It’s a busy night for a weekday. At least half of the tables are taken and the bar has acquired a fair selection of solitary brooders to man the stools.

The jukebox rattles off an old jingle that Hyejin knows well enough to hum under her breath but not well enough to sing along to. Not that she doesn’t like to put on a show, but theatrics are saved for weekends and nights when she can persuade some clueless boy to sink his hard earned cash into the cause of getting her drunk. Having a decent voice and an aptitude for showmanship only works as a bargaining chip if you don’t make it your standard act.

“Another!” the man at the far end of the bar calls. Hyejin bites back the urge to suggest he say ‘please’ and snatches up his glass to refill it (no point in wasting a clean glass on an arsehole like him).

She sets the double vodka back in front of him and is entirely unsurprised when he doesn’t thank her. When he first walked in she’d assumed he was an easy target – the sharp suit, expensive sunglasses – men like that don’t normally come to places like this unless they’re trying to impress someone, and Hyejin’s always had a talent for a male ego in just the right way.

“It’s not like that,” he’d snapped when she’d lent forward far enough for her cleavage to be visible whilst suggesting he buy her a drink. And Hyejin’s no fool, she knows when she’s picked the wrong mark.

Still, he’s the most interesting person in here tonight. Maybe being turned down brings out her competitive edge, maybe he’s just good looking, but she doesn’t feel like sweet talking anyone else into paying for the rum in her coke.

He is good looking, if a little short. Straight teeth and a sharp jawline serve as a pleasant counterpoint to his round face and his hair looks delightfully soft. Hyejin wants to run her hands through it, or at least touch it before he ups and leaves.

“You waiting for someone?” she tries again, less flirtatious and more brusque. She has to say it a couple of times before he realises she’s talking to him, and when he does he looks entirely displeased at having been disturbed.

“Mind your own damn business.”

“My business is going nowhere fast.”

The man scowls and for a moment Hyejin thinks he’s going to treat her to aggressive silence, then his face splits into an almighty grin.

It’s quite the change of countenance. Hyejin does a double take trying to take in the eye smile, the wide mouth, the way his shoulders tip back and all of a sudden he seems open and personable. She looks around, sure that there has to be an outside influence.

“Jay!”

Yhup. The door closes behind a short man with full lips, half running towards the bar in excitement.

The man at the end of the bar – Jay – stands to embrace him and they laugh their way through pleasantries, “so good to see you Jimin! Here, let’s take a table.”

They move off together and Hyejin’s still stuck on the moment Jimin walked in. They call her over to order a couple of drinks and they don’t look like they’re dating, they don’t look like brothers. Hell, from the few scraps of conversation she catches, they don’t even sound like they’re that close. And yet Jimin is staring at Jay with a sort of wonder, playing into hands of a warm smile and a laugh perfectly designed to make ers feel good about themselves.

Hyejin knows that laugh very well, she all but invented it. Something here doesn’t add up, and she’s very sure that Jimin’s the one who’s going to suffer because of it.

It isn’t until sometime after midnight, when the bar is moving towards last call and starting to empty out that everything falls into place. Hyejin’s wiping down empty tables, trying to pretend that she’s not eavesdropping and failing to hear as much of their conversation as she’d like. But Jimin’s a little loud and when it’s his turn to talk she catches everything. Including:

“I just can’t believe I met the Jay Park!”

Hyejin keeps an eye on the business world. She’s got vague ideas about entering into it (by one route or another) should she ever save up the money to get a venture going, and whilst she knows that Jay Park is illusive and that very few photos of him are in circulation, she also knows that that is not Jay Park.

“You’re not Jay Park,” Hyejin says, after Jimin’s gone and ‘Jay’ has come to settle their tab.

His jaw clicks, charm vanished with his mark.

Hyejin an eyebrow, “how much did you shake him down for?”

Mouth threatening to twitch into a smile, ‘Jay’ hands over more than twice as much cash needed to cover the bill. By the time Hyejin looks up from the till, he’s gone, and she’s earned herself a very generous tip.

