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Heeseung grimaces, the chunk of concrete impaled in his torso binding him in his spot. The blood was starting to rush to his head, causing him to feel the disconnect with his lower body even more.
He was dangling head first over an impossible drop down with no way of moving, and he was starting to feel light headed.
“ 01, are you there? Are the bombs in place? The building is already starting to collapse .” The staticy, yet concerned voice of Jay blares over his earpiece.
The team leader doesn't want to respond. Each passing second he can feel the energy seeping out of him. He can feel like blood trickling down his chest towards his neck. He can feel every little twitch in his body.
“Look, 03… I’m not going to make it out,” Heeseung wheezes, every breath he’s taking is hurting him, “The bombs are in place… I’m going to detonate them. I need you to get the team out now.”
He’s incredibly glad that the adrenaline has started to kick in, because before he was gritting his teeth in pain to prevent himself from crying, and now he felt perfectly fine. He was still tired, but even the trails of blood that threatened to choke him just felt like a hot shower.
If it hadn't, he would've felt the concrete sinking deeper into his torso.
“ 01- Heeseung, we’re going to get you out. Don’t push that fucking button .” Jay snaps in frustration, shuffling follows soon after.
“Jay, I’m blowing this place to smithereens. This is… against protocol. As your team leader… go .” When he tilts his head back he can almost see the black dots on the ground representing his team.
“Heeseung, I-” the older rips the earpiece out, and with his last burst of strength sends it spiralling to the ground below him.
In his newfound silence, all he can do is think. Wonder where it all went wrong, wonder if he’s going to die while others still hold grudges long forgotten against him.
Blood starts running into his vision, but he hardly notices- everything starts to turn crimson, but he thinks that’s how he’s seen his entire life. It’s almost pretty. Eerie but beautiful, the world looks so much better in red.
He wishes he could’ve said a proper goodbye to Jungwon. Not the one he practiced for weeks on end and executed with an awkward pat on the head. He wanted to give him one last tight hug of reassurance and tell him that everything would be okay, even if it wasn’t. He was getting too used to doing that.
He wanted to see Jay face-to-face one last time. Heeseung wanted to pat him on the back and tell him that he’s proud of him even though he’s never told him that before. He wishes he could be half the man that Jay was.
He wills himself not to cry, not even realizing when he loses vision in his left eye from stray glass shards raining down on him from above. He also doesn't feel the other cuts and scrapes they create on their way down.
Suddenly his mind wanders to Sunghoon.
With almost no warning, no time to prepare him, Heeseung was passing all of his duties and responsibilities to his next best man- and that worried him.
It pained Heeseung to imagine Sunghoon in this exact position. Knowing the same, if not less than him, and knowing he could do nothing to change his fate.
He didn’t want them to ruin Sunghoon too.
But he couldn’t do anything about it. As long as Sunghoon doesn’t get too curious too fast… as long as he doesn’t get careless… and as long as he doesn’t run in blind… Heeseung had faith in him that he could finish what he started.
He doesn’t realize when he starts crying. A pathetic mix of tears and blood, and he finds it even harder to breathe than before. In his struggle, he at least deatches his ring from his hand successfully, tossing it as far away from the building as possible and closing his eyes to try and stop the flow of liquid.
His remaining vision is starting to fade. To end their suffering now, he had to die. He realized that a long time ago, but even as the day ticked closer, he never quite grasped the reality of the situation.
If there was one thing Heeseung was terrified of most, it was death. He never wanted to understand how nothing would feel. It scared him how fast a life could be snuffed out, especially when he was the one to do it.
With a shaky hand, he pulled out the detonator, apologizing to the wind in a whisper, and then Lee Heeseung was no more.
—
There was nothing left of him to bring home.
Sunghoon was coming back from his own mission in Japan that night when he heard the news. It wasn’t often that there was so much emotion or commotion in the headquarters, but when he saw who it was he became worried.
Speeding up his pace, he drops down beside Jungwon who was inconsolable and sobbing in front of Jay.
Jay had visible tears stains down his face, but he was now holding it together much better than the younger.
“What happened?” Sunghoon asked, pulling Jungwon into his arms.
