For the years of assassination missions he’d been on, this had to be the most exhilarating one he’d ever done. Adrenaline was pumping through his veins as he ran, as a strong sense of hope, pride and an unexpected level of excitement kept his heart pounding in his ears. It was his last mission, probably the very last one before the effects of RJ71 overtook him. And Sung Gyu was glad beyond words that he was able to do that with the woman that he loved.

As soon as they crashed into the boys’ locker room, Sung Gyu went on to deposit the vial into his gun carrier and latched it close. He took off his gloves for better measure and tossed them aside and pulled out his phone to see if their plan was a success. 

The whole point of Eunji crashing into him was to get a tracking device placed on Jaehyun as surreptitiously as he could. Shooting his arm was to destabilise him so that he would drop his act and escape. Sunggyu was pretty certain now that the word about a more lethal weapon was just a bluff to lure Sunggyu to his trap, and he had miscalculated his own capabilities so badly that everything was beginning to backfire on him. Jaehyun wasn’t going to stay for too long. 

On his phone, the tracker showed Jaehyun was in the male washrooms. Sunggyu assumed he was dealing with the wound in his arm now. It would be a while before he made a move. When that happens, the tracker would alert them of his whereabouts. Their aim was to catch him when he left. 

Slipping his phone back into his pocket, Sunggyu turned around to look at his new partner in crime. Eunji was locking the locker room doors, chaining it up with all her might. He watched the way her arms flexed beneath the sheer lace sleeves, the way her hair cascaded down her shoulders. Jung Eunji was still Jung Eunji; their five years apart had done nothing to change that, as if, despite all unspoken contradictions, they’ve picked up from exactly where they stopped. They were a team, Sung Gyu and her, in the perfect symphony of an arrow to a bow. Sung gyu should never have left her. Through his storm, she would have been his sails to help him push through.

When she turned back to face him, an overwhelming rush of emotions overtook him. Passion, and years of love that had not known no directions to take, rage directed towards himself, towards their circumstances, towards their lives. It was all these that was driving him now, fueled by the excessive surge of adrenaline in his veins. Sung Gyu climbed up on his feet and approached her in quick, quiet strides. In her eyes was a silvery white fire; a sense of awareness, a flicker of realisation. She pressed herself against the sink benches behind her. The dim lights falling above shifted something strong in his heart.

All it took was Eunji quietly calling his name. Sung Gyu soon brought her into his arms and pulled her into a long, earth shattering kiss.

It was the moment when years of their suppressed emotions came undone. The times they missed out seeing each other, touching each other, feeling the salty warmth of their lips was compacted into that one long, devious kiss. Yet, it wasn’t enough. Sung Gyu pried open, his thumb grazing her chin and she smiled into his lips as if there was nothing more delightful than being able to kiss him again. With her fingers slipping into his belt loops, pulling him impossibly close and him lifting her up to the sink bench behind them, it was the kind of kiss that would have become something more if the place and the time was right. The sweetness of her lips was familiar, so were her little gasps, the quiet murmurs, her fingers burying in his hair, fluttering on his skin. 

Within that passion, there was pain, when he pushed her hair aside and slithered his lips down the curve of her neck, imprinting that softness of her in his mind for the keeps. This could even be the last time he would feel her, taste her, love her, as much as it was their first in five years. That moment, therefore, Sung Gyu was determined to kiss her like it was their very first time. 

It was with effort that Sung Gyu finally pulled away from her, but his heart hadn’t stopped pounding as if he just ran a hundred miles. Eunji raised her hands, holding his face between her fingers and caressing his skin. There was something about the way that her eyes traced him, as if she was trying to dissect his mind. 

“How long do you think we have left?” She whispered, her breath brushing past his lips. 

Sung Gyu chuckled, the sense of her words weren’t lost on him. “Not enough”

She hummed, and Sung Gyu let her push his jacket off his shoulders. With the heavy weight that was inside it, the jacket fell on the ground behind him.

As Sunggyu held his breath, her fingers started slipping past his collar, undoing the top button of his shirt, and slowly loosening his tie.

“I’ll come and see you again” Sung Gyu muttered, closing his eyes at the feel of her lips on his neck, 

“Will you?”

“Hm…” He was making her promises he knew he couldn’t keep. “I will”

Eunji smiled, pulling herself away from him and laid her hands on his shoulders, 

“I love you the most…do you know that? Wherever you are, whoever you are, whatever you do, I will still and always love you”

A thick knot formed in his throat. Oh, how long had he waited to hear these exact words? In retrospect, had he found the courage five years ago, she would have told him this, the exact same way, the exact same words, and she would have never walked back on that. After all that happened, she still loved him, he still loved her. That would have been more than enough. Why did Sung Gyu become the fool that had to run away from her? Now he wouldn’t even be able to take back those years even if he tried to. 

“I love you too” Sung Gyu muttered, because he would regret to the end of his life if he didn’t tell her now. He leaned in and kissed her, short, lingering kisses, on and on until he couldn’t have enough. God, Eunji I love you and I love you. Words can’t describe how much I do.

