“Get up.”

The sound of curtains being pushed back, the sound of metal rings against a metal curtain rod, the sounds of birds, probably the ones that liked to convene at the top of Jinki’s penthouse loft like it was their personal mission was to make Minho’s morning a personal inescapable hell. Then there was Jinki’s irritatingly smooth tenor and his gentle but firm commands.

All of it was grating Minho’s nerves thin.

That along with the fact that he was still there. Four days later and he was still there. Why? Beats him.

–snap– Oh, that’s right. There was a million dollar mothering bounty on his head.

How? It went like this:

At first, it was a purchase price of 25,000 from the Hans, which Minho thought was kinda lowballing it. He was a human; humans should go for more than the price of a ing Hyundai sedan. Then Jinki, obviously thinking it was a game and having more fun with Minho’s life than made sense–publicly declared that Minho’s loyalties belong to him. Minho still had not figured out where Jinki was pulling this ‘loyalty’ from, possibly from his that was somehow connected to his mouth hole.

The Kims countered the Hans price with a 50,000 offer–mainly just to them. One of the Hans goons had just murdered the son of the Kim’s boss over Minho. The Swans, who Jinki constantly referred to as sleazy narcissistic lowlifes, told Jinki to himself when he said fifty-grand too low. By the time the Arangs got involved, the four other syndicates decided it was best Minho was dead than to try and buy him off Jinki. Which, thankfully, was never going to happen in the first place. To which, Minho was happy with. Being traded like a cow in what felt like four angry people yelling at each other through tin cans on a string was not the best of feelings.

So now Minho was more or less trapped here with the boss of the Lee Family.

Jinki slapped at his feet under the covers. “You can’t sleep in all day.”

Sleep in. That made Minho laugh, if you could call gurgling like a sleepy toddler laughing.

Jinki was methodical, he was relentless, he moved like a machine and expected…demanded, more like it, that everyone around him to do the same. He woke up at five every morning, before normal human beings, before the ing sun. By five-fifteen he was cooking breakfast. This morning it was fried sausages and French toast from the smell of it.

At five-twenty, Key, one of Jinki’s underbosses, was promptly delivering his greetings and a status report on his western chunk of Lee territory. Taemin, who oversaw all of Jinki’s errand team, arrived at five-thirty, mainly for nothing else but to steal a sausage from Jinki’s frying pan. Jonghyun, Jinki’s underboss over the eastern territories was there at five-forty five. By six, they were eating together in Jinki’s dining room.

That’s how it usually went. That unfortunately included Minho now.

He felt Jinki move from the window to loom over him, his form casting a shadow over the bed.  Minho tugged the thick warm duvet over his head, the scent assaulting him as he did. It smelled woodsy, clean, manly, a scent Minho was fastly beginning to associate with Jinki, to Minho’s chagrin.

Jinki yanked the covers back from Minho’s head and Minho resisted the urge to hiss. “You do this every morning. C’mon, get up, sleepy boots,” and Minho could hear the smirk in his voice, “you act as if I wore you out last night or something.”

Minho groaned. Jinki kept making these really ridiculous allusion to them having –which had not happen–and there was nothing Minho could say that could make him stop. He usually slipped them in casually, but there was always a betrayal in the way his voice sounded full of smug laughter.

“Okay. Fine. Stay sleep. However, if you don’t get up, I’m going to get under those covers and make you get u–“

Minho’s eyes flew open. “I’m up.” 

Jinki always made good on that promise, sliding into the bed and slipping his hands around Minho’s waist. Jinki had a very…stubborn morning wood problem and the last thing Minho needed was to feel…that.

The first thing Minho saw was Jinki’s smile. “Good morning,” he said softly as Minho looked up at him. He bent over and brushed the hair out of Minho’s face. “There’s food for you.”

Minho didn’t want to think about how good Jinki looked with the sun shining behind his head, casting a godly light around his body like he was deity or something. Minho knew better. Jinki was the devil.

After shuffling to the bathroom and making use of his travel kit, Minho made his way into the kitchen, automatically sitting at the chair to Jinki’s right.

The first morning, he was subjected to this ritual, Jinki demanded he sit to his right and of course, Minho pushed back because who the hell was Jinki to demand anything from him? Taemin, the one who’d continued to call him Kermit despite knowing his name, let him know that the seat next to Jinki was the safest. He nodded towards the window.

“Snipers.”

Minho had to lean back from around a brick column and out a window. Taemin was right. There was a rooftop across the street, one prime for an assassination attempt. Minho was a prime target for assassination. So now it was an automatic thing, sit to Jinki’s right. Stand at Jinki’s right. Jinki apparently was the only thing keeping him alive.

