Taehyung focus

A weird feeling had taken over Taehyung since he had watched the exchange of Yoongi, that Zinni-woman, and D.O., but he had suppressed his curiosity for the time of the car ride to the airport and the check-in via VIP entrance. But, hell, it had been difficult. The ease with which those three interacted was indicating a deeper connection than conman rivalry, and for some reason that did not sit well with him.

Yoongi's past had always been a topic he had not dared to ask about, not even after they had become a couple, because taking the mystery that came with the hacker as a part of his being rather than a consequence of his past was far easier than asking for something Yoongi seemed to avoid talking about at all means. It was not that Taehyung never had wondered, but until three years ago their relationship had been more on the professional side than the personal, and no professional would dig into the past of another. Especially not if the other was their teacher.

"Who's my promised copilot?" Jin's voice welcomed them in the hangar. When Chaebol-associate Kim Seokjin pushed pleasantries to second place, the situation was serious.

Only now Taehyung remembered his boyfriend's words. The copilot was included in their group, so who was it? D.O. or... Zinni?

"Jin, this is Zinni," Yoongi said and gestured at the woman. "She's a former air force pilot. I hope that's sufficient."

Taehyung could hear a little gasp from Namjoon, but the personal shopper just stared at the woman with wide eyes. "Air force?" he breathed out then, still not moving one inch.

"A soldier?" Namjoon said at the same time, staring just as shocked at the innocently smiling woman as Seokjin.

Taehyung only looked at Yoongi and that insufferable smug half-smile on his cat-eyed face, and he felt a small pang of jealousy in his chest.

"Crushed my knee when the damn parachute wouldn't open in time," Zinni said with a shrug, "They don't need cripples at the army." Taehyung was assuming that this was only half of the story considering that she had been a pilot and not part of the parachute division.

"Uhu," Jin hummed unintelligently and weakly gestured her to follow him into the sleek white jet behind him.

Taehyung turned towards Yoongi. "Hacker, charmer, pilot, and what not. She's like you," he stated. "Same school, hu?"

Yoongi gave him an unsure look.

"I'm not angry," Taehyung snapped. At least he tried not to be angry at his lover, who apparently was hiding a whole universe of a background story from him.

Trying to breathe steadily, he stalked past his boyfriend and entered the plane only to slump down into one of the comfortable leather armchairs. For a moment the rich interior of soft leather and warm wood distracted him from his stupid emotions, but once a black mop poked into the cabin he went back to sulking.

Yoongi sat down across from him with a sigh and D.O. and Namjoon took the two seats on the other side of the aisle, looking at each other skeptically. "Ask," Yoongi just said and looked at Taehyung with pleading eyes.

For a moment Taehyung considered to stay silent and be petty, but that would be childish and unhelpful. He had never asked before, so how could he blame Yoongi for never telling him. His curiosity would have him talking in no time anyway, so why be stubborn?

"Well, maybe start with where are you from, what was your family like, do you have siblings?" he growled then and could see Namjoon raising an astounded eyebrow at him. Yes, maybe asking your three-year-long partner for this information was strange, but he did not care. They had never been the ordinary couple.

"I don't know exactly where I was born," his boyfriend started his story, "but the women in the orphanage in Deagu kept telling me that they found me on their steps when I was about three years old, so I was raised in Daegu."

Taehyung felt like someone had punched all the air out of his lungs. "You were..."

"An orphan, yes," Yoongi said with a soft nod and a small smile. "Just like Kyungsoo here," he said and gestured at the master thief who looked anything but happy that his background was unraveled.

Taehyung looked at his rival in the light of the new information. The appearance that was so un-catchy, the quietness, the posture that always looked defensive... it all made sense now. He looked back at Yoongi who was still smiling softly.

That one little information was able to overwhelm him so much was ridiculous, but he had no breath left to formulate any of the questions that thrummed through his head like a cascade, each opening up a hand full of new ones.

Yoongi seemed to realize his problem and talked on by himself. "I never knew what family was like because no one was interested in adopting a small skinny kid that knew more curse words than a grownup mob member."

"And was lying as if it was breathing," D.O. added from the other side of the plane with a tired smile.

Yoongi stared into his lap. "Yeah, that too," he admitted quietly, and Taehyung was about to grab his lover's hands over the table and tell him that he did not care and loved him anyway when the cat-eyes looked up at him and the sadness was pushed out of the pale face by a shy little smile. Cute, was all Taehyung could think. "I wasn't a good kid," Yoongi said, but sounded like he was over that.

And Taehyung kept struggling for something to say or to do; his body felt like someone had tied him to his armchair.

