//get ready for a hella long chapter, okay//

“Jongin, your phone?” Kyungsoo noticed it as the ring pierced through the quiet room, before passing the vibrating device in question to him.

Jongin saw the number, his heart dropping and his breath catching when he thought of what could have happened if Kyungsoo had answered- but Kyungsoo had always respected his privacy. Of course. Of course he wouldn’t just off. It was the fifth day since Jongdae had called. Jongin was on extra alert as well, because he’d never called back but he knew Jongdae, and he wasn’t necessarily one to give up easily. Jongin mustered up a small smile and a soft thank you, taking the phone and walking outside, not forgetting to close the balcony door behind him before answering.

“Hey, you never called me back!” Jongdae’s voice was light-hearted like it always was, something which never ceased to annoy Jongin.

“And you didn’t get the ing hint?”

Jongdae sighed on the other side of the line, “Well, just checking. I really wanted, no, needed you for this job!”

“I’m sure you can manage.” Jongin said, thinking of the tens, perhaps now hundreds of people that the leader had tucked under his sleeve, completely under his control. How Jongin had managed to slip out so easily was a mystery to himself; one which he never planned on uncovering.

“I’d manage easier with you.”

Jongin took in breath, having enough. “Don’t call me again, Jongdae. I don’t want to hear from you or to see you ever again. I told you I was done with it, and God knows how I’m managing to have such a civil ing conversation with you because honestly, I don’t exactly like you. There’s reasons I didn’t kill you, but you’re starting to make me feel like I’d gladly oblige so please, just stop now.”

“Still stubborn as ever, I see. I wonder, what happened to us?”

“I grew up.”

“That’s no fun,” Jongin could hear the pout. “Well, I guess I’ll see you around, Jongin.”

“I really hope not.” and with that, Jongin hung up. He ran a finger through his hair before placing his hands on the railing so he was leaning against. Exhaling loudly, he looked down to the busy Seoul streets surrounding the apartment block, letting his thoughts run. A lot had happened since he’d left Jongdae’s gang. Though admittedly, in the whole scheme of things, it hadn’t really been all that long.

He remembered when Kyungsoo had saved him.

It’d been a bad week when Jongin decided to it all. There was no salvation for someone like him. He was tired of living for nothing, of having lips tightly sealed because of past regrets. Jongin really was just a boy; barely a man but one who’d experienced far too much, and as he looked down to the bustling streets of Seoul, he had a simple thought,

It’s so easy to have no more of this.

Kyungsoo flashed through his mind, and he sighed slightly. The only thing worth living for, but when he found out the truth, that’d change. No one likes a killer, after all.

Jongin met Kyungsoo one day when he was out buying cigarettes. It wasn’t love at first sight; Jongin simply walked up to the cashier, asked for his regular package, paid the price and went home. Though he did notice he’d never seen him working here before, and the sign that’d been there saying employee wanted was gone, he thought nothing special of the boy with large eyes behind the counter, nervous faced, except perhaps how positively scared he looked. 

The next time Jongin went to the supermarket, he saw the boy once more. Kyungsoo, the name tag read, the boy this time with a soft smile instead of a bitten lip. This was how it was every following week. “How are you?” the boy would ask, packing groceries and then getting the cigarettes, where Jongin would reply with a gruff, “I’m alright.”And it seemed that with every meeting, Kyungsoo tried to get more out of the man that walked in with the bleached platinum blonde hair, the small Chinese writing on the back of his neck and the dead expression.

“You know, you really should stop buying these.” he said absentmindedly one day, scanning the packet of cigarettes before handing them to the man.

“What’s it to you?” Jongin replied rather harshly, to which Kyungsoo looked at him, rather amused and somewhat pleased about getting a different reaction from the other.

“I wouldn’t want to see someone like you hit it from lung cancer.”

You don’t know the most of it.

“You don’t even know me.” he spat back.

“Yeah, but I’m pretty sure an amount of what you buy here goes into my pay.”And then Kyungsoo laughed, and Jongin’s breath hitched slightly as he quickly paid for his items and went on his way.