“God… Heeseung… he was being stubborn and wanted to do everything by himself… and…” Jay was having trouble finding his words, and hearing him talk just made Jungwon sob even harder.
“He wanted to do what by himself?” Sunghoon urges him to continue, rubbing the younger’s shoulders. Anything that concerned Heeseung inevitably had to concern Sunghoon too.
“Blow the place up. He set the bombs and… wanted to detonate them. He said he needed to find something up there, but it obviously didn't matter.” He clenches his fists.
“Well what happened. Where’s Heeseung?” Sunghoon pressed, resting his chin on Jungwon’s head.
“He’s dead, Sunghoon. He either blew up in the explosion or got crushed by the roof of the building.” Jay spits through gritted teeth.
Sunghoon is taken aback. Surely this was a joke? His grip on Jungwon loosens, and he unintentionally glares at Jay who refuses to meet his eyes.
He looks utterly defeated.
Sunghoon doesn’t know what to say. Everything about Heeseung to him was an enigma. One that he had hoped to solve before he died. Or well, before Heeseung died.
Since they were children, Sunghoon and Heeseung were rivals. Always the first and second-best in the class- and Sunghoon always falling just a few steps behind Heeseung no matter what path they took.
In his earlier years, Sunghoon was admittedly prideful. He hated Heeseung’s guts, just as all the other students that fell behind him.
Sunghoon was one of the seven students who survived all ten years of preliminary training and education.
Lee Heeseung graduated at the top of their class, slated to be the organization’s best spy. Park Sunghoon was second only to him, always second best, always overlooked. Park Jongseong was third, now a highly respected team leader in the special operations division. Yang Jungwon, fourth and promoted to the medical unit. Sim Jaeyun, fifth, weapon specialist. Nishimura Riki, sixth, technology expert. Kim Sunoo, seventh, head of the fraud and identification departments.
As the jealous kid he was, he was never particularly close with any of his classmates. The only person who was able to break through his shell was Jake, who is his only real friend under the organization. Everyone else was civil with him now, although that too stemmed from hate.
Sunghoon and Heeseung often trained side-by-side after that. When they turned seventeen, they were already trained killers and experts in their field. Neither had the time to mourn their lost childhood or innocence, and even less to wallow in their own repressed emotions.
Although Sunghoon saw Heesung as his one destined rival, he also saw him as someone he could depend on. Earlier they argued more often than not. They had physical spats and more scars from each other than they could count, and they were pitted against each other since they were children.
However, just as many times that they’ve knocked each other down, they have also picked each other right back up. They’ve treated each other’s wounds as they were bleeding out onto the concrete, they’ve begrudgingly bandaged each other up after they’ve fought, and they’ve vouched for each other when others would expect them to try and get the other in trouble.
Both of them were just kids who grew up too fast with nothing but superficial hate keeping them apart.
Stuck in his thoughts, Sunghoon continues to sit in silence with the two crying agents. He only resurfaces once Riki and Sunoo stop by to check up on them, and he realizes he should leave now before it becomes a complete disaster.
He wishes his condolences before rushing back to his own dorm. Slamming the door shut behind him, he instantly feels the built up tears threatening to spill.
He fumbles forward, reaching to disconnect the ‘secret’ microphone under his desk. Shaky hands eventually disconnect the device, and he sinks down the end of his bed before the tears start leaking out.
Sunghoon doesn’t cry a lot. Even though he has awful emotional control, he never cries- which makes his absolutely heartbreaking sobs much more foreign. His shoulders were shaking and he could barely breathe- he felt like a kid again.
A lost, fragile kid that had nobody and nothing in this world. Sometimes it felt like he could spiral back to that state in mere seconds. This was one of those times.
It feels like he doesn’t have the right to cry over Heeseung. Whether it be him invalidating his own emotions, or the guilt he feels for being as terrible as he was to the older boy over the years, it just doesn’t feel right .
Sunghoon thinks he’s cried for hours by the time he starts to feel sleepy and lightheaded. His eyes are red and puffy, his throat is tight, and he feels like he’s exhausted all the liquid in his body. The sleep that follows him isn’t at all calming.
Sunghoon surfaces in an abandoned parking garage. It’s dark, and the lights around him are completely shot out with shards of plastic remnant on the ground below them. He narrows his eyes while they adjust to the dark, and he eventually sees a blood trail that vaguely sparks a memory in his mind.