"However," Yoongi continued. "I found my first family-"

"We found," Kyungsoo corrected.

Yoongi rolled his eyes. "We found our first family in an old guy who went by the name White Won. He was collecting kids like us."

"Kids like you?" Namjoon asked, looking like he was equally immersed in the storytelling.

D.O. answered him. "Smart kids, talented, preferably orphans with no strings attached."

"Kids who wanted a better life," Yoongi added. "And don't make him sound so bad," he snapped at the master thief, "Won was a good guy. He gave us a purpose and a way to achieve our dream."

"He made us criminals," Kyungsoo murmured, but judged by Yoongi's darkening face he had a different opinion.

"We were criminals before," he growled, shooting angry stares at his childhood friend. "You tricked people with cards to earn money and were the clerk of the illegal betting office we had established at the orphanage. And I held the information monopole and forged my school degree to attend law school -the irony is not lost to me, believe me." He glimpsed at Namjoon and Taehyung for a second, but then back at Kyungsoo. "We never were innocent kids who got corrupted. Don't lie to yourself."

D.O. just raised his hands in surrender and turned to look out of the window, apparently done with the storytelling.

"When did Zinni come into the game?" Taehyung finally asked his second question.

"She was part of Won's gang before we joined, so we came to know her there," Yoongi answered. "She was very young when she made it into the air force and also very young when she dropped out because of her injury."

Namjoon shook his head and snorted. "Why would a soldier become a criminal? That's treason."

"Treason?" Yoongi bloated. "Don't be ridiculous, Namjoon. A stealing soldier is still just a normal criminal."

"We're ready to take off," Jin said, his head poked into the cabin. "Please put on the seatbelts." And he vanished again, oblivious to the strange atmosphere that lingered in the room.

"Still, why would she turn her back on the army?" Namjoon asked. "It's not as if you're useless once you can't board a jet anymore."

Yoongi looked pissed. "Not everyone has a university degree to be promoted into higher positions. And as a foot soldier you're useless with a broken body."

Finally, it seemed to dawn on Namjoon.

"She was outsourced," Yoongi explained more calmly, "and try living on that sparse money for compensation."

"She still could have done a normal job," Namjoon tried to argue and Taehyung wanted to laugh. The ex-cop was the best example to disprove his own words.

"Yeah, that's why you didn't run into the next mission that came across your path but decided to become a shop assistant after we got you fired from the police force," he snorted. "Seriously, Namjoon. By now you should have understood that people like us can never have a normal job. And, yes, I'm talking about you as well." The agent looked like he wanted to disagree, but Taehyung would not let him. "We live for the thrill, Joon. We need the challenge and the danger. There are just people like that."

The ex-cop sighed. "Fine. Maybe you're right."

Yoongi chuckled amused and decided to resume with the story. "From what I've heard, she originally came to Won to learn hacking so that she could go back to military later and work as one of their computer scientists," he explained and Namjoon looked positively surprised. "Yeah, she was a good girl. But something made her stay." Yoongi shrugged. "Don't know what though. You'll have to ask her yourself."

D.O. snorted. "Maybe you should have asked her in general if she wanted her story to be told to a cop and a rival," he said quietly but with so much venom that Taehyung could feel his hair standing on edge.

"What shocking truth did I reveal that was supposed to stay hidden?" Yoongi growled back. "Do you really think Namjoon would get her into prison when he's the one employing people like us?"

D.O. turned to look at the agent and seemed to consider the words. "I don't trust you," he said then. "But I know what I did, so I'll help you. Just don't expect me to open up to you like those two idiots." Then he turned back towards the window, leaving a stunned Namjoon in the seat across from him.

"What did Won teach you?" Taehyung asked, ignoring the little exchange. He was far too interested in Yoongi's past to be stopped by a paranoid master thief.

"He encouraged all of us to learn other languages and martial arts and engage in things we could see fit us, so I learned Japanese and English, practiced Taekwondo, and tried my luck with hacking," Yoongi answered with a light-hearted shrug.

But no matter how light-hearted Yoongi sounded, for Taehyung a whole new perspective was unfolding, and he was overwhelmed by it. The way Yoongi had collected him and taken him in to learn, the hours of Japanese lessons and basic French and Italy, the introduction to painting, the education on the history of art... Yoongi had been his White Won. The way his boyfriend had experienced family for the first time was how he had treated Taehyung. He had seen the young boy from the country who stole from pockets of rich people to make a living and probably had seen himself in him.

A warm feeling bloomed in Taehyung's chest when he realized that the cold and strategic Yoongi he had met back then had been anything but cold. He had offered him something precious, and Taehyung had not even understood.