Kyungsoo watched Jongin from a distance, looking through the packets of ramyun. It was eleven at night, and the boy was the decided last customer before he packed up and left.“Dinner?” he asked, looking at the packet of noodles in front of him.

The boy nodded, face unreadable as always.

“You ought to buy something more nutritious if you want to maintain your body stature.” he said as stood on his toes, taking the packet of cigarettes before scanning them.

“I really can’t be bothered cooking right now.” he replied, and it was safe to say it was the longest sentence Kyungsoo had ever gotten out of him.

“My shift’s over after I serve you, I’m going to get something to eat so you should come with me.” Kyungsoo rung the register, and Jongin realized he hadn’t scanned the noodles. Wide eyed, Kyungsoo laughed at his expression. “That wasn’t an invitation; come on.” For some reason, Jongin complied when Kyungsoo pulled him out on to the streets and they walked to one of the night markets. It was an odd feeling, having someone accompany him that wasn’t of his past, but when someone like Kyungsoo demanded to come into his life so openly and brightly, it was hard to close the door on something he’d never really had.

Kyungsoo wasn’t that hard to fall for.

Jongin remembers telling Kyungsoo that first night, “We shouldn’t be friends, you shouldn’t befriend someone like me.”

And Kyungsoo simply laugh in response, “What? Because you’re blonde and inked?”

“No, because I’m not a good person.”

The older smiled, “I can decide that for myself, Jongin-ah.”                                          

There weren’t enough people in the world like Kyungsoo, though Jongin thought that maybe, maybe if Kyungsoo knew, he wouldn’t say such things. 

The thing about Kyungsoo was that he had a heart of gold, a heart that wanted to take the sad expression off Jongin’s face. That wanted to know what was behind the tattoos and his head. Kyungsoo wanted to spend every waking moment in the presence of Jongin, someone he found so mystifying, so fascinating. Someone who seemed to open up to absolutely no one. As a student studying psychology, it was different when a person came along that he couldn’t read. Jongin was untouchable, like he’d blocked out the outside world from himself. Kyungsoo didn’t know why he would do such a thing, he just wanted it to go away so Jongin would smile more, whether he wanted him to or not.

Except gradually, Jongin began to open up to Kyungsoo, and as they walked one night, Kyungsoo snatching the grey beanie off Jongin’s head and running off as Jongin chased him after it, strong arms wrapping around his body to stop him and whines of give it back! accompanying his own breathless laughs, Kyungsoo realized that in a strange way Jongin was his, and there was just something about him that Kyungsoo was in love with. He wondered if when Jongin stopped buying cigarettes, and when his hold lingered longer that it should have, and when he linked their arms and smiled at Kyungsoo - actually smiled - if Jongin felt the same way.

Jongin had always thought his death would be a sort of vengeance, a you killed my brother so now I must kill you sort of thing, but really, Jongin thought if for him to die to be viable vengeance, Kai would have to be killed. The flaw with that was that’d he’d abandoned Kai a long time ago. Jongin was the body but Kai was the soul, and when reality had hit him and his best friend had died, Kai died with him. So he thought, as he swung his legs over and sat on the metal railing, that maybe, just maybe it was time for Jongin to die as well.

Kyungsoo had had an unsettled feeling inside his gut all day. He’d seen Jongin a few days before and something had seemed so terribly off about him, something so dark and so deeply, rawly Jongin that he couldn’t help but be concerned nor terrified. Jongin had a shell exterior, but Kyungsoo knew that so much more lay undiscovered, underneath. This gut feeling led to himself standing at Jongin’s doorstep, knocking loudly at the door. “Jongin, it’s Kyungsoo!” The man waited for a few seconds, and when there was no response he frowned and checked if the door was open - Jongin never locked it when he was at home. It was, and Kyungsoo let himself in. “Jongin, it’s just-” Kyungsoo’s words died in his throat as he looked forward, towards the balcony, and towards the man dangerously close to- 

“Oh, no. No no no no no.” 

Kyungsoo ran.