He grimaces, stepping around some dead bodies in the darkness and deciding to follow the trail up to the next floor.
The boy comes to an abrupt halt when he sees Heeseung crumpled in the middle of the empty lot, blood pooling around his body that was growing with every passing second.
Sunghoon remembers this.
Cancun, Mexico. Sunghoon was seventeen, and Heeseung eighteen. The agency themselves decided that Heeseung needed a partner for this excursion despite his track record of successful solo missions. Sunghoon was obviously their best choice.
Sunghoon quickly rushes forward in an attempt to stop the bleeding- the same as he did five years ago. Je tears off a piece of his shirt for a makeshift bandage, but comes back confused when the flow of blood doesn't even slow in the slightest.
“Heeseung?” He asks gently, shaking the boy.
He doesn’t move.
“Heeseung!”
Sunghoon remembers this so vividly that it’s burned into his memory. This twisted memory may also have a permanent place there.
When they landed in Cancun, the only thing that Heeseung had told him was that he shouldn’t shoot unless shot at first, and to not get in his way. Sunghoon being the brat he was, obviously didn't listen to him.
It didn't take long for them to get discovered, and both of them immediately opened fire on the gang they were supposed to be tracking.
After an admittedly reckless move on Sunghoon’s end, he was right in the final member’s line of fire before Heeseung pushed him out of the way.
As a result, he was shot eight times.
Sunghoon was able to take the rest out by himself, and he felt the guilt wash over him at once. He crashed down beside the older boy and tried his best to stop the bleeding since that’s all he could do.
The only reason Heeseung was still alive was because Jungwon didn't trust Sunghoon to be alone with him, and as a result was able to perform surgery on him almost immediately after.
Heeseung never resented him for it. Sometimes Sunghoon wished he did.
While the younger watches him take his last shallow breath, he suddenly feels a presence appear behind him. Before he can turn, he feels someone else’s body collide with his and forces him to the ground.
He yelps in surprise, feeling the rough asphalt against his skin and blood coating his left cheek.
“Hi Sunghoon.” A familiar voice rings tauntingly in his ear.
With his head still held firmly in place, his gaze shifts upwards to see the all too familiar face.
“It must be nice knowing you killed me. I know that’s what you wanted in the end.” Heeseung’s stare is so intense that Sunghoon finds it difficult to return the statement.
This is just a dream, so why does his chest hurt so much?
“Not anymore. You of all people knew I loved you.” Sunghoon attempts to get up but is immediately met with the entire body weight of his captor.
“Did I really, though?” Heeseung asks innocently, pressing him further into the pavement if at all possible.
Sunghoon feels it burn. Dreams shouldn't feel like this.
“If I didn’t die here, you would’ve gotten me killed somewhere else. Why wouldn’t you just let me bleed out on the spot? You know that’s what you wanted.” He says menacingly, looking down at him.
“That’s not what I want- not anymore! I just wanted to love you goddammit.” Sunghoon cries, coughing up blood that he has no idea the source of.
“Yeah right.” He scoffs, letting go of him roughly and crouching down beside the body. His body.
Sunghoon hacks up some more blood, wheezing by the time he’s back on his knees, “You’re just a figment of my imagination… You’re just a figment of my imagination.”
“Of course I am. I’m dead.” Heeseung snaps matter-of-factly, checking the other Heeseung for a pulse.
“You’re dreaming of me because you want closure. You want to say sorry to someone who’s dead. You want what you could’ve had while he was alive.” Heeseung is ranting aggressively, continuously checking all vital points for any source of life.
There’s silence as Heeseung circles his body, eventually stopping in front of Sunghoon’s kneeling form.
“You’ve lost your chance for change, Sunghoon.” Heeseung says finally, bloody hand lifting the boy's chin to look up at him.
“You need to wake up now. Getting lost in a fantasy isn’t good for anyone, you know that.”
“Sunghoon!”
The aforementioned boy startles himself awake, seeing Jake swing open his door.
“The boss wants to see you. Oh man, you look like shit.” His voice softens, as he starts to examine his friend’s state.