.

.

“Key, call up Bloomingdales. Tell them I’m coming and to be ready.”

Key chewed on the end of a sausage before swallowing. He reached for a champagne glassed filled with a sweet tasting mimosa. “You know they hate when you do that, right? They have to shut down the entire store. Sooyoung complains every time.”

“Sooyoung should be thankful I got her that job. Unless she wants to be demoted to errand girl again, I suggest you tell her to have a gigantic smile on her face when me and Minho show up.”

Minho choked on his mimosa. “Me?” Minho wheezed. Taemin patted him on the back, cooing at him like he was a toddler.

Jinki raised a brow. “Yes, you. We have a meeting today and I won’t have you showing up looking like,” he eyed Minho with concern, ”…that.”

Jonghyun snorted into his coffee and Minho glared at him. Jonghyun was a manager at the norabang across the street from the convenience store Minho worked at. It’s how he met him. He’d wandered in one late night after Jonghyun had closed shop at the club. He chatted it up with Minho for close to an hour and after that he was a regular customer always showing up after two in the morning, requesting a pack of cigarettes. At least that’s what Minho thought before he found out that Jinki owned the norebang across the street from his store and Jonghyun hadn’t come in there just to be friendly that night but to be a nosy investigative .

Minho eventually glanced back at Jinki. “I thought I wasn’t allowed to leave. You know with everyone in this city trying to kill me and all.”

Jinki wiped his mouth with a white linen napkin. “You aren’t allowed to leave by yourself.” Jinki smirked. “You’re allowed to go everywhere with me. Even third base.”

Taemin groaned. “Real smooth, hyung.”

Jinki shrugged and tossed his napkin onto his plate. “Never said I was smooth,” he said as he gave Minho a long sweeping look. “Just serious.”

.

.

When Jinki was a kid, he was an award winning chess player. Strategy, visualization, calculation, planning, being adaptive: these were all skills he learned as he moved from tourney to tourney, winning trophy after trophy. Chess was a family thing. He’d learned it from his old man, and his old man had learned it from his old man.

It wasn’t until he was a teenager and in charge of his own territory that he realized why chess was a Lee family tradition. Crime organizations required those skills and by the time Jinki was a young man and being named heir to his father’s empire, Jinki had honed those skills to mastery.  

Gaining control of CRUISE had been a goal of his since he first learned of it. At the time, he was the owner of a bevy of enterprises–the norabang, the gambling hall beneath it, the strip club downtown. He was the owner of a prize winning horse called Seoul Slappy, an Arabian pureblood.  Yet as successful as he was, his biggest venture, of course, was banking. High interest loans with a quick payback. Loansharking. But he wasn’t one of those head busting, knee breaking, rib cracking loansharks. When he delivered the money, he would collect a collateral. The collateral varied from client to client. But with the collateral he collected, he could ruin your life. It was that simple. And it always worked. But there were a few times where he had to resort to using the collateral as a motivation for repayment. He’d done it before and he’d do it again.

In essence, Jinki was a bank. Banks protected their interest while capitalizing on their funds. Banks also preyed on those at its mercy. And that’s what Jinki wanted to do by controlling CRUISE. Protect his funds–which he’d already had Minho do–while preying on those at his mercy–namely the Kim, Han, Arang and Swan syndicates. He would charge them a “small” fee that when paid timely, would prevent Jinki, contractually, from clearing their accounts the out.

Now, all he needed to do was make his golden goose lay a golden egg. So far he’d been unsuccessful. Minho wasn’t the most cooperative person on the planet. Stubborn as a ing mule. But Jinki had ways in making Minho more flexible with his request. The problem was, he didn’t want to subjugate Minho under the weight of his power. Minho wasn’t a pawn. He wasn’t the knight. He wasn’t the rook, He was the most important piece on the chess board. And because of that he wanted Minho to come willingly. He needed Minho to want to come willingly.  

.

.

Jinki had been telling the truth about the meeting and wanting Minho to look presentable, but at the same time, he also knew Minho didn’t own much–whether that was a personal choice or not. This shopping trip wasn’t so much an underhanded bribe as it was a…what was he saying? It was definitely a bribe.

“Pick what you want.”

Minho’s long fingers floated over the racks of suits and slacks. He paused an ink blue suit, one Jinki recognized as a Canali Siena Travel Suit.

“You like that one?”

Minho’s fingers drew away from the fine fabric. “It’s nice…too nice,” Minho mumbled.

“Nonsense. I can get you the entire line if you want. Those are made in Italy. Wool, linen, silk. It’s good .”