 

“We have got to be more careful Namjoon, that was too close.”

“Would you relax? The police aren’t after you, right?”

“Yes but-“

“You’re gonna be fine.”

“Namjoon! She looked me in the eye and told me that she knew I wasn’t him, she could call them anytime.”

“If she was gonna call, she’d have called by now. And if you were in danger, you’d be hearing sirens.”

“Just because I can’t hear them yet doesn’t mean I’m not gonna have police chasing me in five minutes' time.”

“I’ll see you soon Yoongi.”

Namjoon hangs up, laughing under his breath and Yoongi is left with a mouth full of unspoken fears, glaring at his phone screen. He could call back, but then Namjoon might actually start to worry and lord knows he doesn’t need to deal with that right now.

He had left the bar in a hurry and jumped onto the first available bus. He doubts it’s the first time someone’s spotted him out on a minor job but it’s the first time anyone’s had the balls to speak up. Yoongi doesn’t think that the girl at the bar is likely to turn him in (truthfully, she seemed more like the type to ask for a piece of the action) but it’s a bit of a scare to be confronted like that. His hands are still shaking in his lap and he’s suddenly very much aware that he’s on a public bus going to who knows where in a suit that practically screams ‘rich man worth mugging’.

He supposes that with a six hundred thousand won in cash sitting in his inner pocket, he’s very much worth mugging this evening. In the grand scheme of things it’s just loose change but it’s been a while since they pulled a big job and they need all the money they can get to start working on one.

Yoongi glances around, keeping an eye on the exits and other passengers. He’ll give it another three stops then he’ll get a taxi back to the motel, before he’s run too far out of town, and before he can convince himself that the sirens in the distance are after him.

 

The trouble with Kim Namjoon is that he wakes up at the crack of dawn. Yoongi groans as the curtains are flung open and sharp spring sunlight falls across the bed. He reaches over to peer at the time on his phone – 9:30am. On a Saturday. Ridiculous.

“C’mon sleeping beauty, we’ve got work to do!” Namjoon sets a mug of coffee down on the bedside table and falls as heavily as he can onto the end of the bed.

Yoongi sits up and takes the coffee. He catches a whiff of it and makes a face – instant – but takes a long slurp of it nonetheless. Talented or not he’s good for nothing without caffeine.

Namjoon watches him drink, “get that in you ASAP. I think I’ve got something but we need to move fast if we want to cash in on it.”

“Again? I’m bored of working so hard for small change Namjoon.”

“This isn’t small change if we play it right.”

Yoongi’s eyebrows raise, “you’ve found us a proper job?”

Namjoon grins and opens up his laptop. Yoongi sits forward to better see the page he’s opened up – a footnote column from the financial papers about a broker moving out of their offices in a hurry.

Interesting.

“You wanna pull the Seven Second Grift?”

Namjoon nods, “Some people say it’s a little obvious-“

“A little?” Yoongi scoffs, “it’s about the most obvious con in the book.”

“But it’s a classic! And I’ve never had a chance to try it out before,” Namjoon pouts, “pleaaaassse Yoongi? You know I wouldn’t suggest it if I didn’t think we could pull it off.”

“Well it depends what you mean by ‘pull it off’. Remember Taiwan? Fukuoka?”

“Yeah…”

“Busan, Daegu. That disaster in New York. And I don’t even wanna talk about Beijing.”

“Ok you’ve made your point.”

“And if you ever bring up Incheon again I swear to God.”

“ALRIGHT! So maybe I don’t have the best get away plans,” Namjoon huffs, “we’ll keep it simple this time though. Classic methods for a classic job.”

Yoongi drains the last of the coffee from his mug and stands to get dressed. The suit he was wearing yesterday is laid out over the waldrobe door like Namjoon was expecting him to wear it, but it’s work clothing and Yoongi hates dressing for business when he doesn’t have to.

“What are you doing?”

Yoongi pokes his head through the top of his favourite hoodie and turns to face Namjoon, “what’s it look like?”

“Ooh no, no casual clothes today Yoongi. We’re heading straight to Yeouido.”