“Thanks Jake… I’ll head over there in a few minutes.” Sunghoon shoos the boy out of him room before he can question him further.
He steps into his connected bathroom, splashing himself with cold water in an attempt to not only wake himself up, but cover up the evidence of him crying himself to sleep the night prior.
Sunghoon leans against the sink with water dripping down his face. Sighing heavily he tries to erase the memories of last night's dream. Heeseung was dead. He would have to live with that.
Changing out of yesterday’s clothes, he strides through the halls with as much confidence as he has left in him. When he passes Riki and Sunoo they look so deflated that he’s worried they may wilt while they’re walking.
None of the agents who passed him consoled him for his loss like they did with Jungwon or Jay. They all saw them as rivals- enemies- two people who would never see eye to eye. Unfortunately, Sunghoon cared much more than he let on, and he was carrying that burden alone. He didn’t even want to tell Jake, since he was arguably much closer to Heeseung than him.
Ten minutes later he’s standing in front of an inconspicuous door on the twentieth floor of the building. He knocks four times exactly, hearing a voice inviting him inside.
Stepping into the room, two bodyguards exit as he enters, taking post outside the door- shutting it behind them.
Sunghoon sits down on the chair in front of Kim Namjoon, their organization’s coordinator and acting leader. He appears indifferent to have the spy in front of him, and merely logs out of his computer to give him his full attention.
“Good morning, Sunghoon. It’s a pleasure to see you alive and well- I’m sure you heard the news.” Namjoon kicks back in his chair, smiling as if the boy should be happy about this.
Sunghoon has a hard time keeping a straight face when all he wants to do is break down and cry again, “I did. It's truly unfortunate that he would go out that way, he was the agency's best.”
“Well clearly he wasn't the best.” Namjoon’s joke is tone deaf at best, and Sunghoon has to refrain himself from reaching for him over the table.
“Well, Sunghoon, it seems like you're our agency's best now. Since Heeseung's cases would otherwise go inactive because of his death, I will be transferring them over to you.” Namjoon smiles, spinning around in his chair to find the cases in one of his many filing cabinets.
The files are spread in front of him when he looks back down.
“What’s this?” Sunghoon asks, pointing at the one file with a different colour. A red marker labels the file as CAC.
“Oh, my mistake. This was one of his closed cases.” Namjoon quickly removes the file, storing it in one of his desk drawers.
Sunghoon tries not to stare at him skeptically, “Should I start by backlogging on his progress?”
“Of course, of course. Read through the notes he left and try to get another lead. I believe he’s been stumped on some of these for months. I’m putting my utmost trust in you, Sunghoon.” Namjoon smiles again, shaking his hand before escorting him out of the office just as quickly as he’d entered.
Sunghoon makes his way back to his room with the files clutched tightly in his hands. When he finally sits back at the desk he sprawls them all out and takes a quick sample of each of their cases.
All of them are marked up with particualrly near handwriting, however as he delves closer to the notes more recent in time, the writing becomes uncharacteristicly messy.
Every single one of the cases seems complete or extremely shallow on the surface to the point that Sunghoon doesn't seem to understand how Heeseung could've fallen behind on this. Sone of these would only take days to complete and he’s had them sitting out for months. So why ?
Sunghoon is standing in Heeseung’s room, which looks identical to his own except with a little more room and more furniture scattered around. The older is throwing a switchblade repetitively above his head, catching it with one hand, seemingly bored out of his mind.
Stiffly in the corner of the room, Sunghoon remembers that he was unsure of why he was called there. They were in their twenties, petty rivarly mostly pushed to the side. The two of them had had their moments, but nothing beyond that. Would Sunghoon yet admit he admired the older? No, he still wasn't there yet.
Sunghoon obviously hadn’t been in the boy’s room before, and he was a bit stunned to find that it looked so similiar to his own. Sure, Heeseung was never flashy, but he’d expected a bit more from someone who was paid so much.
The older continues throwing his blade in indifference. Like clockwork, the knife spins and he catches it. It spins and he catches it.
“Sunghoon.” Heeseung finally says, although it sounds more like a question than a statement.
“Yes?” He asks, leaning forward.
“Please sit down; you just standing there is making me anxious, and take that pocket knife out of your sleeve. I’m not trying to kill you.”
