Tired but still content, Changmin woke first in what he presumed was early morning.  Typically a light sleeper, he couldn’t be sure until he slipped free from Jaejoong’s embrace, with great reluctance mind you, and checked the phone he’d plugged in to charge before his shower last night.  He found it by the way it blinked once very couple seconds in the dark and rubbed at blurry eyes when he flipped it open to see what the time actually was.  Just after four in the morning.  That sounded about right.

                Using the phone as his light to help reduce the risk of waking Jaejoong up, he stumbled about, awkwardly removing his stiff and soiled underwear in the process, before he managed to collect himself enough to get ready to head out.  He needed to meet up with Victoria at G’s place and the sooner he could get down there, the better.  If he could avoid the majority of people on his way there, that would be ideal.

                Hastily, he snagged a piece of unused paper and the pen that Jaejoong had been using yesterday and scrawled a quick note for his still sleeping companion.  Gone to G’s.  Be back soon.  Stay safe. – Minnie

                That should do it.  Quietly, he crept back to the bed to get a better glimpse of Jaejoong lying on it, the covers pulled up under his arm and his black hair partially covering his face.  He reached as if to touch him and then brought his hand back with a shake of his head.  No.  Knowing his luck, he’d wake him up and he didn’t want to do that, so he kept his hands to himself and hurried out the narrow passage, making sure the way was clear and empty before he shut the door behind him.

                Even at four thirty in the morning, New York was still somewhat busy.  Not nearly as much as it would be during the regular rush hours but it still had plenty of people on the sidewalk and driving down the streets.  It made him edgy, as always, and he hailed a cab as quickly as possible to cut down on his time being out in the open.  One wasn’t hard to find and he was on his way before even a few minutes had passed, drowsiness still fading in the predawn hours.  He gave the location and just sat back, letting the driver do the work.

                Dragon’s Used Goods was still quite dark when he arrived a bit more than twenty minutes early.  He’d forgotten how close it was to the safe house, but he paid the driver and stepped out, easing around to the back to get out of the main line of sight.  Victoria probably wasn’t here yet but she should be along shortly.  He could pretty much count on her being punctual and he wasn’t wrong.  At three minutes before five in the morning, the back door opened and out stuck her perfectly composed head, straight brown hair framing her enviably awake visage.

                “There you are, Max,” she smiled, waving him inside with a quick glimpse around.

                “Hey Vic,” he waved, hurrying in and waiting for her to close and lock the door behind them.

                “You can be a real pain in the sometimes, you know that?” she chided gently with a shake of her head.  “Five in the morning?  Really?” she smiled, patting him on the shoulder as he ducked his head in chagrin.

                “I would have tried for something later but things are a bit hot right now,” he admitted with a grimace.

                “So I gathered,” she stated with a raised brow, arms crossed over her body as she settled her weight on one hip, her four inch heels making her legs look amazing in the black pencil skirt with a slit up to the mid-thigh.  “Come on then,” she waved, dismissing his notice without concern before she turned and headed towards the storage room, every step confident and purposeful.

                “Coming!” he called after her, feeling rather underdressed in his casual garb when compared to her professional chic appearance.

                As expected, the interior was dark and quiet, reflecting only the presence of the ambient light streaming in through the upper windows, courtesy of the rest of the city.  The other windows on the ground level were currently covered by curtains that would be pulled back before normal business hours, but Jiyong was one who liked his privacy and it was extremely useful in moments such as this one.  “So the boss said that you were pretty much at square one,” she murmured softly, heading for the main office.

                Changmin cringed at the word choice and took a breath.  It was true but he didn’t exactly want to admit as much.  “I’ve been better off,” he finally conceded reluctantly.

                “And it looks like you’ve requested a bit extra,” she stated, giving him a sly sidelong look over her shoulder this time, pausing in front of the door with her slender fingers resting on the handle.

                “One can never be too over prepared,” he flashed her a smile, keeping his body language neutral and relaxed.  He hated the questions; always had and always would, but it was normal enough in his line of work.  No one explicitly trusted anybody and every kernel of information confirmed or denied was filed away for later use at their own discretion.  It was the way the game worked, even if he was in Jiyong’s favor.