Minho frowned a little before he plucked at the price tag. His face twisted in horror as his head swiveled towards Jinki. “What the , dude! This suit cost three grand!”

Jinki nodded. “The suit does, yes. That doesn’t include the shirt, tie and shoes. Cufflinks. You’ll need cufflinks.” Jinki shifted in his seat and looked behind him. “Sooyoung.”

Within moments, a willowy woman entered. Her hair was pulled back from her face in a neat bun and her suit, an all black shift dress, was impeccable. Not that it surprised Jinki. He demanded that of her. He was, after all, a Bloomingsdale stockholder. A major one.

“You’ve got a good eye, Sooyoung. Can you make him fit to be seen?”

Sooyoung smiled withered at the ends just a little bit. “Like a makeover?”

Jinki chewed on his lip before nodding. “Yes, like a makeover.”

Sooyoung looked like she wanted to cry. No, Jinki was sure she was going to cry. The fine poise she presented when she walked in wilted like a dying flower. “But Jinki! Look at him! Look at his hair, his nails! That would take me all morning!”

Jinki rolled his eyes. Sooyoung was such a spoiled brat and if she wasn’t his cousin he would have had her fired a long time ago. She been perfectly well behaved running packages up and down the city, but as soon as she got this job, her temper had taken a turn for the worse.

“Well you better get to work then.”

.

.

Jinki had enough grace not to fall asleep on the chaise in the large private dressing room but it was hard. Two hours had passed and the two of them had not emerged from the back yet. He was almost, almost ready to stand up and drag Minho out, ready or not, but Sooyoung plodded into the dressing room, her neat bun a little less neat and her face haggard.

Jinki gave her a look. Minho hadn’t looked bad, he just looked…lonely? Like he didn’t care about his appearance because maybe nobody noticed his appearance. Wrinkled khaki pants, a faded polo and a haircut that suggested he did it himself, shoes that looked beyond worn, curling at the toes. Yet, even with all of that, Minho was attractive, irresistibly so, so he didn’t understand why Sooyoung was acting like she had to reinvent the wheel to make Minho decent.

Without a word, she walked over to the curtain that drapped in front of the dressing room, unhooked the thick corded string, and pulled. The plush burgundy and cream curtains parted to reveal…

“.”

Minho hadn’t looked bad before but damn it if he didn’t look downright sinful at the moment.

The linen suit molded to Minho’s muscular frame, highlighted his lean waist and accentuated his tall frame. The color was made for him, the blue bringing out the bronze highlights in his tan skin. His hair had been cut short and layered, tapered at the back and coiffed along his brow.

He stepped out with his head ducked, his gaze focused down at the brown shoes Sooyoung had picked out. Salvatore Ferragamo Nove Wingtip Oxfords. Jinki whistled. Nice.

“How…how do I l look?”

Jinki gave Sooyoung a knowing look, one that said ‘Get Lost’ and she was more than happy to do so, picking up her cardigan and leaving the private dressing room.

Jinki approached Minho, taking the time to appraise him and his new look. When he was close enough, he tapped him under his chin. “Either you like your shoes a lot or you’re afraid of mirrors.”

Minho grinned a bit but still didn’t look up like Jinki wanted him to. So he grabbed his hand and pulled him over to the large ceiling to floor mirror, placing himself behind him. Carefully, Jinki placed his hands on Minho’s hips and looked over Minho’s shoulder.

“You look good, Minho. You look so good,” he whispered in his ear. “Good enough to eat. Delectable, warm, forbidden.”

“Huh?” Minho opened his eyes and gasped at his reflection. “I–I don’t look like myself. I look…I look important.”

Jinki never quite understood when Minho would say the things that he would say. The causal self-depreciation. He just didn’t understand. Gently, he turned Minho around to face him. “Minho, you are important.”

Minho scoffed. “I’m a human, so yes, I’m important in that way. I’m important to you, yes, because you need me. But…nobody notices me, and I guess that’s my fault. But even when I try, no one sees me. I’m like a ghost. Ever since I went to jail, I’ve been a ghost.”

Jinki tilted his head. “Because you went to jail? You feel irrelevant because you went to jail.”

“You ever tried to get a job with my kind of record? People look at you like you’re scum. I just started to believe them,” Minho finished quietly.

Jinki contemplated Minho’s words. He didn’t just not understand them, he hated them. 

"Minho,” Jinki said as he took a step closer. “You’re not irrelevant. You’re not a ghost. I may be nothing but a two-bit gangster but you’re just as human and worthy as I am. You’re not a ghost,” he repeated, his hand coming to Minho’s neck. “I see you.”