Yoongi groans and pulls the hoodie back over his head, “when you say ‘we’ you just mean me. Can’t I get one day off?”

“I’ll be with you every step of the way,” Namjoon smiles, pointing to his phone.

Yoongi scowls. It’s not that it’s particularly hard work, it’s just the principle of the matter. All he really needs to do is get into the building, scope out the location and try to get on the good side of the security team. Not that that will take much effort, Yoongi’s been flirting his way past locked doors for years.

“How do I look?” Yoongi asks, brushing out his fringe.

Namjoon looks up long enough to give him an appreciative once over, “like you’d actually have a decent arse if you put on a few pounds.”

“Oh shut up!” Yoongi snaps. Namjoon loves his arse.

 

It’s impossible to deny that the Yeouido skyscrapers are an impressive site the first dozen times you see them. It’s equally impossible for Yoongi to get excited about them anymore when he’s spent so much of the past few years ducking in and out, hoping that no one recognises him.

So far so good on that count. He’d entered the building with minimal fuss and convinced the man at the reception that he was a potential buyer for the fourteenth floor office.

“We’re gonna have to move fast if this is gonna work Namjoon, they’re clearing this place out in three days,” Yoongi can’t help glancing over his shoulder to see if someone’s snuck up behind him, “it’s gonna take one hell of a er to take the bait so quickly.”

Namjoon snickers down the other end of the line, “you say that like you don’t expect me to already have someone picked out for the job.”

“Where on earth did you find someone that gullible, that fast?”

“Where’d you think?”

Yoongi hears Namjoon’s fingers tapping on the keys of his laptop across the line. Of course, the internet is a magical place.

“We need a good cover story for you though. Someone high profile enough to get his attention, but not one for public appearances.”

“That’s a big ask.”

“Yeah well if we had a little more time we might be able to build up an identity from scratch, but as things stand we gotta cut a few corners.” Namjoon pauses, “we can’t use Jay Park for this, he’s too big for the big time.”

“Even if he wasn’t I wouldn’t risk using him again so soon.” Yoongi collapses into a swivel chair and sets his feet on the desk in front of him. If he’s gotta trick someone out of a large sum of cash in this room he might as well develop his character while he can. He could be a ‘shoes on the work surfaces, I don’t give a ’ type of guy, that could be fun.

“What about Kim Yoonsung?”

Yoongi can’t help but laugh, “Jay Park is too high profile but you want me to pretend to be Gaeko?”

“Ok you’re right. Bad idea. Kim Jintae?”

“I can’t grow a beard in three days.”

“Jonathan Moon?”

“Built like a brick wall and speaks better English than you, never mind my sorry arse.”

“So you admit your arse is sorry.”

Yoongi scowls, “say you hate my arse one more time and you’re officially not getting any of it for the next month.”

“I’m not saying I hate it. Just-“

“Do you really wanna finish that thought?”

“Probably not.”

Yoongi heaves his legs off the desk in order to spin himself on the swivel chair. He gets a charming panorama of the abandoned office, the door, the fire escape, the view out of the floor to ceiling windows (classy), a large pile of empty boxes threatening to tip over and flood the room at any moment…

Huh.

“What about Primary?” Yoongi stops the chair facing the boxes.

Namjoon gives an appreciative grunt, “well known, well respected, appears in public but never shows his face.”

“He’s taller than me but-“

“But everyone’s taller than you,” Yoongi can hear Namjoon grinning down the phone and makes a mental note to get him back for it later, “and that’s never stopped you before.”

Yoongi stands up to leave, smoothing out his trousers and rebuttoning his suit jacket.

“I’ll meet you in the usual spot. Two hours’ time. Can you have the mark with you by then?”

 

The clock ticks over to five past four. Yoongi fights the urge to bite his nails. He needs to keep this as professional as possible, at least until they can be sure the mark isn’t coming.

