exomeme | part seventy nine

part seventy nine

EXO COMEBACK EUREUREONG

e x o

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pt 1 http://exomeme.dreamwidth.org/21894.html?thread=92588422#cmt92588422
pt 2 http://exomeme.dreamwidth.org/21894.html?thread=92634502#cmt92634502
pt 3 http://exomeme.dreamwidth.org/21894.html?thread=92666246#cmt92666246
pt 4 http://exomeme.dreamwidth.org/21894.html?thread=92702598#cmt92702598
pt 5 http://exomeme.dreamwidth.org/21894.html?thread=92892550#cmt92892550
pt 6 http://exomeme.dreamwidth.org/22242.html?thread=93411554#cmt93411554
pt 7 http://exomeme.dreamwidth.org/22242.html?thread=93795298#cmt93795298
pt 8 http://exomeme.dreamwidth.org/23594.html?thread=101605674#cmt101605674

ok lol i had to retcon a bit of part 8 to work, so i'm posting the revised version of the last scene first. there's 259 new words in that, + 1328 words in part 9, which makes 1587 words! \o/

gdi why did this top

ugh

All trace of him is gone when Baekhyun returns from slapdash washing up in the bathroom. He scrubs a hand over his face and starts pulling windows up on his computer. Background check. Jongin telling him his full name was like dangling a carrot in front of a rabbit. Baekhyun has to follow the lead.

Kim Jongin was born January 14th, 1994. Kim Kai didn't appear on the grid until early 2012, after Kim Jongin graduated from high school and promptly got into a car accident while on holiday. Jeju Island. The car had been totaled, and two bodies pulled from the wreckage. One of them had been positively identified as Jongin. There'd been a tearful closed-casket funeral, attended by hundreds of his classmates and family friends that had been around for the Kim kids after their parents were killed in the crossfire of a turf war when Jongin was twelve.

After that, things get a bit murky. He'd done a couple of freelance jobs for some people in Gwangju before finding the ones who'd been responsible for his parents' deaths. SME helped him with that one, and he'd been loyal to them ever since. Too late to back out now.

None of this is really news to Baekhyun—everything attached to Kai's name he already knows. It's what he finds out when he starts digging backward in time two days later that makes his blood run cold. Kim Jongin. Seoulite, sweet kid, well-liked, good at writing. Won an essay competition in high school once. Sleepy-headed. Best friend: Lee Taemin.

Baekhyun sees the name and does a triple-take. Taemin. He runs a check on him and it's like a hand grabs his heart through his ribcage and squeezes so hard he sees stars. There's no way that's a fucking coincidence. Fuck, fuck. He picks up his phone with shaking hands and calls Joonmyun.

"Hello?"

"Joonmyun, it's me, it's—"

"Baekhyun, Jesus, it's past midnight, what do you want—"

"I need you to run a system check on all terminated agent accounts."

"What? Why? They're dead, Baekhyun—"

Baekhyun breathes out through his nose. "Just do it. Right now. I promise you it's important." Joonmyun grumbles over the line but Baekhyun hears him fire up his laptop. He chews on his fingernails, foot tapping against his desk. Waiting.

"Baekhyun..."

He straightens up. "What?"

Joonmyun makes a bemused noise. "You want suspicious activity, right?"

"Yeah. What did you find?"

"Someone's been regularly accessing the database through Taemin's account since—since—"

"March? The job that went bad?"

"Yes, how did you—"

"I'll call you back."

"Wait, don't hang up, what is this about—?"

Baekhyun slams his phone down and slides back against his chair, hands over his face. His head spins. No. It can't be. There must be some sort of explanation. Taemin's dead. He died with the others—they found his body—

But they'd found Jongin's body, too. It hadn't been his, not in 2012—and in 2018, when Choi Minho took his team to their deaths, apparently one of them hadn't really died. Baekhyun'd been so busy trying to find something outside of the company to follow that he hadn't even considered—hadn't thought—

Hadn't thought it might be an inside job.

The pieces start fitting together. Taemin's favorite weapon had been an M1911A1 pistol. Jonghyun had specialized in explosives. Pipe-bombs, specifically. It all makes sense.