Jinki swore he fell even harder as he noticed the look of pure emotion shining in Minho’s eyes. It was then, Jinki realized, he’d said all of that, not to convince Minho in hopes that he would join his family, but simply because he believed it.

“Do you trust me, Minho?”

The taller man twisted his lips. “I kinda don’t have a choice.”

Jinki chucked. “Let me rephrase that. Do you think I would ever hurt you?”

“No,” rushed passed Minho’s lips. “No, I don’t.”

“That’s right. I would never hurt you. I need you to believe in me, believe that I would never hurt you. Believe me,” Jinki said, as he took a step closer, his body just shy of Minho’s frame, “when I say you are important.”

Minho didn’t say anything so Jinki moved even closer. “Believe me when I say you’re important to me.” His hands slid down Minho’s waist, his fingers moving under the suit jacket and up against the smoothness of fine quality cotton.

“Believe in me,” Jinki said right as he closed the space between them, bringing their lips together. This time, Jinki wasn’t teasing as he pulled Minho flush against him, not caring that he was wrinkling a suit that probably was more than Minho’s monthly salary. He wanted Minho and he didn’t care if he ed the suit up. He’d buy it just to burn it if it meant that he could have the man in front of him.

Jinki didn’t want much–well that was a lie; he wanted the world–but he also wanted Minho.

This time, Minho didn’t freeze or pull away. He cautiously put his hands on Jinki’s shoulders, leaning into Jinki’s kiss, and a noise Jinki hadn’t heard before, a coarse, lusty noise, drifted from Minho’s throat.

“, I want you so much,” Jinki growled against his lips and Minho whimpered.

Jinki coaxed Minho’s open with his tongue, finally enjoying the taste of Minho’s mouth after dreaming about it on his couch for four days. His palm had been warm, his length hard, and his thoughts impure as he thought about the man in the next room, snuggled under his covers, laying in his bed, dressed in his night clothes.

He was sure Action Figure Jesus was not pleased as Jinki called out his name as he spilled over his hand. After he was done he bargained with the poster that if he gave him what he wanted, he wouldn’t have to witness such acts in the future.

As Minho’s hands moved from his shoulders and his arms wrapped around Jinki’s neck, Jinki made a mental note to send the church down the street some turkeys for Thanksgivings.

He moved to press Minho up against the mirror behind him when his cell phone began ringing in his pocket. He wanted to ignore it, wanted to ignore it so very bad but he’d never ignored a phone call in ten years and he wasn’t about to start today because Minho had him acting like a lusty teenager.

Growling, he pulled away, but paused to peck Minho’s lips. He noticed the confusion on Minho’s face but ignored it as he reached for his phone. It was Key.

“What?” he barked.

“Where is Sooyoung,” Key asked, his voice frantic.

Jinki frowned. “She should be somewhere around here. Why didn’t you just call her?”

“Because,” Key stressed. “Her phone just called Jonghyun’s…but I think it was on accident.”

Jinki wasn’t used to Kibum beating around the bush. “Key just say what you have to say.”

Key cursed under his breath. “I think you need to leave. It sounded like Sooyoung was on her work phone giving someone your location. Jonghyun is trying to track who she was speaking to but the conversation was only a few seconds long.”

“Sooyoung,” Jinki said lowly. My cousin, Sooyoung.”

“She was crying, Jinki. They may have gotten to her. You need to get out of there and you need to get out of there now.”

“We have to go,”Jinki said as he hung up the phone.  He grabbed Minho’s hand and began to lead him out of the dressing room.

“Wait. What about the suit?”

Jinki looked down the aisle between the dressing room and the makeup counter. No one. Good. “I’ll pay for it later. I practically own this store. Look,” he said as he glanced at Minho over his shoulder. “There are some very stupid people on their way here. The faster we get to the car the better.”

He grabbed his phone again and dialed up Chanyeol. It rung….and rung….and rung and–

“! !”  Jinki screamed as he ended the call. Just as he did, the lights in the store went off.

Jinki froze. He saw the red beam the moment it went dark.

“GET DOWN!”

Before Minho could react, Jinki pushed him to the floor, seconds before the bullet chunked off a piece of the marbled column…right where Minho’s head had been.

Incensed, because Jesus Christ, it was the middle of the day and they were in a department store, one connected to a mall full of people. No hit was worth a ing public shootout. Yet he had no choice.

He pulled a set of twin glocks from the holsters strapped under his coat and returned fire, the muzzle blast lighting up the otherwise dark store. He aimed for the general location of where the shots had come from and amazingly his shot was true as he heard a scream.

“Go!’ Jinki shouted as he nudged Minho with his knees.