To say he was caught off guard by two arms wrapping around his stomach, pulling him from the ledge and into the apartment mere moments before he was going to jump off would be a lie, but Jongin would have found himself laughing at how cliché it was had he not be able to see the look on the face of the man who’d stopped him. Before he could react however, arms wrapped around the front of his body and a head buried itself in his chest.

“Kim Jongin,” the voice said, cracking slightly, before he looked up, glaring. “What the are you playing at?” and then the man started sending punches to his chest. “Are you stupid? What the were you doing?”

“I-“

And Jongin didn’t know how to respond. To say I was just going to jump off this ledge seemed a bit frank and slightly insensitive, but there wasn’t really any other way to respond. And even though he wanted to die, even though Kyungsoo had held him back from final closure, he couldn’t be mad. Luckily for him, he didn’t have to get past the first word, because Kyungsoo started talking again.

“Don’t do that to me, don’t do that to me ever again.” And then Kyungsoo was hugging him again. “Goddammit Jongin I don’t know why you went to do that, but I swear to God if I lost you I don’t know what I’d do, you don’t even know how much I care about you and-“ Kyungsoo cut himself off by pressing his lips to Jongin’s, and Jongin’s first reaction was to kiss back, before realizing what was going on.

They had to stop and whatever the hell they had had to stop, so gently, he placed his palms against Kyungsoo’s chest and pushed back softly. “I’m sorry,” he breathed, “I can’t-“ The disappointment on Kyungsoo’s face was obvious, but he didn’t push anything. “I’m so, so sorry,” he repeated, wide eyed, and Kyungsoo took his hand, rubbing circles into the top. Kyungsoo wasn’t not used to Jongin randomly apologising for things he didn’t know, and he had a feeling he wasn’t just apologizing for the kiss or how he was just about to kill himself. Kyungsoo felt this was something much darker, something that ran much deeper.

“It’s okay, Jongin. It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not.” Jongin’s voice was shaky as he begun to tremble, moving backwards. “I’m so sorry, we shouldn’t have become friends in the first place. You have to go, Kyungsoo hyung, and you-you can’t come back.”

“Why?” the older asked worriedly, Jongin’s behaviour making him anxious. “What’s wrong?”                    

“You can’t like me, you have to go. It’s wrong for you to kiss me, you’ll only be disgusted.”

“Jongin, what are you talking about?”

“I’m so ed up, I’m so ed up, and I can’t,” Jongin was on the verge of tears now, “-you deserve better, you deserve so much better then what I am.”

Kyungsoo wrapped Jongin in his arms and Jongin didn’t have the strength to pull away, nor did he hug back. Kyungsoo kissed his shoulder, “Tell me what’s wrong.”

Jongin was silent for a while, and Kyungsoo didn’t expect a response when he got one. Honestly, Jongin didn’t expect to tell him, either. Kyungsoo had done so much for him, though. If he owed anyone anything, it was Kyungsoo and the truth.

“I’m a killer, Kyungsoo- I’ve ing killed people.” Kyungsoo felt his hold on Jongin stiffen slightly, though his grip around Jongin didn’t lessen. It was a shock, of course, and though he knew what Jongin had done was wrong, he knew not the reason. All he knew was that he still felt the same. “I should be dead. I should be dead like all the people that I’ve ever murdered.”

“Don’t say that, don’t say those things.”

Jongin pulled away. “I don’t get you, I don’t get you at all! I’ve ing killed people, yet you’re not mad? You don’t hate me? You should be disgusted, but yet you sit here and look at me like I haven’t done anything wrong?” Kyungsoo had never seen Jongin look more frustrated, knuckles white as he clenched his fists. “If it’s pity you have to offer, I don’t ing want it! I’ve ed up, ‘Soo. I’ve ed up so badly and nothing is going to change it. Nothing is going to change anything that I’ve done and , I just want it to be over like it should ing be, so just do me a final favour and let me jump because I don’t care if it’s selfish, but I’d rather be dead than locked up.”

Without warning, the older grabbed Jongin’s shirt and pulled him forward, pressing his lips against his. Instantly, Jongin pulled back.

“What the are you-“

“I don’t care, Jongin. I don’t care. I’m not going to tell anyone.”

