“Did you bring them with you?”

“No.”

The words are spoken coldly, curtly. Footsteps chime against smooth mottled white floors.

“Where are they? Are they okay? I want to see them.”

“You can’t.”

The footsteps are steady, calm.

“Why? I’ve been looking for them for ages now.”

“What a nice father you are.”

The footsteps stop. The words take on a cool edge to them.

Stuttering follows.

“I - I mean, of course I’ve been looking for you too! I never expected you to appear in front of me like this… Why didn’t you bring your mother and your sister?”

“I can’t.”

Their eyes meet; one impassive, the other widened, trembling.

“Why not?”

“They’re dead.”

A sharp intake of breath. The man’s body gives out; he crumbles, collapses to the ground, his arms wrapped around his shaking body.

“Then… You came back? T - to look for me?”

“It’s a nice apartment. I like the number #02-08.”

The shaking gradually ebbs, a haunted gaze replaced by a hopeful one.

“So, my son will come and live with me? At last, I see you again…”

“Sorry, dad.”

Red sprays across the floor.

The scream and cries never leave the man’s throat.

Tears glint in the pale silver moonlight, drip onto the harsh metal of the blade, swirling around with fresh carmine red.

And the one left standing turns his back, escaping into the dark of the night.

Newly broken.

And I’ll throw away my emotions, my pain, my past, and I’ll be more like you.

If you aren’t here to challenge me for the throne, then I’ll take it in your stead.

He ignores the way his heart rips, he ignores the way his memories crash into his thoughts like a truck slamming into a steel wall.

His boots tread the path, his sleeve brushing the hard stone. It’s dark, the skies unforgiving, but even with his eyes closed he can still see the blood staining alley floors.

Thunder rumbles overhead, and he wraps the jacket tighter around him. Old, ripped in some places, but he keeps it close as the rain splatters down upon him, fat droplets coming one after another. He grimaces, speeding up his pace, imagining sad rainwater changing to red as it mixes with blood and flows into a nearby drain.

Stop thinking.

He breaks into a run, the sound of his boots impacting with falling water ugly to his ears. He lowers his head, clutches the old jacket close to his body, and runs.

Runs to a place he knows he can’t not know, hurtles himself over the railing and barely prevents his body from slamming into the door.

Sorry.

But sometimes, assassins lie.

“Jungsoo!”

He’s awakened to the sound of his name being screamed; in his groggy haze, he fumbles blindly around him, wondering what the matter was - and then his mind registers an all-too-familiar noise that wakes him up in milliseconds.

Youngwoon is fighting?

He hears the clash of metal that he’s heard far too often after spending time with Heechul, the horrible screech and rake of blade upon blade in a fast-paced twist and turn of violent red.

Who’s here?

For a fleeting moment that subsequently makes him hate himself a little, he hopes that Heechul is the one breaking into Youngwoon’s house to fight him.

But he knows it’s not.

He steps of the room, the same time a dagger pierces deep into the door that he just opened with a jarring 'thunk' sound.

What the -

“Didn’t you say you would leave us alone?” he hisses upon seeing Yesung standing before him, expression masked over with cold vacantness. “If Youngwoon didn’t interfere in your fight.”

“Assassins lie.”

That stupid poker face, that stupid inscrutable tone, that unchanging facial expression.

For the first time in a while, he feels his heart pounding in his ears, his blood boiling in his veins, his jaw clenching tightly; his cheeks go red, flushed, and he can feel his nails digging into the skin of his palms.

“If you hadn’t told your damned lies,” he spits, and his voice is trembling from the fury that lies behind it, “Then Heechul wouldn’t be dead.”

Yesung arches an eyebrow at him, an amused smirk painting his lips. “You care about him?”

“And what if I said that yeah, I do?”

“You make no sense,” anger flickers in Yesung’s gaze as he spins his dagger round and round in silver circles. “Why would you care for someone ready to kill you?”

Because I saw the part of him that was human, more times than you ever did.

Because I saw all his weaknesses, the same way he saw all of mine.

There’s a thud of footsteps against the floor as Youngwoon darts forward, dagger in hand. Yesung swerves. Counters with a strike of his own. Youngwoon dodges.