So far the mark is five minutes late, which isn’t very much in layman’s terms but Yoongi had been ready for his arrival at quarter to, and he’s jumpy enough on the job without having to account for tardy victims. They had agreed that if he didn’t show by half past they would drop the con but Yoongi doubts he’ll last the next ten minutes before he bolts.

The door creaks open. Yoongi does his best to stand tall and cobble together his most welcoming of smiles as the mark steps into the room.

“Keith! So good to see you again,” he smiles, reaching out to shake the mark’s hand.

“Good to see you too, man.” Keith doesn’t smile.

Yoongi runs through pleasantries at breakneck speed, he always wonders that people don’t spot him trying to fit in as many questions about family and other business deals into the first five minutes of any conversation as is humanly possible, but he supposes that if they noticed he wouldn’t be a very good conman; and his targets would be far too smart for his own good.

What is surprising, is that Keith is the one to force the conversation onto the matter of business.

“I got the money,” he says out of nowhere, reaching into his briefcase to pull out two million won in cash and dropping it onto the nearest desk.

For a moment, Yoongi’s brain short circuits. It’s a lot of money; he’s seen more in this line of work, but never with such little warning. “I…”

“That’s how this works right? You said if I got you the money, you could handle the rest.”

Keith’s still not smiling. He stares at Yoong unblinkingly from under a mop of badly bleached hair.

When Namjoon had shown up at their favourite Nonhyeon bar with Keith Ape in tow Yoongi had been sure this was going to end badly. He’d heard tell of the reckless investor but figured that anyone who spent so much time with so many high powered people had to at least know something about what it looked like when you got stitched up.

But Keith had taken the bait, hook line and sinker. Yoongi has sat back, watching flabbergasted as Namjoon fed him the lie about the seven second window between the Tokyo and New York stock exchanges, expertly spinning his bull to make it sound like this could give the savvy investor the kind of head start that would make them millions in the right market environment.

The Seven Second Grift – one of the oldest tricks in the book and something that Yoongi thinks even the most inexperienced of investors should be warned against. Without prior knowledge, it sounds just legit enough to be plausible, and the fact that it requires ‘investors’ to leave a large sum of money with the grifter running the con makes it one of the easiest long cons to pull off. Assuming you can find a mark it will work on that is.

“You need me to sign anything?”

Slowly, Yoongi shakes his head, “No. No this is fine, we’ll be able to do a lot with this.”
“Cool. Call me when you make me some money.”

And just like that, Keith swans out of the office like leaving two million in the care of a relative stranger is a perfectly ordinary and logical thing to do.

Yoongi blinks at the money, giving it an experimental prod to be sure that it isn’t y trapped in any way. He leaves it five minutes, just as agreed, then slips out of the building before anyone can realise he’s there.

 

Yoongi’s halfway down the block, eyes roving the traffic for a taxi when it all goes to . When he looks back on it he’ll say that he should have recognised the face emerging out of the crowd, but in the heat of the moment all he wanted to do was get the hell out of Yeouido and back to the motel.

“Jay! Jay Park!” Yoongi doesn’t realise the man in the overlarge coat with a look of grim determination in his eyes had been talking to him until they’re practically face to face.

The expression is unfamiliar, but Yoongi knows that face, “…er…Hi Jimin! Good to see you?”

“You think?” Jimin reaches into his pocket to pull out something that looks like a wallet, “take a look at this and tell me if you’re still happy to see me.”

The wallet falls open to reveal a police badge. It catches the last of the evening sun, reflecting it back into Yoongi’s eyes and blinding him for a moment, but there’s no denying that’s what it is.

It’s a small miracle that he manages to shake Jimin off, and Yoongi’s sure that he has nothing but dense traffic and denser crows to thank for it. By the time he makes it back to the hostel, out of breath and sweating through his suit, it’s an hour later and he’s almost surprised that Namjoon hasn’t been tracked down and arrested already.

They have to leave. Immediately. Head out into the countryside and lay low for a few months and stay out of Seoul for the next couple of years if they can help it. Anything less will have them sitting behind bars faster than Namjoon can hack the subway system.

“At least you got the money, I guess,” Namjoon grumbles when Yoongi informs him that post-con is completely out of the question.