Finally pushing him away from her, Eunji gazed into his eyes as if he was her whole world. She loved him, she didn’t have to say it in her words. Sung Gyu had always known that she loved him. And that was why he decided  to leave her, because he just couldn’t love her enough. He broke her heart, over and over again when it was his to protect with all that he could do. Even that night, he knew he was failing her, he was breaking her. Sung Gyu could tell by the way her eyes slowly changed, from fondness to concern. She held his face once again.

“Oppa?”

His worst fears came true as the familiar warmth started to pour out of his nostrils, down his philtrum, reaching his lips.

“Oppa, you’re-you’re bleeding”

It was happening again.

“” Sung Gyu hissed under his breath and moved away from her, careful not to stain her dress. With his head tilted back, Sung Gyu searched in his pockets for his handkerchiefs. Eunji reached him faster with a wad of tissues, which she carefully placed where he bled. She was quiet the whole time, but he knew she was watching him. It was that late afternoon in her cafe all over again, but only, Eunji now knew it was him. It was just a matter of connecting the dots for her to figure out the truth.

Which didn’t take all that long.

He bled only briefly that night, which was a relief. As soon as it stopped, he pulled up the sleeves of his shirt and cleaned out his airways, blowing out his nose of the mucus and the blood into the sink. He watched the way the crimson and brown rinsed into the warm water, staining the porcelain sink, all the while as Jung Eunji watched him as she carefully patted his back.

“Angel…” Her hand suddenly paused on him “That’s what he called you that day” 

Sung Gyu froze with his fingers under the running tap.

“Is that the short for Angel of Death, Sung Gyu oppa?”

As her hand started to gently caress the back of his head, he closed his eyes. 

“Eunji-ah…”

There was not a sign of a smile on her lips as she reached out and took his left hand. Her fingers slid along the stone bracelet on his wrist. “And this bracelet…you wore this that day…maybe even every day. I knew I had seen this somewhere…” 

Sung Gyu slowly turned towards her. Her tear filled eyes fell on him. “It was you, wasn’t it? The hoodie…the caps….at the cafe…it was always you”

When he think about it, even as he did that, Sung Gyu had known this day would come. He waited for that, he’d planned for that. He’d run thousand different scenarios in his mind how it would take place. But Sung Gyu was always the coward who feared that moment of confrontation, as if the worse that she could do was hurt him. Eunji would never have hurt him. She would have held him, accepted him and loved him, forgiven him for all the wrong he had done. It was him who just didn’t know her enough.

“How…long?” Eunji wanted to know. She’d threaded her fingers through his, holding him in comfort although he was the one who should have comforted her.

Sung Gyu swallowed hard. There were tears starting to fill his eyes. “For a long time”

“In numbers, oppa, in days”

He closed his eyes. Sung Gyu would never forgive himself for this, after learning the truth tonight, he never will.

“Since the beginning. Since the day that you started”

Her eyes raised up to his. “The beginning…beggining?”

“Yes” He nodded. “For five years”

“Oh…” Eunji muttered, turning away from him. Soon, small, heart-wrenching sobs started breaking from her. “Oh, umm….”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you” Sung Gyu admitted before he could hurt her even further. “The circumstances weren’t right, Eunji, I’d just been hired by the STF, and with the kind of work that I was doing, I didn’t, no, I couldn’t-,”

“Do you know how much I searched for you?” Eunji hit back, turned around and pressed her hand on his chest. “You know how long I waited for you? I stayed up, every single night, waiting for you to call me. I looked for you in every corner in Seoul, in Jeonju and everywhere I knew. I waited for you to come back to me….and you’re saying…you’re saying, ” Her hand clenched his shirt. “...all this time, you were…here?”

Sung Gyu gently wrapped his fingers over hers. “I couldn’t imagine myself being away from you…”

“Then you should have come to me!” Her cries were a testament to her broken heart. “You should have just come to me, oppa, you shouldn’t have ever even left me!”

When Eunji finally broke into endless tears, Sung Gyu felt his heart ripping into shreds in his chest. It hurt so much, but he deserved that pain. It was making it so hard for him to breathe, yet he knew he should feel suffocated in the mess that he had created. Sung Gyu pulled her into his arms, knowing very well that nothing that he did or said would change anything. So he said nothing, nothing but holding her, caressing her back, running his fingers through her hair. It was taking so long for her to find her comfort again.

“What do you think would have happened if you never left me?” She muttered, her voice muffled into his chest as her hands grasped his back. “What did you think I would do?”