The anger inside the youngest flared up. “I could kill you, Kyungsoo. I could grab a knife and slit your throat right now. Aren’t you the slightest bit ing scared?”

Kyungsoo’s response was immediate. “No.”

Jongin didn’t know what to do, the response far too fast and far too certain for the situation, Finding out your friend is a murderer, finding out anyone is a murderer; it shouldn’t be like that. “Why the not?”

“Because I know you, and I know you wouldn’t do that to me.”

Jongin felt the walls he'd spent years building up begin to crumble, and Kyungsoo cupped his face, staring into Jongin’s eyes with his own. “I don’t care what you’ve done before. I don’t care how many people you’ve killed or how many times you’ve washed blood off your hands. I only care about you now, and you’re not that man anymore. You might have killed, Jongin, but I can tell you now; you’re no killer.”

And then Jongin’s world crashed, body breaking into sobs as he clutched onto Kyungsoo for dear life.

The two lay there in Jongin’s bed, his head nestled into Kyungsoo’s chest, both chests swirling with emotion. The news was still settling into Kyungsoo’s system, but he knew he couldn’t be mad at the man snuggling against him if he tried.

“…Jongdae, have I ever- have I ever said that name before?” Jongin broke the silence by talking, but he felt like this was something Kyungsoo had the right to know.

“I think so…”

“Well, when we were young… I don’t know. We had another friend, Zitao, and we’d be best described as… Misfits? I mean, underage, we smoked, did drugs, drank, got into fights all the time. It was out first year of high school when-” Jongin thought for a moment, “I guess we connected over our ty excuses for existences. I was abused at home, whilst-“

“Jongin-“ Kyungsoo tightened his hold on the boy, “I didn’t-“

“It’s okay, I haven’t seen him in years,” he said, and it worried Kyungsoo how easily he brushed it off, something which Kyungsoo could never imagine someone doing to Jongin.

“Jongdae was an orphan and- Tao was Chinese, so he got picked on a lot at a school like ours. We were the three weird kids. I’d remember walking into school with long sleeves to hide the bruises up my arms from my dad, but it didn’t matter because the other kids would just pull them up, and then they’d laugh. High school is such a ty time, you know? They say it’s meant to be the best years of your life, but everyone is so damn focused on climbing the social ladder that if you miss a step you’re screwed. You have to be a total to get other people to like you and the moment people realize something to use against it they abuse it. It was bad enough with the abuse, and then when they found out my mother had left it was even ing worse,” Jongin exhaled loudly, and Kyungsoo could see the pent up anger. “Like yeah, I get she never loved me and I get my father doesn’t either, but you don’t have to ing rub it in.”

Jongin took his head off Kyungsoo’s chest and sat up, the other following and taking Jongin’s hand in his own, linking their fingers and squeezing reassuringly. He didn’t really know what to say except I’m here for you, and he knew Jongin knew by the way Kyungsoo was making him know he was there.

Jongin took in another deep breath, before starting again. “Jongdae was always teased about having no parents and Tao was always teased because his Korean wasn’t the best, and even though he was a martial artist he’d never use it so they all thought he was weak. Whenever something’d happen to anyone the other two would come running and we’d sock the jaw of the er who decided to mess. It went from kids laughing at the bruises on my arms, to kids looking at me, face paling because now they weren’t caused by my parents, but from kids I’d likely hospitalized. I’m not- I’m not mad about hurting people in high school, I never started anything and I was just defending myself. It made people shut up about my life, at least to my face. I couldn’t give a about what they said outside, they didn’t know anything and when that happened they kind of… Respected me more? I don’t know, high school is ed. I don’t even know how we weren’t kicked out of that place but I really, really wish we had been or else this mess wouldn’t have started in the first place.”

Kyungsoo noticed the genuine look of regret on Jongin’s face as he spoke, and he wondered just how much unsaid Jongin was struggling with.

