[.十四.]

As soon as the door was closed Tucker rose and poured himself a drink from the small bar in a cabinet behind his desk. A bar behind a desk at CIA seemed very Cold War-ish. But he didn't care.

Stress, so much of it was turning unhealthy for him, he felt more like a mannequin being controlled with all the wired scenarios replaying in his mind. Imagine a video cutout in slow motion. One second you see a man barely an inch away from this scintillating, well-cut diamond that he's been striving recklessly to catch hold of and the video prompt is suddenly pressed pause.

The video is resumed at a much faster pace and the diamond is out of sight almost as if it was never there, to begin with. At close inspection, the man is being mocked at, as to how irrational his plan was and how he's made a fool of himself and his family by putting all their possession at risk.

Now replace the 'man 'with Kim Daeshim, place the CIA as the 'family' and exchange the word 'possession' with Korea.

His thoughts ranged from him being behind bars to a mega nuclear bomb blast exploring the entire country down inviting it to ruins. The first one was more likely but the outcome of both would most likely shape out into one big rigid mess.

He huffed out, his cheeks puffing with the forced exhale. He instantly took a sip of his drink, the bittersweet flavour burning up his throat while numbing up his crazy spasms of worries. With this job, one needed a belt of booze every once in a while.

Maybe he was lying, perhaps a little more than that. He shook his head in disapproval, it was a lot more often than that. The male strolled mindlessly through the room, the soft sound of his footsteps getting absorbed into the thick black carpet.

The room was every shade of grey, from washed-out concrete to almost steel-blue. Every line was straight, every corner sharp, and the feather grey couch looked like you'd sink into it with how padded it was. No, now wasn't the time for that.

Daeshim walked forward, eyes lost into the colourful map pinned onto the board in front of him. South Korea, his eyes lingered along the sentences printed in gold beneath it. ' South Korea, an extraordinary country bursting with brilliant gardens festooned with flowers as though, a part of heaven itself was brought down, thriving cities and most importantly friendly people with ancient history..."

People. It was most likely for their cause. He wasn't lost, it's just that his mind was somehow weirdly keen on keeping his walking gait natural and his palms dry. Then his eyes flickered to the poppies on the desk, no doubt a noble gesture toward the fallen. The smallest contact and he'd break out in hives...

Something beside it caught his eyes too, now this was exceptionally close to his heart. A chessboard. It's a funny thing-that which can cause inanimate objects to take on great meaning. He remembered his young self.

He was always fluttering about with his glasses and the quiet way-the way he'd do everything slowly, the way that there was no rush----excepting of course those moments of spontaneity and levity that seemed to randomly burst from him like juice from one of those gusher fruit snacks from the old days.

How is it that a chessboard can be such a slice of life? It's plastic and felt that's packaged in China by workers getting paid, God- doesn't-even-want-to-know how little. And yet in his hands, in his mind, those pieces come alive.

It's a delirious transformation, how sixty-four checkered squares became relevant. It was both an enigma as well as a sign of pure bliss. His friends, with their heads in their hands, and that wild look that the players would show when they got-the savagery, the ire, the devil himself looking out from behind their eyes.

Eyes of someone, anyone that wouldn't say a goddamn word to you if you cut in front of them at the Starbucks line. That board always changed people.

He envisioned having to stand up at an AA meeting one night and say, I'm Kim Dasehim. My job is to keep all Americans safe. He growled frustrated, his overweight structure under the cotton fabric giving rise to the thick layer of sweat covering the entirety of his face.

And I'm a raging alcoholic.

He sat back behind his desk, elbow leaning on the Mahogany table, his face hidden under the surface of his palm. There were forces aligned against him here, he was aware of that. Someone had tipped Jimin and Jeongguk about the mission in Syria.

Forewarned, they had taken advantage of that intelligence and escaped a fate that they shouldn't have. Someone here had done that. Daeshim had suspicions of who that might be. But he needed more than suspicions. And he aimed to get it. Along with two rogue agents.

He ogled at the doorway that Yang Seulgi had walked through a few minutes before. He didn't realize that he'd been narrowing his eyes all this while. He had brought her here principally because she had the reputation of being both a ball buster and a company person through and through.

He hoped that she lived up to that reputation

If not, she would be assigned to a place in the middle of nowhere, with no possibility of ever getting back. But he didn't care about her. His fixation was Jeongguk and Jimin. Park Jimin was in his crosshairs. He was the trigger male on his former DD and an analyst whom he had shot in the back.

Illegal. Treasonous. Unforgivable.

The grey-haired male didn't care what her reasons were. That was why they had courts, judges and juries. And executioners. Jimin had taken it upon himself to be all of those things. Then he had impatiently jumped right to the execution part.

For that, he had been allowed to walk free and even given a medal. His face contorted to something that was supposed to represent years of embedded resentment. A bitter sight for innocent eyes.

That stark injustice made Daeshim seethe. Well, he was not without influence or resources. He would use both to make sure that the appropriate punishment was meted out to him. And Jeongguk too, if he was ridiculous enough to stick with him.

The fact was, Kim knew that he would likely be resorting to his Plan B on the upcoming mission. The odds were very high that Jimin and Jeongguk were not going to make it out of the Burner Box.

So if justice could not prevail in a court of law, it would still triumph somewhere in the wilderness of CIA agency itself. Daeshim knew that he was staking everything on this. The mission he was engaged in with General Pak would be the pinnacle of his career. Or the catalyst for his downfall.

For what they were proposing to do was quite illegal, even if the president had signed off on it. Daeshim had not believed that the current occupant of the ACRC had the cojones to make that sort of call. But the president had surprised Daeshim and done so.

Now the die was cast. There was no going back. In a perfect world, the mission would succeed and Jeongguk and Jimin would be history. A perfect world. The only problem was, his world was about as imperfect as it could be. He cradled his drink, took a sip, and sat back.

Another long day of keeping everyone safe. It was a dirty, filthy business, what he did. And no one involved in it was anything other than filthy. Including me, thought Kim Daeshim. Most of all, me.

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Lmao I'm literally advertising for Korea with that description. I could've written better tho for the Korea part. But no shit , this isn't persuasive writing. Idk why I couldn't add that gif