“I don’t know” Sung Gyu honestly agreed. Those days were pretty much a blurr in his mind now, like they were buried in the ashes of his past. “I think…I was afraid I would hurt you more with my incompetence. You got me into working for your parents, they trusted you and they trusted me. After all of that, I lost their biggest case and their biggest client…I was afraid, if I didn’t leave, it would be taken out on you”

Sung gyu cared for Eunji’s parents, but they were also the scariest people he knew. Their relationship with the Il-Shim group was strong enough to topple governments, and in  that chess game of politics and manipulation, him and Eunji were just helpless pawns. Losing the Orion towers case was a huge deal, one that lost employment for hundreds of people, some even lost their lives. It raised a massive movement about labour and employee rights, affected the stocks of the Il-Shim group, and changed the political trajectory in so many ways. Sung Gyu was the start and end of it all who played his cards wrong, putting forth his sense of morality and social justice. All that happened was it backfiring on him, putting even more lives at stake. The only thing he could think about at that time, was Eunji. In his eyes, she deserved so much more than someone like him.

“I didn’t care, Sung Gyu, oppa. I’d have stuck with you until the end” Her face buried into the crook of his neck. “I’d have left my job, left my family, left everything behind. Because I know you did what you did within reason” She pulled awy from him and met his eyes. “And you still do”

Sung Gyu slowly shook his head. “When I accepted this position at the army, I went against everything I believed in, Eunji, so what you said isn’t always true”

“You must have been desperate” Eunji slowly squeezed his hand. “And even what you do now, I know, you do it within principals…you still didn’t kill that man when you had all the chances to”

Sung Gyu took a deep breath, wrapped his arm around her head and brought her into his embrace. He didn’t kill Jaehyun even if it was what he was there to do, because no matter what Eunji would think or say right now, Jaehyun was a man she probably had cared about at some point in her life. He kissed her crown, closed his eyes and breathed her in. It was the only way that he could apologise to her. Saying sorry wouldn’t have been enough.

“Kill him” Eunji’s muffled voice, pausing his hand mid caress. Sunggyu held his breath, trying to make sense of her words. She simply pushed him back, only the slightest so she could see his face. “Let’s kill him”

Something strong twisted in his chest. “Eunji-ah…”

Eunji shook her head and gently took his hand in hers. “Oppa, I don’t know what’s happening, what the government is after, or why you have to kill him. But Jaehyun is a horrible man. He’s a monster. I can give you more than one reason why you have to do what you should”

Utterly confused, Sung Gyu stared down at her. 

“You have to believe me” She told him, reached out and cupped a side of his face. “I don’t want to tell you now…one day, I would. All you need to know is, if he lived, he would hurt me and he would hurt many other people like me…” Her voice was breaking as she spoke, her eyes filling up. Slowly, things were beginning to make sense to him. Fire ignited in his heart. And pure, unadulterated rage. 

Sunggyu lifted her face up to him. “He hurt you?”

Her lips pulled into a small, sullen smile. Sunggyu’s heart twisted at the thought of this. Somehow it felt like it’s all his fault.

“I know what you are thinking,” Eunji said, gazing into his eyes. “But it's not your fault”

“It is” he shook his head. “In a lot of ways”

Eunji pursed her lips and gently caressed the side of his face, watching him. “We can’t go back in time, we can’t really change anything…I know what’s stopping you from doing what you’re here to do…but you know, sometimes we have to make the wrong choice to realise what is right”

At that moment, Sunggyu understood what he really had to do.

Their brief period of intimacy and reconciliations soon came to an end when his phone started to ring as if to indicate that they’ve been slacking for long enough. Sunggyu had to put his earpiece back on, return to his team that they’ve been keeping muted for too long. At the same time, notifications from their tracker device had started to blink. Their target was finally on the move.

“What’s happening now?” Howon barked on the other end in his ear. “It was a good thing you put a tracker on the target, but I was wondering why it wasn’t moving for a while”

“Target was compromised” Sunggyu muttered as Eunji helped him back into his jacket. “I had to shoot him on the arm. So I’m guessing he was dealing with that the whole time”

“It’s moving now”

“Yes,” Sunggyu grabbed his gloves and slipped them on. “We’re on it”

“We?” Howon echoed incredulously. It took him a moment to realise his tongue slip.

“Oh umm,” He glanced over at Eunji and she smiled. “I have Eunji here with me”

“Is that why you had us on mute for the past fifteen minutes?”

It was beyond midnight and he couldn’t believe Jieun was still on the line. “Noona, why aren’t you sleeping?”

“I hope you’re sticking to protocol,” Howon helpfully reminded him. “You’re still on duty, Hyung”

The protocol was for him not to reveal anything about the assignment to anyone he had to make acquaintances with while on a mission. He wasn’t allowed to reveal his name and provide an alias if he had to. With Eunji, names were inevitable, but at least the truths about the mission were intact.

“I’m aware” He sighed and looked down at the phone. Their target was moving; he was headed towards backstage.

“Howon, we have to move” he handed the phone over to Eunji and went onto pick up the gun carrier. 

“Good, and Hyung?”

“What?”

“If you mute us again, I’m going to fire you”

Sunggyu smiled, his hand already lifting to the earpiece. “I thought this was my last mission?”

“Hyung, I’m warning you-,”

Heeding no warning whatsoever, Sunggyu muted off the device and turned to his girl. He reached a hand out to her. 

“Are we ready?”

“Yes we are” Eunji slipped her fingers into his grasp.