Baekhyun's still sitting there, mind roiling, when he remembers—Jongin. Jongin's out there on assignment because Baekhyun made him go, forced him away. He slides his keyboard on his lap, typing feverishly. Stupid, stupid. It'd been stupid of Baekhyun to send him into the field again just because he didn't want to deal with the consequences of his indiscretions. There's still a loose cannon floating around targeting members of K, someone with connections to Jongin's former best friend—possibly the best friend himself gone rogue, someone who knew the ins and outs of the company like the back of his hand, could hit where it hurt—and Baekhyun had been so fucking stupid—

He chokes at what unfolds on his screen when he starts tracking Jongin's steps in earnest. Jongin is supposed to be dealing with some meth trafficking ring in Busan. He was there until yesterday morning, after which he completely dropped off the grid. What the fuck, Baekhyun thinks, running Jongin's main credit cards again. Nothing. Fake passports: nothing. Baekhyun tries his work phone. It's dead. The number you have dialed is no longer in service. Something icy spreads out in his gut, climbs up his throat to lock around his jaw. If Jongin was fucking dead because of him—

He swallows hard and pushes the thought to the back of his mind. If he were dead, Baekhyun thinks resolutely, I'd definitely know.

There's a sound in the corridor outside his office. Joonmyun? He's barely out of his chair when the door slams wide open, hinges screeching. The alarms don't go off. It isn't Yixing and Zitao this time. It's a menacing looking Russian hitman, heavyset, eyes fogged up and watery. He closes the distance between them in two long strides and has Baekhyun's arms trapped behind his back before he can even blink. Something hard knocks him between the ears. Everything goes dark.

"You know," someone's saying, as freezing water splashes in Baekhyun's face, "you're a hard man to catch alone."

Shooting pain lances down the back of his head when he lifts it, temples throbbing, throat cracked and dry. He opens his eyes and water drips into them, down his face. They're in a dimly lit warehouse. It smells of gunpowder and fetid water. As Baekhyun listens, an airplane rumbles overhead, engines whirring. They hadn't had time to get him further than Incheon, then.

The Russian assassin from before is off to the left. Someone else is standing in front of him, foot tapping in time to the drip-drip-drip from the pipes. Baekhyun's head droops again. He tries his hands. They're tied behind his back, his wrists crushed together, hands numb. Ankles, too. He becomes faintly aware that he's dangling from some sort of ceiling harness, toes brushing against the concrete floor.

"What do you want from me?" Baekhyun wheezes. The man—Korean, someone he vaguely recognizes, but not Taemin—hooks a finger underneath Baekhyun's chin and forces him to look up.

"Just one thing," he says, smiling. "Tell me where Kim Kai is."

Relief spreads out so fast Baekhyun's entire body tingles. He hangs slack in the harness, tension bleeding out of his body despite the pain still pounding through his head.

Good, he thinks wildly, sucking in a shallow breath. If they're asking, then it means they haven't found him yet. He's alright. He's alive. Probably. Hopefully. "If you knew where I was," he hedges, "why didn't you just kidnap him first? Clearly I'm not the person you're really after."

The man regards him quietly. "Answer the question."

"I don't know," Baekhyun croaks, turning his head away. "Sorry."

The man's face changes, goes stony, his lips turning down into a deep frown. "I'm sorry, too." He gestures at the Russian, who steps up, cracking his knuckles. "I know it's a bit cliché, but. Orders are orders. You know how it is."

Baekhyun barely has time to prepare himself for the blow before a fist sinks into his chest. He swings so far his back cracks against the wall behind him, all the air punched out from his lungs. He struggles to breathe through his nose. The first thing he'd learned when training himself to take a beating was to remove himself from the pain, detach his mind from his body, but it's a lot easier in controlled environments than it is in real life, face-to-face with someone else's knuckles. He gets two more punches to the gut before he's spitting blood in a pretty arc against the floor. He groans, head hanging, and licks his lips.

"Ready to talk?" the Russian says in clunky Korean, like he's speaking through a mouthful of marbles.

"I honestly don't know," Baekhyun tries again, and the extremity aimed at his stomach is a foot this time, the bottom of a combat boot shoved up against his bottom ribs. Baekhyun heaves, teeth clenched. "Shit," he mumbles. "Harder. Do it harder."

"What?"

Baekhyun raises his head, licks his lips. They taste coppery with blood. "Hit me harder," he moans, just to see the other hitman squirm. The unsure expression that flickers over the Russian's face makes Baekhyun grin.