                “Indeed,” she laughed lightly, ducking her head once in quiet acceptance as she finally turned the handle and led the way.

                Jiyong’s office was tidy as always, appearing utterly professional with a fine blend of personal affects spanning the rest of the room.  Most notably, he’d kept his picture of him and Seunghyun from their college days.  While he still hadn’t managed to get either of them to explain how they’d managed to become friends, he knew it had started their freshmen year and they’d been inseparable since; even after the breakup.

                Changmin watched Victoria saunter around the medium sized mahogany desk, ducking under the other side to pull a locked briefcase out from beneath it.  “He didn’t have it in the warehouse this time?” he asked conversationally.

                Victoria just glanced up at him from under her bangs while she set the briefcase on the mostly empty desk, decorated by a pen holder and unusually still pendulum, and opened the container to inspect the goods.  “Come now, Max,” she tsked, picking up the items so that he knew she was doing so but keeping the goods out of sight.  “Why would something that doesn’t exist be in the warehouse?” she grinned, giving him a perfect wink before she closed the case and pushed it across the gleaming surface to him.

                “My mistake,” he chuckled, accepting the case without checking the contents.  He’d learned from experience it was bad manners and had suffered for it in the past.  Jiyong was a man of his word and if he said he was giving you something, it was exactly what you were going to get.  And since Changmin was essentially getting it on credit, through Key of course, he wasn’t going to look that gift horse in the mouth.  The best part was that there would be no record of the delivery to or from the store so no trail to follow either way it was looked at.

                “You all set?” she asked, resting her hip on the edge of the side of the desk, her manicured hands folded elegantly in her lap.

                “Neh,” he nodded, bowing politely though he never took his eyes off her.  He saw the amused twitch in the corner of as she nodded her head slightly in recognition.  While she wasn’t exactly on par with his abilities, she was a force enough in her own right.  “Vic,” he began, straightening with an intent expression.  She sat up taller and regarded him earnestly, waiting for him to continue.  “You know Yunho and B are in this too, right?” he asked to clarify, brows furrowing slightly.

                “Of course,” she gestured fluidly with her right hand.

                He opened his mouth as if to say something else and then shook his head carefully.  “Thanks again,” he lifted the case up slightly and nodded once more, letting his lips pull up into a hesitant smile.  This wasn’t the first time they’d dealt with business like this and likely it wouldn’t be the last.  They certainly didn’t need him worrying over their safety.  He hoped at any rate.  “See you around?” he asked, heading for the door.

                “You know it,” she grinned, waving at him energetically as she got up to follow him out, making sure to lock the door behind them.  They maintained a companionable silence, broken by the constant click of her heels on the linoleum floor, until she followed him to the back door again and let him out.  She still had plenty to do before the store opened and with her latest task taken care of, she was already distracted by the upcoming day’s events.

                Changmin wasn’t offended by her silence or her professional brusqueness as she wrote him off once he was out the door.  He had what he’d come for with no one the wiser and it was more than time for him to be getting back to Jaejoong.  Even though he’d only been gone for little more than an hour, he was still nervous and jittery.  It just felt like there was a storm coming and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.  He hated the feeling…

                Waking in nearly total darkness was almost as bad as falling asleep in it.  No wait; it was worse since this time he was alone.  Stifling the fear that startled consciousness had briefly brought on, Jaejoong quietly cursed himself as he slipped out of bed and felt along the wall until he managed to locate the light switch, taking a large breath when his ability to see was restored.  “Nightlights,” he hissed.  “You hate them until it’s the one thing you’d give an arm for.”

                Rubbing his eyes fiercely with his fingers, he looked around again and tried to figure out what time it was.  There was no actual clock in the area but around the corner, the microwave had a time on it.  Of course when he saw it was twelve eighteen, he had to wonder about the accuracy of it…  Glaring at the glowing numbers, he sighed again and wandered back towards the desk, noticing a slip of paper on it.  It was a note from Changmin.  Well, he had said he’d be leaving early which still begged the question of what time it was.

