The drive to Ilsan had been a dead end, but the department had found the Tesla owner, a certain Oh Chanwoo. He was a lawyer at a law firm in Jung-gu, 52, a wife and two children in their teens. So far there was no obvious motive to assume that the man was the next victim, but they could not rule it out, so the colleagues back at the bureau were searching for one.

In the meantime, another team had been dispatched to secretly secure lawyer Oh's safety. That was not much considering the Hawk was not known for killing in close combat, but they could not call the target and tell him that an assumed hitman was on his trail and whether he would please play the bait. No sane person would put themselves in such danger.

And rightly so. Had it been Jimin's place to decide, he would have put the victim under guarded house arrest after identifying them, but Chief Kim did not want to scare the Hawk into vanishing once again. This was a big chance, and no one in their division wanted to mess this up. And so, it was up to Jimin to toughen up and be a proper agent. He had to get into the hitman's life, or someone would die again. At least that was a big motivator.

The problem was, he had no clue how. Today he would bring back the suit, and his only idea was to give the hitman his new mission bank account and then ask digital forensics to trace back the money. But apart from the fact that they needed a warrant for that, it did not prove that they were tailing a killer. It would only do good in case the Hawk had a bank account that was not run under the name Ahn Jaehoon, but apart from that what Jimin could do was amounting to nothing at all.

Of course, the idea of offering himself to the man had crossed his mind at some point, but apart from the fact that he was much too scared to do that and not comfortable at all with giving his body away like this, it would not add up with their history so far. Who would want to sleep with the man who filled them up, then wrapped them in a blanket to stow them in their apartment in order to get a favor, and then crashed their car without remorse? A normal person would see the psychopathy in that and run away the very moment they were free to go, and then they would pretend this never happened and live their happy ever after.

If Jimin ever desired to follow that idea, he would have to be smart about it. But he did not desire to go that far, so it was out of question right now. The department would be happy about any new information they could get on the Hawk, so he would provide them with what he could grab in the passing.

He pushed the bell next to the Ahn Jaehoon tag.

"Yes?" the bored voice cracked through the speaker.

"Here's Jimin. I got your suit," he replied, and the door began to buzz. While he rode the elevator, he rolled his practiced lines through his head.

The Hawk was already standing in his apartment door, dressed in rubber gloves, a pulled-down face mask, a hairband, and an apron, and looked truly bored and offputtingly silly in his cleaning gear.

"Hello," Jimin greeted the man while looking him up and down in disbelief. But of course, even a hitman had to keep his four walls clean.

"Hi." Ahn sniffed and licked his lips. It was such a mundane tick that Jimin was amazed by it.

Awkward silence. Then Jimin remembered what he was here for and handed over the suit hanger. "I'll give you my account for the trans-"

Something was shoved into his hand. When he looked at it, it turned out to be a golden coin in a plastic wrapping. The Hawk had given him an ounce of fucking pure gold. Jimin was shocked.

The door closed in front of his nose.

"Hey," he cried in vain but quickly understood that he had failed. The Hawk had outsmarted him again. "Shit," he whispered angrily and barely refrained from closing his fist around the stupid coin, remembering that it was evidence. A bar of gold had a bank seal and a serial number, so it could be traced back, but a coin was not trackable. He was left with fucking nothing. "Shit," he cursed a second time when he realized that he could not even get fingerprints from this because the damn sly fox had worn rubber gloves. He would not even be surprised if the whole make-up was just for distracting him from the fact that he was wearing those.

This was ridiculous. But it proved a point: Ahn was hiding something.

><

Yoongi was walking through the afterschool school, taking pictures of the ground plans and the environment when his phone rung. V. He only hummed when he picked up the call, still busy burning the details of the school into his mind, and waited for what the man had to tell him about Jimin.

"The delivery arrived," the tech informed him.

Yoongi halted confused. "Delivery?"

"The eatable toys," his colleague specified.

Well, that was good news, he supposed. The toys being the most important topic probably meant that the search on Jimin had returned nothing. But maybe V had different priorities. "Nothing about Park Jimin?" he asked to make sure.

"Nothing," V confirmed. "But I'll keep searching if you want."

"It's fine. I'll be at your place in an hour," he decided and hung up.

There was not much to learn about the school. It stretched over three floors, each looking exactly like the other down to the details of the coffee dispenser, the snack automat, and the announcement boards that informed everyone about the classes and tutors. He had his plan sat when he left the building.

"You growing a beard?" V asked him with furrowed brows and mild amusement when he opened the door.

"For a job," Yoongi replied. For now, it was only a shadow on his cheeks and chin, but he was positive that it would be good enough at the end of the week.

"Looks weird. Coffee?" the tech asked him with a smile.