“One day, I think I was 17, maybe, we got a call from Tao and we could hear him being beaten up in the background. We ran and ran as fast as we could and we found him in an alleyway, being bashed by one of the football players. He was curled on the floor… and there was blood everywhere. If he wasn’t whimpering… I would have thought he was dead. So we beat him up, of course. There was two of us to one of him and Tao had given him a bit of a run for his money so it wasn’t hard, and he scampered off saying that he’d get us back one day. We took Tao back to my place and prayed to God that dad wouldn’t come home for the night because he’d be drunk and he’d probably hit us too. It was lucky he wasn’t. A few days later, just after Tao had recovered, the guy came back and- this time he had other people with him. He cornered us in an alleyway and he started throwing all sorts of at us; faggots, scum, you name it, and we got mad, of course. Long story short, we managed to scare off all of them except the guy from before, and he literally pulled a knife out and had me backed up against the wall when Tao hit him, like, this guy was going to kill me and then everyone else for no ing reason, like, I didn’t even know his name. And then Jongdae, I don’t know what happened to him. His eyes went dark and he grabbed a glass bottle and smashed it in his face. The guy fell over and you could hear the crack of his skull when it hit the concrete and… you - you couldn’t survive that. Tao and I were so scared that we were going to get found out, but Jongdae told us that it was okay and that he wouldn’t let that happen. We said about his friends but he said he wouldn’t let them rat us out.”

Jongin paused for a moment, before continuing. “It’s so ed, how Jongdae used to be a sort of father figure and now I hate his guts,” Jongin laughed bitterly, “Father’s have never really pulled through for me though.” he muttered as an afterthought. “When we saw each other next, Jongdae reassured us that no one would know that it was us who killed him, because well, he’d killed them. And you know, it was just self-defence, us killing him. Whether or not Jongdae had meant to or not didn’t matter, it would have been fine and I don’t know why we didn’t realize this until after Jongdae had started this whole… Thing. Somehow it turned from this into some underground organized crime. By then we’d moved out and we all lived in the same apartment block and we’d all dropped out of school. Jongdae was the leader whilst Tao and I- we did the dirty work. There were other people too, but I don’t really remember them… I preferred to work alone. There were multiple branches too; gambling and ion after a few years -  Jongdae really got his sorted out with that.”

Jongin looked down. “Admittedly, it’s probably the biggest underground gang in South Korea, and everyone under it is Jongdae’s pawn. You don’t mess with him or it’s a death wish. And I guess I kind of just… numbed to the killing? I wasn’t really Jongin anymore, I was Kai. I was this cold blooded killer who could point a gun at a child and shoot without the slightest bit of remorse, and I was Jongdae’s most treasured asset. He asked me to go into ion whilst I was there but I refused, be it anyone else and he probably would have killed them. You did what Jongdae told you to, but I was the only one that could say no and mess with Jongdae.”

A question popped into Kyungsoo’s mind. “Did you and Jongdae- were you just friends?”

Jongin sighed, “I don’t even know what our relationship was. It was like, one day we were best friends and the next day I was balls deep, ing him up against the wall of some dingy alleyway. I think it’d be too far to say there was an emotional attachment but… there was definitely something. I certainly didn’t love him and I think by then, he’d lost the capacity to love anyone. I don’t even know if I still can.”

Kyungsoo squeezed his hand, as if to say it’s okay.

Jongin shook his head, he was too off topic. “I was… his favourite. I was the golden child and he needed me more than he needed anyone else in that damn organization.”

The man’s voice was beginning to tremble, Kyungsoo pressing kisses against his head, not wanting to interrupt what he knew Jongin had never told anyone else.