 

By midnight they are miles outside of the city and the rain is pissing down.

“I hate this,” Yoongi says between chattering teeth, “I knew, I ing knew that job was gonna come back to haunt us.”

“You say that about every job!”

“Yeah, because I’m sure that sooner or later they’re all gonna come back and bite us in the arse.”

“Yeah well they can get in line, that’s my job.”

The headlights of a car blink into view a few hundred metres ahead of them, and Yoongi ducks behind Namjoon as he holds out a thumb to ask for a lift.

The car doesn’t stop, but the driver has the good grace to avoid the large puddle threatening to consume half the road. It’s nice to avoid an unnecessary soaking.

The downside, of course, is that they still have no ride.

“If a car doesn’t stop in the next half hour I’m calling a cab, I don’t care,” Namjoon says. He reaches out to take Yoongi by the hand and marches them both further into the night.

“You can’t do that Namjoon, we’ll get caught.”

“Well we can’t go on like this for much longer. You’re shivering enough as it is, you’ll be hypothermic by the time morning rolls round if you don’t get somewhere dry soon.”

“I’m fine,” Yoongi insists, drawing his coat further around himself. It’s pointless, as the thing is soaked through and Namjoon knows full well that Yoongi feels the cold rather keenly, but he really doesn’t want to be caught out by a cab driver in the pay of the wrong person.

Or the right person, as the law would dictate. Whoever it is, Yoongi doesn’t want to go to prison.

Namjoon pauses and turns to look at Yoongi. It’s hard to make out is face in the dark but if Yoongi had to guess he’d say he looked worried.

“You’re alright aren’t you? I mean I know we’re on the run, in the middle of nowhere and the weather ing , but you’re not gonna collapse or anything.”

Yoongi rolls his eyes, “I’m not that feeble Namjoon. God.”

Namjoon makes an unconvinced grunt, “you should take my coat.”

Yoongi opens his mouth to protest but Namjoon has already removed his waterproof and slung it over Yoongi’s shoulders. It’s lightweight, but it’s astonishing how much difference it makes not having to contend with the windchill.

“Thank you,” Yoongi mutters, leaning up to give Namjoon a peck on the lips.

“Don’t mention it.”

Another set of headlights come into view and once again Namjoon holds out his thumb to ask for a ride. The car slows to a halt beside them, the driver rolls down the window and for the second time that day, Yoongi encounters an unfortunately familiar face.

“Get in, I know a place you guys can hide out,” the girl grins.

“You’re…you’re the…from the bar!” Yoongi splutters.

“Sure am Jay!”

Namjoon looks between the two of them, “you guys know each other?”

The girl offers a hand through the window and they shake, “Hyejin.”

“Namjoon.”

“Don’t go telling her your name! For all we know she was the one who turned us into the police!” Yoongi hisses.

Namjoon shrugs, “we’re miles from anywhere and she has a car. I’m willing to take that chance.”

“That’s the spirit!” Hyejin laughs as Namjoon climbs into the backseat of the car and drags Yoongi in after him.

“I still don’t trust you,” Yoongi snaps as the car pulls away.

Hyejin laughs him off, “good! You’d be making a mistake if you did. But you guys were gonna freeze your off out there so chill out for the next ten miles and let me get you somewhere safe.”

“I don’t-“

“You can thank me later…”

Namjoon slips a hand over Yoongi’s shoulder and pulls him back into a half hug.

“Relax,” he whispers, “no use worrying till we know if there’s something to worry about. Besides, if she tries anything we’re two million won up.”

Yoongi opens his mouth to protest, but it’s at that moment that Hyejin turns on the heating and he’s hit by a blast of warm air to the face. He doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but happens. He doesn’t wake till the next morning, to the sound of Namjoon and Hyejin laughing about a job they pulled three years ago in Bucharest.

Yoongi groans and pulls the duvet up to cover his ears. He’s definitely still suspicious, but when Namjoon suggests that Hyejin come with them for the time being, he can hardly say he’s surprised.