"Sure," Yoongi agreed and followed inside. He was done for today, and the sun had already set, so sitting on his balcony would only be half as nice. Apart from that he liked the tech. Where RM was smart, this one was funny.

"That's yours," V informed him with a wave at the package on the coffee table. Compared to the dark and stuffy computer room, the tech's living space was nice. It held a huge leather couch and a matching armchair, the kitchenette, and a big TV screen with a sound system underneath. The obligatory mattress was rolled up and pushed into a corner with a pile of weightlifting equipment.

"How much do I owe you?" Yoongi wanted to know.

"30k," the younger replied while rumbling in the kitchen to prepare the coffee. "I put an extra gummy bear dildo for trying. Didn't know whether you'd like it, so I won't charge."

Yoongi chuckled and put three bills on the coffee table before sitting in the armchair and opening his package to take a look at the goodies. The mentioned dildo looked frighteningly realistic had it not been for the red color and the glossy transparency. Cherry was written on the wrapping.

"I like it," Yoongi said with a half-smile and put it back.

V grinned over his shoulder. "Sometimes I like to choke on something, so I always have some spares," he informed Yoongi as if he was talking about a guilty pleasure like watching romcoms.

Yoongi grinned amused. "You do?"

V shrugged and left the coffee machine to do its job while he sunk into the couch. "My personal favorite's banana."

A picture of a banana-colored dick popped into Yoongi's head before the hidden meaning sunk in. "Why don't you try sucking a real cock?" he asked, serious and without any sexual undertones. If it was just about that, the man could simply go out to a club and have a quicky in the restroom.

V shrugged again and looked down. "Guess I don't want to cause trouble for anyone."

So that was it. Scared that the organization would hurt innocent people if they got involved. "They don't care about one-night stands," Yoongi informed his colleague. "I tried and nothing ever happened to the ones I slept with."

Big brown eyes looked up at him. "Really?" the tech asked and Yoongi felt sorry for the dude. He almost wanted to apologize for teasing him so often.

"Really," he reassured him.

V seemed temporarily satisfied, but then he asked, "What if they call me while I'm out? What if someone needs me while I'm not here? Like when you came with your calendar and the Jimin guy."

Yoongi had no answer to that. "Do you never have free time?" he wanted to know. Even hitmen were allowed a few days or even weeks off after a job. Of course, that was more because getting paid huge amounts of money too frequently could raise suspicion, but how could they expect the techs to be on call 24/7? That was inhuman.

"I manage five hitmen," the younger explained. "There's always at least one of them out on mission."

"Five, hu?" Yoongi sighed. It made sense. He had never ever thought about whether V would be available or not, whether he had a free Sunday or not. He had just walked into this basement or called him whenever he needed something to be done. "Sounds like shit," he murmured.

V shrugged once again and rose to get coffee, milk, and sugar. "Not much I can do about it," he said defeated.

Yoongi did not understand it. V was such a soft guy, always smiley, always helpful and polite, funny. It made no sense that he was part of this. Yoongi had dug his own grave, but what could possibly bring a guy like V into a hitmen organization?

"How did you join?" he asked. He had never asked anyone else this question in fear of breaking some unwritten organization rule, but he was curious. "You don't need to tell me, if you don't want to," he added though, not sure whether V would want to take the risk.

Apparently, that was a bad question because the tech's hand began to shake so hard that he was spilling the coffee he had been about to serve and hence had to put the coffee can down.

"I'm sorry," Yoongi was quick to apologize, taken aback by the reaction he had caused. "I didn't want to..." He trailed off, not knowing how to finish that sentence. The younger looked pale and his eyes stared into the off. Yoongi had never seen him like that. He had seen victims of a severe shock looking like that, of course, but he was unsure how to fix it. "We don't need to talk about this," he said eventually and took the can to pour them both a mug.

Although he had backtracked, the atmosphere had been ruined. V was staring idly at the mug Yoongi had pressed into the man's hand and the silence weighed heavier and heavier with every passing second. Yoongi considered leaving when the tech finally spoke.

"How did they get you?" he asked quietly.

A flashback of the unlucky night rushed past Yoongi's inner eye. The blood, the screaming, the running. "I killed a man," he answered flatly. "Shot him right between the eyes."

V looked mortified and Yoongi wondered what the guy was thinking he was doing now as a hitman. Saving kittens?

"Why?" was all the tech asked though.

"Because he wanted to kill me," Yoongi answered. He could as well tell the whole story now. "I had a gambling addiction," he revealed. "Started during military service. I was good a bluffing and tricking people. It got to my head."

V was nodding softly, still pressing the mug to his chest like he needed something to hold onto. He was a sorry picture with his wide eyes and baggy pajama.