                “Never mind,” he grumbled, pushing the note to the side as he stood up and rubbed the back of his neck, pausing when he remembered what had happened last night.  Mutely, he looked down at his pants and peered inside them, cringing before he looked up and scratched at the side of his head.  Yep.  That was not just a pleasant dream and it had happened…

                Not that it was a bad thing…  Quite the opposite.  Really.  With his fingers tapping on the waistband of his pants, Jaejoong closed his eyes and slowly counted to ten.  He was not going to regret it.  No.  He was not.  It had happened and there was no going back so…  Talking to himself, he hurriedly stepped out of the soiled clothes and quickly pulled his pants back on, nervous that Changmin might return at any moment.  Why it should matter if the other saw him mostly after their evening encounter, he didn’t know but it did.  Especially because he remembered he was the one to initiate it.

                Mutely, Jaejoong bonked his forehead against the wall.  “Ow…” he blinked, rubbing the small red spot with a pout.  Stupid.  He stood in front of the kitchen sink and washed his underwear by hand, lamenting the fact he had no additional change for that and set about cleaning them so he could wear them later after they’d dried.  It didn’t take him more than a moment and he dried his hands off, threading his fingers through his hair roughly.

                He needed something to distract himself.  The silence of the room was practically suffocating and he wasn’t even remotely hungry or he’d make something just to be busy.  His dark eyes landed on the desk again and he fled to it quickly, almost relieved to remember that he had slips of paper stashed in the top drawer from yesterday.  Energetically, he settled himself behind the desk, pulling out the scraps he’d discarded the other day, ready to resume his dissemination of them.  There had to be something useful in the pile.

                Locating a pen and a blank piece of paper, he started his train of thought again just to get things organized, shoving all thoughts of Changmin and… them aside for the time being.  He didn’t know when he’d get back and for now, there was no point in worrying, even if he didn’t know what the hell time it was.

                He wrote the number one down on the top of the paper and held his breath, debating where to start.  A glance at the disheveled pile gave him lots of snippets to start from.  To begin with, he was mostly positive that at least one of the three big companies had something to do with everything that was going on.  With the three assassins involved, all on separate missions, it was likely that they were all involved.  Quickly, he scribbled down Ddangkoma Foundation, AFFC and Azgard Cartel with question marks next to the names.

                Below that, he wrote the number two and scribbled down Changmin aka Max; B-Bomb and Yunho aka U-Know.  Based on his time with the middle assassin, he knew B had some correlation with his parents’ death.  He drew a double arrow between Changmin and Yunho with another question mark.  They were both connected somehow beyond the assassin camaraderie and were bitter about some failed mission before this one.

                A chill went up his spine as a dreadful thought occurred to him and he was hesitant to write it down because he really didn’t know all the facts.  Granted, that was the single biggest reason he had for actually putting it to paper.  Likely it was entirely coincidental but the only failed thing he knew about prior to this assignment for them was the assassination on his parents; or rather the retrieval of the documents he was no longer in possession of himself.

                Wait…  He knew he’d shot the man who was in their house that night.  They’d never found the bullet but even without it passing through the body, it would still have caused fairly substantial damage.  When B-Bomb had attacked him, there was nothing about their fight to indicate that he was recovering from a shoulder wound.  Of course he hadn’t exactly been looking for that at the time but in hindsight, even with great medical care, he’d have been suffering some sort of impairment or pain that likely would have transferred over.

                Jaejoong was no expert in the matter and he didn’t exactly have the tools at hand to confirm one way or the other but he knew from experience it took weeks, months or even years to heal from something like that.  Ah hell… just out of basic training he’d caught a stray bullet in the upper thigh in a relatively routine chase after two suspects had fled their vehicle upon crashing into a light pole.  It had taken him months to get released for active duty again and despite there being different locations and knowing that people healed at different rates, B-Bomb should have had some sort of hindering affects from such a wound.

                So if it wasn’t B-Bomb, who had definitely mentioned his parents, then who was it?  He had nothing else on anybody.  Or did he?  Shoulders…  He knew Changmin was injured now and he’d seen the front of him just fine but never his back.  Not that they went around without their shirts on for any length of time, but there had been that one time…  Back when he’d thought that he and Yunho were going to get into a fight, he’d seen Changmin favoring his shoulder.  He’d waved off his concern but something had definitely been bothering him.  Something about an old injury…  How old?

