When you asked me if this day would come -

I always knew it would come.

I suppose I never told you, because I realise now - that you would’ve rid of him long ago if you knew this would happen.

Perhaps you already had a suspicion rising within you. Is that why you asked me to kill him?

I knew then, when I held the knife above him and ended up deflecting another away from him.

I knew then, and I know now.

I couldn’t do it then, and I couldn’t do it just now.

I’m sorry for not warning you ahead of time, or just now.

I knew from the start, that this is my company and yet if he were to betray the company, I’d betray it with him.

You never knew. I never really told you about his motives, only half-stories and covered truths.

Assassins lie.

And he can feel the little lump in his heart that weighs it down, the way his head spins as a result of the partial guilt that overwhelms him - the way he lied for so long, the way he had subconsciously made his choice long ago and yet never breathed a word, the way he just stood there and let everything fall apart and now he doesn’t know where he’ll go and he knows that if he had acted earlier a life could’ve been saved and this office would still have its meaning and he wouldn’t be as confused about his future as he is now.

At the same time, he knows that even if time took him back to that moment, or the moments before when he was standing above a sleeping body with a knife, or long back when he stood in the same office avoiding direct questions with evasive part-truths, he would have done the same thing.

Now, he doesn’t know what’s going to happen. He doesn’t know if everything is going to fall apart, or what his future is like.

But he knows that had he raised his voice in warning, had he acted sooner, the man would still be alive.

His gaze rests on his partner, standing there so cold, so emotionless, even if the dagger he holds is stained bright crimson.

But he knows that had the man lived, his partner might be dead.

And he knows that even if he could go back in time, be presented with the same choice, he’d still choose his partner’s life over his stable future.

He wonders what’ll happen to him now. Perhaps Heechul has everything well planned out already - because he knew this day would come.

But was I ever to be included in his plans for the future?

“You could have told me to stop. Why didn’t you?” Heechul speaks. His back is turned, but Kyuhyun knows he’s talking to him.

“Would you have listened?” he responds.

“Perhaps.” Heechul’s gaze lingers on the body. “Where will you go now?”

“Where will you go now?” he responds.

“You always knew this would happen, but you never planned ahead?” A faint smile finds its way on Heechul’s face. “I’m sorry for causing you this trouble. You are - you always were - a great partner.”

“As were you,” he responds.

It hurts.

For he knows now, as he assumed earlier, that Heechul is leaving now - that his partner ever since the start of his career, the one who took care of him, albeit in his brusque and discreet ways, is leaving now.

And now he knows, he, too, is on his own.

For some time, he wondered if Heechul would include him in his plans for the future - a small, lingering hope.

But as he looks at his partner’s face, the tiny etches of emotions that he’s learned to read over the years, he guesses that his hopes are only hopes and his assumptions will only be reality.

“So it’s the end now?” he asks quietly.

“Yeah.” Heechul turns to him fully, so they face each other and their eyes meet. “It’s the end now, Kyuhyun.”

He walks forward, and Kyuhyun’s eyes widen just the slightest as he feels Heechul’s hand atop his head, ruffling his hair in the rarest gesture of affection from the stoic assassin. Heechul’s voice is warm, in an odd, unexpected - but nice - way, tinted with the same lilting tone that he’s grown to love and a nostalgia that he hasn’t heard around much before. “You grew up pretty well… You did good, maknae.”

And in those softly-spoken words, the weight of every emotion that he’s ever shared with Heechul crashes into him hard, harder than a bullet train slamming into a barrier full speed, and he has to choke back the emotion that wells up in every fibre of his being, and every little memory spirals through his mind like lingering threads of the past.

“Should this really be permitted?”

“He’ll be fine, he’s just being handed over to me as a partner a few months earlier than he’s supposed to.” He distinctly remembers the slightly older man snapping at the face he came to recognise as his mentor in those past few months, causing the mentor to quickly bow and leave him.

“My name is Kim Heechul.” A hand ruffles his hair, even though he’s a little taller than his new partner. “What’s yours?”

“I’m Cho Kyuhyun, but we were told that we would be assigned fake names.” He still remembers trying not to