They took off for the back exit that would lead them to the service elevator. Minho reached it first and instinctively began mashing the down button. Another shot rang off, denting the elevator’s metal surface. Jinki whipped around to return fire, this time blindly. He missed the assailants but one of his bullets shattered the storefront doors covered in a thick metallic finish. Light flooded into the store and for the first time, he was able to see.

Three of ‘em.

The elevator door opened and Jinki stepped inside, pulling Minho with him. Minho began furiously mashing the button to the garage level. Jinki tossed him a key, which Minho fumbled with until he inserted it into the elevator panel. Now only they could open the doors once they closed.

The three assailants ran towards the elevator door, the guns drawn and Jinki feeling a little cocky, stuck his middle finger up.

“You stupid s! Wait until I find out who the you are! You’re dead! You hear me? Dead!”

The elevator doors began to shut and Jinki laughed. One of the men pulled the trigger right before the doors slid shut. Jinki felt the impact before he felt the pain.

The shock registered next as he looked down at his shoulder, a spot on his beige suit darkening red. “Son of a shot me,” he whispered in awe. “He actually shot me. “

.

.

Minho was not equipped for this bull. He wasn’t. He could tell you how to rewire a router to feed off a city’s backend system. He could tell you exactly how to access the Deepnet without going to jail. He could create a system that allowed an idiot like himself to back-hack it and somehow get embroiled in a crime syndicate war. Still, that was well within his realm of possibility and talent.

This? No ing clue. He had not one clue how to stop Jinki from bleeding all over the elevator floor.

Jinki’s hand was clamped down over his wound and Minho figured Jinki would be in a lot of pain if Jinki wasn’t as pissed off as he was. Because Minho could tell. He was pissed the off.

“ing s think they can shoot me?! ME! I’ll kill all of them! I’ll kill every last son of a I can get my hands on!”

“Jinki, I need you to calm down. You’re hurt,” Minho pleaded, his voice shaking.

Jinki glanced at him. “Are you hurt?”

Minho shook his head. “No. I–I’m fine.”

“Good,” he said as he turned back towards the door. “BECAUSE HE IS MINE! YOU HEAR ME? MINE! YOU DARE SHOOT AT SOMETHING THAT BELONGS TO ME YOU MOTHERERS!”

Jinki’s phone began to ring again and he fished it out of his pocket with his good arm.

“Where the have you been!” he yelled into the phone. “What? How many of them was there? Five? That’s all?” Jinki laughed. “They thought they was gonna get over on me with only five ing people?”

The elevator dinged and the doors opened. Parked right in front of the doors was Jinki’s sedan.

Chanyeol hopped out and rushed to the elevator doors. He blanched as he took in Jinki’s bloody arm. “They shot you?”

Jinki shook his head. “Flesh wound. Don’t worry about. We have to get the hell out of here. What happened to the two that attacked you?”

“Dead,” Chanyeol answered as he began opening doors.

Jinki sneered. “Good.” He looked over at Minho and Minho wanted to slap the out of him. Mainly because Jinki didn’t look as panicked as Minho felt. He actually looked calm—considering he had a hole in his arm, you can understand why Minho was confused. “Get him in the car,” Jinki commanded, nodding at Minho.

.

.

They sped off, Minho looking over the back seat, expecting gunmen to hop out of the shadows and start shooting at them. Once he was sure they were safe, he lost all of his composure.

“What the , man! What the ! What the was that? We were supposed to be shopping! Shopping! What the hell! How the hell! We almost died!” Minho ranted.

Jinki looked like he wanted to dispute that, but ended up shrugging. He hissed and screwed his eyes shut when he jarred his shoulder with the move.

“Chanyeol. Get Jonghyun on the phone. Tell him I need Sunny.”

“Sunny is out of town. What about Yuri?”

Jinki sighed. “Yuri’s fine.”

Minho looked at Jinki’s wound with rising panic. “Don’t we need to get him to a hospital?”

Chanyeol looked back at him in the mirror. “And tell them what? Oh, yeah. We are partly responsible for a Bloomingdale’s being shot up? That’ll go over swell.”

Jinki grabbed Minho’s hand and squeezed it. “I’m fine. It’ll be alright.”

“YOU HAVE A ING HOLE IN YOUR ARM HOW IS THAT ALRIGHT?” Minho screamed back.

“Aww,” Jinki teased through teeth clenched in pain. “Sounds like you’re worried about me. You keep it up and I’ll start to think you like me a little bit.”

Minho punched him in his injured arm and Jinki howled.

“You stupid idiot!”

Eventually Jinki chuckled. “I–I deserved that huh,” he said, his brow wet with sweat. “Get me home, Channie.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”