                Biting his lip harshly between his teeth, Jaejoong tried to picture the assassin in his mind.  He’d been on his left side and when he shot him, he’d shot his left side too.  That was strange though.  He remembered quite clearly he’d been asked several times about that because if he’d been shot at by said prson, why would he have hit the assassin in the back of the shoulder instead of the front?  It hadn’t made much sense then either, but since they’d found nothing to back up more than the one shooter, they’d had to assume it was just one.  But what if the one he shot hadn’t actually fired at him?

                What if B-Bomb had been there but was perhaps outside?  Had he fired at Jaejoong maybe?  Or… considering that neither Changmin nor Yunho were on good terms with B-Bomb, was he maybe shooting at the other assassin?  Was that why the other assassin had been facing away from him when he’d retaliated?

                Initially, they’d theorized he might have just been running but Jaejoong hadn’t actually seen a gun in his hands either.  He’d seen the documents and the flashlight but unless he’d managed to glimpse him when he was peeking around, which wasn’t impossible, he wouldn’t have had any reason to shoot at him or even to know he was there.  If someone else had been present though…

                On another sheet of paper, he jotted down the new thought.  Two assassins at the house.  B-Bomb and ?.  What about Yunho?  He scribbled his name under the first line and tapped the pen distractedly on the paper.  Reluctantly, he wrote Changmin’s name too, if only because at this point, he couldn’t simply rule anybody out without proof otherwise.  Like it or not, he was still an assassin.  Now, would they be working together or would they be on separate contracts like they were in this instance?

                Another thought occurred to him that left a bad taste in his mouth as he went back over the tentative facts.  What if they hadn’t even been firing at him?  That would explain why the assassin inside had been turned away.  Maybe.  Granted, even if he knew someone was there, he’d probably have turned the direction someone was shooting from too, just because.  It was hard to not listen to that reaction from your body.  But given the direction the gunshot had come from and the fact that Jaejoong himself had been behind the wall, it was certainly becoming more plausible that things weren’t quite as they had all initially thought they might be.

                Damn.  He needed access to the police records from that scene again.  At present, there was no chance in hell that he’d be able to get a glimpse of them but if he could get in contact with Jungsu, maybe his former Captain would be able to look into it further for him.  And he just might take his word for it too if he said he had nothing to do with Kyuhyun’s murder…

                “,” he breathed, setting his pen down as he pushed himself away from the desk to stare at the new notes compared to the old ones with narrowed eyes.  The question now was… when?  He didn’t know when Changmin would return and at present, he himself was unarmed and injured; not to mention wanted.  But he didn’t know when Changmin would return even if the note did say soon.

                And presumably, he’d be able to call Jungsu and actually get him at this hour.  The thirteen hour difference was killer but with it being early in the day, he might be available and even if he didn’t have change, he could still call collect from a payphone.  Jungsu wouldn’t appreciate having to cover the cost but given the newest info on the subject, he doubted he’d complain too vehemently.  Or at length.  Hopefully.

                Biting his thumbnail distractedly, Jaejoong folded his other arm over his body, wincing when it aggravated his bruised ribs, and muttered to himself.  Did he wait or not?  He absolutely hated the ‘what if’ game and it looked like he’d be playing it for a little while longer yet.  So long as he kept his head down, ran out and then came right back, it shouldn’t be a problem right?  Per Changmin, it wasn’t like the opposition had any leads on where they would be anyway.

                With any luck, it wouldn’t take him more than five minutes.  He could step away for five minutes.  Sure.  That was doable.  “Okay!” he stated firmly, getting up with a wince when his torso complained against his newfound enthusiasm.  “Let’s do this,” he told himself, making sure his appearance was as presentable as it was going to be before he took another deep breath and headed for the hidden door to step outside.

(a/n: Good lord, an update!  haha  I'm trying here.  lol  Hopefully you've enjoyed the latest installment and that you may be formulating some ideas on the matter.  I intend for things to get a bit more interesting next update so stick around and thanks so much for reading!

Oh!  On a side note, are Jaejoong's thoughts plausible insofar as reality is concerned?  I'm trying not to take too many liberties here and very much want to maintain a sense of realism with possible repercussions and whatnot.  If you've got any concerns, complaints or what have you, I'm all ears.  Thanks!)