He isn't sure how long it lasts. Minutes, hours, days. He manages to disentangle himself from the cracking pain and then it's like he's drifting a little bit above the scene, watching his body get pummeled. The Korean guy disappears for a while and comes back with some other henchmen and they take turns trying to break Baekhyun down when the first Russian gets tired. Pity. What a waste of energy. There's really nothing they can do that can make him talk when he doesn't even have the information they're looking for. Jongin had disappeared long before Baekhyun even had a chance to figure out he was missing.

Hope he's okay, he thinks absently, and a grunt spills past his gritted teeth at the next punch to his sternum.

"Ready to talk?"

For a second, the only thing that comes out of his mouth is a sick, whistling rattle. He unsticks his jaw with effort. "I don't have—anything to say to you."

The Korean guy shakes his head. "The big boss is coming tomorrow. You really don't want to wait until then."

Baekhyun cocks his head to the side. Considers how to play his cards. "Taemin?" he says finally, a hoarse chuckle working its way out of his throat. "Don't make me laugh. I could handle that kid with my eyes closed."

Stunned surprise flashes across the Korean guy's face. Baekhyun grins again. Got it in one, he thinks—but it's sad, too. They'd been friends, before the accident. Baekhyun doesn't understand anything about the agenda Taemin seems to have now.

The last thing he hears before someone presses a chloroform-soaked rag over his face is some rapid-fire Russian he doesn't understand.

When he comes to, he's out of the harness and lying on the cold floor, still bound, a foul-tasting gag in his mouth. He's chained to the wall. Everything hurts. He's pretty sure he has a couple of broken ribs, judging by the sharp ache just above his diaphragm. He dry heaves again around the gag, cheek scraping against the dirty concrete. Shit. He tries to sit up stiffly and manages to drag himself halfway up before collapsing again.

A minute later, the implications of what happened yesterday slam into his head with all the force of a speeding train. The real question, he thinks, blinking back tears of exhaustion—the real question is what Taemin wants with Jongin. What his endgame is. There are still pieces of the puzzle missing, things Baekhyun doesn't know.

He's mulling it over when the warehouse door creaks open. It must be some time the next day, because a slice of sunlight hits his face and he has to squint. The men from before march in first, toting guns now, and then—

Baekhyun's breath stutters to a stop in the back of his throat. He sees Taemin's bad side first. He's deep in conversation with the other Korean man, head tilted up to listen to his low murmurs, and Baekhyun can see the third-degree burns creeping up from underneath his shirt to web across his face, the flesh mutilated beyond belief. Baekhyun must make some sort of noise because Taemin turns toward him. The right side of his face is completely normal, untouched by the warehouse blast from March. When he smiles, his good eye crinkles.

"Long time no see, Baekhyun," he says, striding forward and dropping to a crouch in front of him. He reeks of expensive cologne. Probably to hide the smell of burnt flesh. Taemin reaches out and gently removes the gag.

Baekhyun spits on the floor, a sticky wad of blood and saliva. "We all thought you were dead. You should've checked back into headquarters, we could've helped you—"

"What was left for me back there?" Taemin returns, gaze going hard for a moment. "I need a favor now. I'm sure you've heard."

"I sent Jongin to Busan," Baekhyun says. "Then he disappeared. That's all I know."

"That's alright, hyung," Taemin says, his eye twinkling. "If you're here, he'll definitely come."

Baekhyun snorts vehemently, then winces at the piercing throb in his gut. "Don't be stupid. He isn't an idiot."

Taemin shakes his head. "I've known him for much longer than you have. He always gets attached so easily, doesn't he? It's cute." He smiles, and the half of his face that's burnt off moves oddly. "He told you his real name, after all." Baekhyun can see his jaw from here, and his empty stomach clenches.

"Shut up," Baekhyun mutters, and Taemin shoves the gag back into his mouth, fastens it roughly in place. Baekhyun chokes around it.

"Don't worry," he says placidly. "He'll come. And we'll be waiting for him."

omggggg anon this au is so good i'm screaming :( what does taemin want with kai hE WAS YOUR BEST FRIENDDD

♥♥♥ ~you shall see anon~ keke

SCREAMS AT YOU FOREVER

ANKJFLHDLKFJDHLK anon o_____o you're killing me here where's the rest do i need to turn you upside down and shake you

to get it to work* gdi

ALSO geez there are warnings all over this for violence torture etc u__u

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part seventy nine

hg: hitman au pt. 9 (team kai)

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