Sunghoon scoffs, he should’ve seen that coming. Rolling his knife out of his sleeve, he slides it across the floor towards his bed. Heeseung ignores it, but sends his own switchblade so hard into the air that it impales into the ceiling.
Sunghoon sits down at his desk that is full of files. He knows he shouldn’t look at them, but his instilled instincts tell him to take a peek.
All the files looked the same except for the print indicating which each were. Some of them included Kaliningrad, Dublin, and Troy. Heeseung also didn’t seem to mind him snooping, a silence falling across the room.
“What are you working on right now?” The older asks, turning to him.
Sunghoon takes one last look at the table and notices a file labelled CAC.
He’d just seen that.
“I have a trip to Japan in a few weeks. I’ve been following a money laundering scheme.” Sunghoon admits very generally.
It was odd for him to ask, normally people kept their cases private. And why he told him? He’s not sure of that either.
Heeseung hums in acknowledgment, standing up to look at his bookshelf. Sunghoon follows his figure very carefully and laughs, “Do you even have time to read any of those?”
The older pulls out a very thick book, “It would be a shame to pass up on some light reading.”
Sunghoon scoffs, looking at the generic cover, “That just looks like a two thousand page self-help book.”
“It is what is is.” Heeseung smiles genuinely, “There’s a lot more information in here than you think.”
He eventually picks up another book and scans the synopsis’ of them while Sunghoon once again glances at the files from the corner of his eyes.
“Why’d you call me here? You’re not usually one to talk.” Sunghoon asks.
“I actually wanted you to take a look at my cases and get your input on them. I’ve been having some trouble up in Moscow and want some advice.” Heeseung tells him casually.
Sunghoon just nods, taking another brief glance at the CAC file before picking up the one labelled Moscow. He found this odd, to say the least. Heeseung never let people in on his cases- not Jungwon, not Jay, and certainly not him.
Quickly flitting over the notes inscribed neatly on the file, Sunghoon quickly realizes this is one of the easiest cases he’s ever read. Raising an eyebrow, he quickly turns around in the chair to face away from him.
There’s a heavy sulence in the room as Sunghoon re-reads the notes. There’s no way Heeseung needed help doing this. Maybe he just wanted to talk.
“Have you ever wondered what life would be like if you were never brought here?” Sunghoon finally breaks the silence, flipping the paper again to pretend he was still considering possibilities.
Heeseung doesn’t answer for a moment, instead returning to his bed and laying down, “I used to; not anymore. It’s no use getting lost in a fantasy when you have a life to live.”
Sunghoon hims in acknowledgment, however he has to disagree. He always wondered what his life would be like if he wasn’t a seasoned killer. If he’d gotten to meet his parents- or even had extended family, Sunghoon wondered about those possibilities all the time.
The boy was about to speak up once again when the blade Heeseung had thrown earlier fell loose from the ceiling. He immediately reaches out a hand to catch it, and closes it immediately. He doesn’t pay attention to the small cut it made.
“Do you ever think about dying, Sunghoon?”
The question is random, but Sunghoon hears the strain in his voice. He turns back around in his chair.
“Always. I’m not keen on getting my karma once my heart stops.” He admits, putting the file in his lap.
“I think death used to scare me a lot more when I was younger, but it’s still something I worry about today. We’re so young, but we can die any day from just going to work.” Heeseung comments offhandedly, throwing his switchblade to the concrete floor.
“Yeah. I hope to get out of this business one day.” Sunghoon admits quietly.
“Me too. Maybe we’ll go out with a bang.” Heeseung says jokingly, although there’s a particular heaviness in his voice.
“I think the organization might fall apart without us.”
Lost in memories that he’s sure has clues even if he can’t decipher them- he realizes he’s been standing idly with a file labelled Brunei in his hands. There’s a knock on his door.
“Come in.” He calls, shaking himself back to reality and shutting the files, stacking them neatly in a corner.
Jay steps into the room, checking if the microphone in his room is covered before turning to sit on his bed. He also looks like shit but Sunghoon isn’t going to point it out.
“I need to talk to you.” The older says, rubbing his temples.
“What’s up?” Sunghoon asks, slipping down to his chair and immediately feeing a wave of déjà vu wash over him.
