“What…the is this?” Kyuhyun stood frozen in the doorway. There was a group of armed agents behind him, but none of them were moving either.

The room was painted red, the stench of death painfully ripe. He took a step back, covering his nose and mouth. Turning to his men, he barked out, “Get the civilians!”

Nodding, they rushed through the slimy terrain, weapons dangling at their belts and shoulder straps. Kyuhyun looked around, searching for some sign of the dealers. It was futile though, he knew. All of them were soaking in their own fluids. The mere thought made him gag.

“What the hell is this?” A strong hand gripped his shoulder, swinging him around. Changmin glowered at his friend. “You said they would be here.”

“They lied,” Kyuhyun tore away from the angry hold. “, they lied.” He ran fingers through his hair, smiling bitterly. How had he been stupid enough to actually underestimate them? Ryeowook and Donghae were taught under the greatest manipulators, and Kyuhyun had simply brushed that information off.

It had never been a joint effort. Looking back, it should’ve been obvious that they were simply trying to keep Kyuhyun and Taemin under surveillance. Why else would they do all of that?

“, Kyuhyun,” Changmin groaned, kicking the door roughly. “You didn’t even think that they might be lying?”

“Of course I thought they were lying,” he spat angrily, “I just thought we had lied better.” He couldn’t even fathom how fast Ryeowook and Donghae had taken care of business though. It was ridiculous that a massacre of that level could’ve occurred in the one day time span they hadn’t seen one another. Kyuhyun thought they wouldn’t strike until the second day and then all of them would collide.

Clearly, they had not planned for such a mishap.

Changmin was still yelling, but Kyuhyun had stopped listening. Punching the wall, he strode out of the room and headed down the hallway. Behind him, Changmin was following and screaming. Ignoring it, Kyuhyun pulled out his phone, dialing Taemin’s number.

The boy answered on the second ring.

“They lied,” Kyuhyun stated.

“What?”

“They ing lied. Everyone’s already dead.” He closed his eyes, head pounding from adrenaline and fury. “It’s a mess in there.”

“What…what do we do then?” Taemin asked.

Kyuhyun stopped walking. “I don’t know. The mission is—”

“—we found something!”

His eyes shot over to an approaching agent. There was a blood smeared manila envelope in his hand. Giving it to Kyuhyun, he bowed his head and retraced his steps back into the room. Frowning, Kyuhyun opened up the envelope, pressing the phone between ear and shoulder.

A thick note card fell out first. Kyuhyun turned it around in his hand, reading the scribbled words: As an apology.

There was no signature. Of course there was no signature. Kyuhyun cursed, shaking the envelope to see what was inside. Evidence of recorded conversations, bills, contracts, and photos spilled out over Kyuhyun’s hand. He stared at them, wondering what sort of game he was playing.

Ryeowook said he wanted justice. Was it necessary to kill those people for justice? Wasn’t the evidence enough to put them in holding cells for life?

Then again, as Kyuhyun gazed at the pictures and skimmed over the transcripts, he could almost see what Ryeowook and Donghae saw. Those people tore lives apart. What gave them the right to continue living when they abused it so much?

“What? What’s going on?” Taemin demanded.

“They gave us filing material,” Kyuhyun grunted, closing the evidence folder, “That’s all.”

There was a brief silence before Taemin said, “…Is there anything in there linking them to it?”

 “No.”

“I…Meet me back at the apartment. I can’t say it over the phone.” The line went dead.

Kyuhyun tucked the device away, passing the folder off to Changmin who had finally quieted down. “Take these back to the base. I need to meet Taemin.” He started off towards the door.

“Is it something important?”

“I think so,” Kyuhyun nodded, “Is there anyone with him? He’s still incapacitated.”

Changmin put the envelope into his bag. “Yeah, Jungmo is watching over him.”

“Got it,” he pushed the door open, heading out into the night.

Taemin drummed his fingers against the couch cushions, eyes shifting over to the clock every few seconds. He exhaled loudly, throwing his head back helplessly. Why couldn’t Kyuhyun come faster? Better yet, why did his leg have to be so ed up that he couldn’t have been there to tell Kyuhyun straight up?

A soft chuckle came from across the room. Looking over, Taemin smiled sheepishly at Jungmo. The latter was toying with a book on the shelf, flipping the pages idly. “You’ve been really anxious since you took that call from Kyuhyun. What happened?” Jungmo cocked his head, confused.

“I just want to make things better,” Taemin explained, “I feel like this mission would’ve gone better if Changmin had been Kyuhyun’s partner instead, or you were his partner. At least then he would’ve had someone with a better chance of catching the lies Ryeowook and Donghae were telling.”

“What do those two have to do with this exactly?” Jungmo frowned, sitting down on the couch adjacent to Taemin’s. “I heard bits and pieces, but nothing substantial.”

And so, Taemin filled him in quickly, detailing briefly the gunshot wound in his leg, the tag team, and the evident double crossing.

“It sounds like you couldn’t have done much about it,” he offered calmly, “I mean they made plans for anything to come. No one, not even Kyuhyun, noticed anything amiss.”

“Well…”

Jungmo smiled curiously, “Well?”

Taemin looked around the room, sighing and pulling out his phone. “Well,” he began again, scrolling through something before pressing on the screen, “maybe they didn’t think of everything.” He held up the phone.

“There’s a large gathering in three days time, high and low ranking members of the ring will be there for the biggest sale of the year. It would be best to trap them then and take down as many as possible.”

“What should we do?”

 “You’ll be part of the extermination. Isn’t that obvious?”

“What’s our exact job?”

“Call in backup and have them clean up the mess. Simple, we’ll take care of the rest.”

“Then you expect us to take custody of all the victims? We’re the pity party?”

 “When you put it like that, it’s excessively demeaning.”

“No matter how you put it, it’s demeaning. Don’t you realize already that it’s a pain in the for us to work together? And now you’re expecting us to be your clean-up crew?”

“Take custody of them, or we’ll get rid of them using our own means. It’s your choice.”

Pausing the recording, Taemin looked to Jungmo expectantly. “I don’t know if it’ll be enough, but it’s something. There’s an indirect confession in there, right?”

Jungmo nodded slowly, “There’s something there for sure. If you showed that to one of the agency’s lawyers, I’m sure they could make a case out of it.”

Smiling widely, Taemin’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Jungmo returned the smile, “You could get them into some sort of trouble.” Click…

Taemin’s face dropped. “Hyung…?” His body went rigid.

“Like I said, you could get them into trouble with that.” He leveled the gun with the agent’s forehead. “You really shouldn’t have gone and done something unnecessary.”

The phone, the boy, and the recording were destroyed that night.