“And I guess the novelty just kind of ended when I could see the effects. Because Jongdae trusted me, I’d usually get the assassin jobs for overseas. I could always get by and whenever I had to get myself out of a situation well, that’s where I’d have to use my body but- the aftershocks of something can’t affect you when you’re not there to be affected, you know? They’d find out the person had been murdered and I’d already be on the plane. I’d leave no traces so they couldn’t track me down. I got a new passport every time I had to go, each photo different, each name different. They never found the killer and I’m certain they never will because- and I can’t say it’s something to be proud of, but I was damn good at my job. And I mean, it’s so easy to kill someone and not feel bad about it because really, I don’t know them, I don’t know their family, their friends, why should I care? I couldn’t see what happened to people so it didn’t affect me, and only now, too long after to do anything about it, do I feel so goddamn blind to my own stupidity. I never felt anything when I pulled the trigger or when I heard the scream, I’d just dust the dirt off my hands and leave. The people I killed were never big enough to make it on the international news so the only time I ever knew of their names were on the paper that told me to kill them. Then one day, I had a murder in America, and it all went as it usually did and I got back and got home. I was in my apartment and the TV was on, and all of a sudden this news report came on from the US, about a woman, mother of three, the South Korean president’s cousin, and how she’d been brutally murdered. I hadn’t been nice with that one, I can tell you. There were rope burns all up her neck, her skin was blue and purple, and I’d seen that, I knew what that looked like. That was nothing new, that didn’t affect me.”

Jongin paused again, looking down. Kyungsoo wondered how hard this must be for him to say. “But then it showed her family once they found out, and I just- it wasn’t their crying that hit me, it was the looks of desperation on their faces, like, a part of them had been taken and it reminded me so much of the day that Jongdae and I first found Tao, hunched up on the ground as he was kicked in the stomach and- he’d just looked so desperate and I- I couldn’t imagine it,” Jongin’s hands were clenched into fists now, mouth twitching as he almost tried to come to terms with it again. “I couldn’t imagine ever doing such a thing to Tao so how come I’d done all these things to other people? I remember running to the bathroom and just throwing up and hearing the screams over and over again.”

Kyungsoo brushed his fingers through Jongin’s hair, trying to relax the boy who was now shaking in his hold, the memories rushing through his head, even more vivid then they had been in the moment.

“But it wasn’t something I could stop, it wasn’t like I could just tell Jongdae I was done. So I kept on going, I kept on killing and it kept getting worse. I noticed the screams and I absorbed them then. I can still remember every one and every person they belong to and it- it’s like nothing you’d ever imagine. I still see them and I still see them screaming and I was so ing confused because before it’d been fine. Tao wasn’t like us, though… He knew what being loved felt like. Tao had parents that loved him and Tao and a good mind and he knew how ed up it was. He knew he couldn’t quit so he was trying to ease himself out of the job, to mess up so that Jongdae just told him to leave instead of having to say that he wanted out. He tried to convince me to do it too and God knows why I didn’t say yes because I wanted out, I wanted it so much, but some part of me knew Jongdae wouldn’t allow it and the other strange, ed up part of me felt like I owed Jongdae for so much when we were younger, because in the end he was the one that stood up for me first when kids made fun of me for being abused and that my parents didn’t love me. Coming down to it, Jongdae was really the only one that made me feel consistently wanted, whether it was to do a job or whether- whether he was pleading my name as he lay underneath me. But even I couldn’t deny that Jongdae had changed, because whilst Tao and I didn’t want to be there, Jongdae did. I’d never felt anything when I’d killed before until I started to feel bad, but Jongdae… He felt some sort of sick pleasure.” Jongin’s face scrunched up with frustration, a tiny bit of confusion, and a whole lot of distaste. "I went out on a few missions with him and he was always the one to lay down the knife, and his face, it was terrifying. He wasn’t the 15 year old that I meant, he was a monster. He loved… torture. He takes hostages; they were his favourite part. He’ll have them cut, burnt, . He liked to hear their screams, watch them bleed. Jongdae went insane and all Tao and I could do was watch in fear in what he was going to do next, so obviously Tao was going to do the smart thing and get the out.”

“Did he-“ Kyungsoo asked, “Did he get out?”

He felt Jongin tense underneath him, and it took a while for a response. “No.”

Kyungsoo was hesitant in his question, Jongin might have already told him too much for one sitting, but he couldn’t stop himself from asking, anyway. “What happened?”

“Jongdae killed him.”

Kyungsoo bit back a reaction.