“Some things have been bothing me about Heeseung’s death, and I don’t aant to bring it up to the others because I know they’ll just start crying.” He explains quickly.
“When he got assigned to CAC he was perfectly capable of doing the mission by himself.” Jay starts, hands moving frantically either because he was anxious, or to emphasize the story.
“But then the boss assigned my special operations squad to the mission with no prior warning. To top it off, he made Heeseung the team leader. Of all of us.”
Sunghoon narrows his eyes as if trying to understand what he was rambling about.
“Heeseung only has one weakness, Sunghoon, and that’s his empathy. He’s only been on two missions with a partner before, and you know how those turned out.” Jay says pointedly, Sunghoon grimacing and remembering the eight bullet wounds.
“Once he has to factor in lives that aren’t his, he gets distracted. Then the boss argued that this was a high stakes mission so we needed to go as backup.” Jay is fidgeting at this point, standing up go pace the room.
“It was too easy, Sunghoon.” Jay finally deadpans after a few minutes of pacing, “We took out all of the security and firewalls within ten minutes, and the only troops on guard were on the first floor. Of twenty .”
“Heeseung went to the top by himself to collect information, and the roof fucking collapsed in on itself. That isn’t possible , Sunghoon.” Jay sounds agitated.
“Heeseung only had two fears: feeling trapped, and dying. And guess what, both happened to him. He was stuck, and the only option he had was to blow himself up with the building to complete the mission.”
Sunghoon can tell he’s becoming distressed, and he crosses the room to sit down and comfort him. The cogs in his brain were turning, trying to piece together Jay’s information, and what he remembered and had now.
Heeseung dying… the last minute change of plans… the files…
The fucking files.
He had gone through the entirety of Heeseung’s cases less than three weeks ago, and the files he had now were supposedly ones he has been working on for months. None of the files were the same. CAC had something he wasn't meant to see.
“Jay, can I get the address to the building? And stop the boys from moving out Heeseung’s belongings until I get back”
—
Sunghoon arrives at the scene four hours later, fake identification badge in hand, and inconspicuous clothing meant for a private investigator.
What once must've been a glorious building was reduced to a high pile of rubble, and scattered concrete and glass everywhere in the field. The building was so far out of the way, why wouldn't they try to make in blend in more?
Heeseung wasn’t stupid. There was surely a clue left somewhere meant for someone, if not him. He combs through the area for an hour, kicking over shards of glass and tipping larger chunks of concrete. He checks all the nooks and crannies in case something slipped through as well.
The police on the scene question him a few times and give him funny looks, which sets off alarms in his mind. He’s glad he had Riki and Sunoo help him, otherwise he would have been more recognizable- because Sunghoon recognized these men.
It wasn’t because he had frequent run-ins with the police, in fact Sunghoon hasn’t met one face-to-face in years. These were agents somewhere in their branch, and they were purposefully slacking off.
Or were they?
Eventually he sees something glint under a mountain of glass and concrete, and Sunghoon takes a quick glance to see if anyone is watching him before kneeling down to pick it up.
It was Heeseung’s ring. Obviously bent and dented, but Sunghoon could recognize it no matter the condition. He shoves it in his pocket before anyone can see, and tells the chief of the investigation that he’s got no leads before leaving.
He feels their eyes on him as he leaves, and the ring feels impossibly heavy in his jacket pocket as he begins his drive back to the agency.
The sun is beginning to set when he takes his ridiculous gimmick off and finds himself on the roof of the building. He takes a seat on the edge, legs dangling between the rails.
He pulls out the ring and starts fidgeting with it. Surely there was some hidden message to this. Heeseung wouldnt keep it on him if he didn't.
Eventually with some more fidgeting he hears a pop, and he carefully pries a short piece of paper out.
“Enjoy my light reading.” Is all the front side says.
The older pulls out a very thick book, “It would be a shame to pass up on some light reading.”
Sunghoon scoffs, looking at the generic cover, “That just looks like a two thousand page self-help book.”
“It is what is is.” Heeseung smiles genuinely, “There’s a lot more information in here than you think.”
Taking a deep breath, he turns the paper around and what he sees makes his blood run cold.
“Don't trust KNJ.”