A happy smile curled his lips before he could think of how stupid that must look in the context of their current conversation, but apparently Yoongi understood him because he got an equally bright smile in return.

"What are you grinning about?" Namjoon asked confused.

"Nothing," Taehyung hummed. "I just understood some things. Go on," he asked of his boyfriend.

"Well, there's nothing much to tell," his lover replied. "Won got jobs for us to learn how to work in a group, much like we do today. It was paid badly, but we had fun and could gain experience."

"Child labor," Namjoon mumbled in the background but was ignored because the jet was accelerating and they got pressed into their seats (or almost pulled out of them in case of D.O. and Yoongi).

Two uncomfortable minutes later, the small plane had stabilized and they could resume with their conversation.

"So, once I had my lawyer degree, I started to earn more money that way," Yoongi explained. "Won had enough people who needed a lawyer, so I was introduced to a rather big client pool in a very short time and could improve fast."

Namjoon looked like his teeth were hurting, and Taehyung could understand him a little. For Yoongi White Won probably was a father substitute or at least a caring uncle, but those stories sounded like the man had had rather egoistic motives for employing those young adults. However, Taehyung would do a damn to straighten out the image of White Won when the guy was no longer part of Yoongi's life. Or was he still?

"What does White Won do today?" he asked casually.

"His bones are resting ten feet under," Yoongi said plainly. "A bullet through the aorta. Our physicians couldn't safe him." From the unaffectedness in his lover's voice Taehyung assumed that that had happened many years ago. "The rest," Yoongi said with a side-glance at Namjoon, "I'll tell you when we're home safe."

"Employed you, remember?" Namjoon huffed annoyed and looked a little sad that he would not hear all of it.

"Old habits," Yoongi said with a shrug and a lopsided grin.

><

"We're about to arrive, but the tower is holding us on loop," Jin's voice sounded from the cockpit and Taehyung put down the phone he had been playing with.

"I'll wake up Namjoon," he said and stood up. After the revelation of Yoongi's childhood the agent had went to the sleeping cabin to catch up on more sleep and had not shown up again, yet. However, since he had sped up their start immensely with his call, he probably had a solution for a quick landing as well.

When Taehyung opened the door to the tiny bedroom, a soft snore became audible. "Joonie?" he asked quietly and shook the figure on the bed. "Joonie, you need to get up. We arrived."

The gray mop stirred, and long limbs arranged themselves to sit up and look at him. "Good," the agent rasped and stood up, putting on his glasses and jacket. He looked a little like a storm-ruffled bird.

"Jin said we're on loop, so I thought you might know a trick to get us down faster," Taehyung explained while they crossed the sitting area.

"I do," Namjoon confirmed and went straight for the cockpit.

A moment later, a frowning Zinni came out and the door closed. Yoongi lifted an eyebrow at her.

"They don't trust me," she pouted with an eye-roll, arms crossed.

"You helped stealing presidential documents," Taehyung replied and titled his head in a mocking fashion. "Not the best move to prove your trustworthiness."

Her eyes narrowed before she tilted her head in the same fashion as he had and asked, "Then what did you do to gain his trust?"

Taehyung chuckled amused. He did not know what amused him more: the fact that Zinni was imitating him childishly even though she was the older one, or that she entertained the thought that Namjoon considered him trustworthy. "Believe me, he would have thrown me out even faster," he replied and sat down to put on the seatbelt and wait for their arrival.

The door of the cockpit opened again and a serious Namjoon stepped back into the cabin. "Please proceed," he said towards Zinni and seemed to confuse her with his polite tone that was in stark contrast to him throwing her out before.

"Sure," she mumbled and slipped back into the control room to prepare for the landing. "What's his problem?" they heard her asking Jin, but the personal shopper's answer was cut off by the closing door.

Yoongi grinned mockingly and Taehyung wondered what his boyfriend was thinking. "You are aware that whatever code you've just used in front of Jin will be pressed out of him by Zinni, aren't you?" his lover said to the agent whose expression remained surprisingly calm.

"He will not dare," the gray-haired said and sat down in his own seat to fasten the belt for landing.

Yoongi looked astounded. "You threatened him."

"Why are you so surprised?" D.O. teased from the sidelines, surprising Taehyung with the fact that he was awake.

Namjoon ignored the snide comment and just rubbed over his sleep-puffy face. "It was an agreement. After all he is a national traitor," the man sighed and closed his eyes once more.

Taehyung considered reminding their old friend that there would be no evidence of that once they would have solved the problem, but he refrained from it when the plane began to sink. Some things could stay unmentioned.

>><<