“It-” Jongin started shaking again, “Jongdae didn’t just let him go. He wasn’t happy with his performance so he- he killed him,” Jongin’s breaths were beginning to become laboured, his words slow, and Kyungsoo knew how vividly he was seeing it in his head. “He tied his wrists to metal rings and hung him up and sliced him straight down the centre, down his forearms and his thighs and- there was a huge gash under his eye on his face, like mine. I don’t think I’d ever seen so much of one person’s blood, and when I found him, Jongdae just- he just smiled at me, like, he felt nothing, Tao was like our brother and he felt nothing.”

Jongin’s voice had gone from slow to upset, and Kyungsoo had never seen him display so much emotion. “I was so mad, so upset. I wanted to kill him so badly. I wanted to slit his throat like he’d done to Tao and make him bleed to death, but I knew that for some twisted, ed up reason, even after all this, Tao would tell me not to, that he was our brother and that you don’t kill your brothers, so I didn’t. I pulled him off and I ran with him to the hospital even though I knew he was a lost cause, and then later when he lay in the morgue, I cried and I screamed. I screamed for everything that happened and the stupid mistakes that we made. I hated myself for not joining him because maybe this wouldn’t have happened and I hated it how we brought him into this because Tao shouldn’t have been one of us. Tao had people to live for and he had to die because of how ed up one of his friends, his brothers, had gotten.”

Jongin was on the verge of cracking, now, and all Kyungsoo could do was hold his hand and be as reassuring as he could, listen as best as he could as Jongin told all. It would be better afterwards, and they both knew it, but Kyungsoo couldn’t help but hate himself for not being able to do anything more as Jongin fell apart.

“So I packed up my apartment, went in the next day and I told Jongdae I was quitting. He told me I couldn’t just quit that easily but I walked away... I haven’t spoken to him since. I don’t want to talk to him ever again, I don’t want to hear about him ever again. I’m not a murderer anymore, but if I had the opportunity and the nerve I’d gladly end him. Some people- some people just deserve to die, you know? And whilst I’m one of those people I think- I think that Jongdae deserves to die more,” Jongin’s face was covered in tears now, and his voice cracked as he spoke again. “Who kills their own brother, ‘Soo? Who kills their own ing brother?”

Kyungsoo looked earnestly into Jongin’s eyes as he cupped his face in his hands, trying to, in some way, piece the broken shards of Jongin back together. “You don’t deserve to die, Kim Jongin. You don’t deserve any of this.”

And Kyungsoo held Jongin as he shook once more, the person in his arms not a man but a boy who’d been through far, far too much.

Snapping out of his thoughts, Jongin puffed, looking out at the other buildings before he heard the door slide open, and Kyungsoo’s arms wrapped themselves securely around his waist from the back. “You looked like you were finished… You don’t mind?”

“Of course not,” Jongin replied, sinking back into his boyfriend’s arms, welcoming the warmth.

“Who was it?”

Jongin stiffened slightly, but managed to keep his cool enough for Kyungsoo to not notice.

“Just- just one of the people from school...” Jongin replied, not exactly lying, but not willing to tell the truth, either. 

Kyungsoo got the message that he didn't want to talk about it, humming slightly.

“It’s cold, we should go inside.” he said softly, pulling his arms away.

“Yeah,” Jongin breathed, wrapping his arm around Kyungsoo’s shoulder and kissing the top of his head before walking him inside.

Everything was back to normal, now. If all went as plan, Jongin would never hear from Jongdae again, and he could go back to trying to live a normal life, because though it was something Jongin had lost hope for, it was what Kyungsoo deserved. Because Kyungsoo deserved the world, and Jongin had no ing idea why he’d been chosen, but he’d be damned if he didn’t give it to him. He just hoped his encounters with Jongdae would now cease, and he vehemently pushed down the black, building feeling that they were nowhere near over, leering over his body and conscience like a shadow.

//Authors Note//

Goddamn, this took forever to edit. Thus why it took longer.
This is offically the longest chapter in the whole fic, by the way.

I can never be fully happy with this because it's really hard to convey Jongin's anger with the right sort of words. I hope I am forgiven ;;
But hey, now you know Jongin's past! What do you all think? ^^

Anyway, please comment/upvote/subscribe/whatever takes your fancy, because I love love love feedback and it does help me out a lot.

Until next time! Stay cool, guys ;)