the dinner table with a loud thud. “Fine,” he said. “Yes, it does have to do with you.”

“Why don’t you want to tell me?”

“I don’t know if you’re involved.” Jongin shook his head. He had now capped his milk. “Look, man, you were sent after me to kill me after I stole these files involving you—I’m going to assume I can trust you because whatever it is, my life is practically in your hands right now—but… I couldn’t be sure whether or not this was something you knew about or not.”

Jongdae frowned. “What was?”

Jongin was visibly hesitating. Finally, he stood up. “Give me two minutes,” he said. “I have pieces of the Sicari’s physical files that I managed to steal before they caught me, and I remember a couple of things when I ran the hack on their databases. I couldn’t get in deep enough before they caught me, but…” His expression darkened. “If you don’t know about it, I guess you probably should.”

He disappeared from the kitchen like that, and Jongdae figured he had no choice but to wait for him to come back. A bit hesitant, he pulled out the seat from across the table, still holding his tea, and waited for Jongin to come back.

Approximately two minutes later, he did come back to the room. Jongdae flicked on another set of kitchen lights, and, looking slightly disoriented at the brightness, Jongin tossed the pile of paper he’d grabbed.

Immediately, Jongdae recognized them as the ones he’d been retrieving before he had stumbled across him and Yena at the library. They were tucked messily instead a manila folder, sheets of paper nearly spilling out as Jongin dropped the heavy binder in front of him.

“All the paper files I managed to get from the Sicari,” he said. “It’s called Project #4237, or otherwise it was called Project Hades.”

Slightly hesitant, he reached over to open the file. Jongin, now standing, watched in silence as he flipped to the first page.

Jongdae did a double take. It was a picture of a man, taken professionally, and, moreover, someone he’d seen—in fact, that exact file was something he had seen.

“This was my hit,” he managed. “I killed him. Five months ago. The Sicari assigned him to me. That’s the information file they gave me before they sent me—why is this here?”

Jongdae’s lips were pressed together grimly. “Go to the next page,” he replied.

He sounded serious, and, unsurprisingly, the whole situation practically was. Feeling slightly cold, Jongdae did.

It was another file, also lined with pictures, though a couple were blurry, many were closeups, and they were all black and white.

“What…?” he started.

“The color printer stopped working,” Jongin offered helpfully. “Those are pictures of the same man you killed. After you killed him. After the Sicari retrieved his body. And then brought him back to their headquarters, and did whatever’s recorded on that sheet of paper to him. Read it.”

Jongdae could tell that whatever the outcome was, it wasn’t going to be pleasant. Part of him almost didn’t want to turn to the next page—it was always easier to complete each hit and distance himself from the victim, and after some time, they’d all blended into nameless, unrecognizable faces in the back of his mind. Except not so unrecognizable after all, because he apparently still remembered just from seeing a picture. As if the memory, despite being suppressed, was sitting there, waiting to be brought back.