"When I was released, I went straight to the first casino to test my luck, and I was good," Yoongi murmured in reminiscence. "Not the cash eater machines but the real games. Poker, Seotda, anything that could be won with brains and quick hands. Well, however, I ended up in Macao."

"The triads," V breathed out.

Yoongi nodded. "I was good and I was greedy, so I played myself into shady circles. Backrooms, basements, private events. All that shit. Thought I was tough." He had been an idiot. "And one day some crackhead pulled his gun in the middle of a game and started to shoot people. I killed him. And then I left with the money."

V had pulled his feet up on the couch as if he needed another protective layer from the murderer who sat across from him. Yoongi could understand. At least a little.

"He was a triad man, it was triad money, and so they sent people after me," he finished his story. "I had to hide and that was when the organization found me. They offered protection in exchange for killing people. I was already a murderer, had ended several triad men who had come after me, so what was there to lose?" He had had no other choice. He could have waited for certain death by the triads or prolong his life by killing others. It had been an easy choice, and he was sure that no one was crying after the people he eliminated.

"I killed a girl," V whispered from behind his knees. He looked sick. "Ran her over. There was so much blood."

He was rubbing a hand over his face to brush away the tears that threatened to fall, and Yoongi wanted to tell him that it was fine, things like that happened. But something told him that there was more to it.

"I was drunk," V rasped. "We'd been celebrating the end of military service and I thought I could still drive. But I didn't see her." Now he had lost the fight against his tears. "I was so scared. Didn't know what to do. She wasn't breathing."

Yoongi had crossed the space between the armchair and the couch without much thinking and pulled the shaking body into his arms. He had remembered that his mother would do that when he had cried as a child, and V looked much like a child right now. Gently, he took the mug to put it away and began to brush his hand through the messy brown hair.

"I drove away," the tech sobbed. "I left her, Suga. I'm a mur-murderer."

Who was not in this organization, Yoongi thought, but kept his mouth shut and continued to cradle the other. No one could know that V had had a breakdown like this, or he would be eliminated as potential danger. Weakness was a threat.

"I was caught on traffic surveillance," the tech rasped after the worst of his crying had subsided. "They knew, and they said if I worked for them, they could make it go away."

"So you said yes," Yoongi concluded. When the organization approached you, there was only one option if you did not want to live a completely ruined life. Not that V's life had not been ruined after he had agreed. This basement was not much different from a prison. "How long's it been since the accident?" he wanted to know. V could not have been very old when he came from military service, but now he looked like a grown man, so maybe the hold of the organization on him had loosened because their blackmail material had expired. Maybe V was much freer than he thought he was.

"Since last week, six years," the tech answered.

Yoongi hummed to show he had heard him. He would look up the statute of limitations for involuntary manslaughter. It would not necessarily make V feel better, but maybe it would encourage him to ask for more freedom.

"I think, you should leave," the younger said with a small sad smile and rubbed his sleeves over his wet cheeks. There were more words hiding in those brown eyes, but they would not come.

Thus, with a small nod, Yoongi rose and grabbed his package. "Thanks for these," he said with a shake of the box and a smile. He might try them after the job when he was free for some days to roam the clubs and pick up a fuck or two.

"Enjoy," V cheered in a weak attempt of his normal tune and gestured him to the door before following after.

"Can I ask one last question?" Yoongi tried his luck when another thought crossed his mind. V nodded. "What did you want to do after military?" he was curious.

That made the other smile a real smile. "Study music. Wanted to become a saxophonist," he answered, leaving Yoongi flabbergasted.

"Not computer science?" he felt like he needed to ask. "How do you know how to do all that stuff then?" He tilted his head at the computer screens.

The younger lifted his shirt. First Yoongi though that some displacement mechanism had compelled him to sleep with him, but then he saw the black number on the man's rib. H 160429. He was a hitman.

"But you're a T," he noted confused.

"Couldn't stand it," V said with a hollow voice. "Killed my first target, but I couldn't stand it."

"So they made you a tech," Yoongi concluded. The younger nodded and let go of the shirt.

"They taught me how to work with the organization's network and data and I taught myself hacking," he explained, and it made sense to Yoongi. Combat and guns had been taught to him by the military, but quick thinking and making watertight plans was something he came to learn by himself.

"I see," he murmured and finally stepped outside. "Well, see you around."

The younger smiled much brighter than before and nodded, then he closed the door.

Yoongi did not know if this whole interaction had been smart. He had heard too much to forget about it, and it had changed something. Saxophonist, seriously. They were employing a damn musician! But if he was honest, something had already changed when they had talked first about eatable sex toys. Only now it felt irreversible. They had become personal. And personal was dangerous. Getting involved was dangerous. He should not get deeper involved. Statute of limitations this or that, V and him were part of something they could not get out of, and it was a single fighter game. They had to watch out for themselves.

>><<