files, old and new, mixed with many papers are scattered around on his work table, the back of his pen bit to pieces as he continues to work. lack of sleep from the last night has been put off aside with the help of some coffee, three empty sugar packs that went into the cup laying discarded near his computer. sounds of high heels clicking across the floor, a small murmur of a conversation can be heard, the copy machine working in the background, the sound of papers rustling out never stopping.
it is a normal day at the office, junho heeds no attention to those little details as his eyes travel across yet another paper, starting to itch from being kept open for long. involuntarily they wander over to the clock at times, and it seems to move slow, so very slow that it doesn’t make much sense, the heap of papers that he finished still looks about the same height.
a hand goes up to rub his eyes when the loud alarms start to pierce throughout the hq, the sound so unexpected that his hand bumps into the cup on its way down, making it spill all over his desk and crash on the linoleum floor. there’s no time to worry about his work, however, the sound of porcelain cracking having no impact considering the chaos that suddenly takes over. he can see people panicking, torn up for a second before they start to run towards the exit.
the change in the atmosphere is so sudden that it takes him back for a second as he stays standing, only a few seconds before his instincts start to kick in. looking around, he’s glad to see that most people are kicked into motion already, and he helps the rest without a second of thought, pulling the few that are too in shock to move. it doesn’t take long after that, everything a blur as they follow the directions to outside, people speaking in high voices, that woman’s voice across the speakers repeating the same sentences over and over again.
18:58
situated a distance from the building now, the murmurs of the people around him are more hushed, though still panicked, worrying about the people still inside, whether they had enough time to get out. junho himself is high-strung, a great amount of energy going to make himself stay on the spot rather than run inside and make sure everyone is alright. his hands are balled into fists at his sides as he inspects the crowd that gets bigger and bigger.
there’s a twinge of hope in his chest alongside the pressure, the choking concern, that someone is still inside, while he’s still there, doing nothing, waiting for the inevitable to happen. more time passes as he fails to find a familiar face in the midst of people, and he pushes through them in the end, trying to get a better view of the building — everything’s pushed back into the back of his mind, and the silence that lingers in the air is distressing, the silence before the storm before it all goes to hell.
the explosion shakes the ground, his eyes glued to the building as it blows up into ashes, the wings crumble into themselves, the fires go up from the ground. he can’t even hear the screams of others around him as his eyes start to water, the view eerily similar to a memory, one that he had decided to forget. the blood freezes in his veins, and he can’t do anything but look at the fire, the smoke that permeates the air.
it’s much more than just a building where he spent seven years of his life, no — it’s the idea of loss that frightens him to the core, the fact that the people he cares for deeply could still be inside, hurt, lost, begging for help. there’s so much that’s been left unsaid, unlived, and he refuses to accept that they could be gone like that — jitae, jun, dohyun, juhyun, yongguk… —they can’t be- — he had promised himself not to give into foolish hopes, but it’s the only thing that keeps him sane as he stands there, praying to a god he doesn’t believe.
19:40
it didn’t take that long for the agent persona to kick in, for junho to push everything back in his mind and focus on a task, to make himself useful in the tragedy they found themselves in. it’s a chaos, everything is, and his first instinct is to gather help, join the efforts to organize a help force for those that are still inside. they don’t know the number of people who are stuck, nor who made it outside. junho doesn’t even know whether some of his loved ones are back in seoul or attending a mission abroad, and the first time in years, he curses the secrecy they often find themselves in.
however that’s a fleeting thought, and he finds himself in the building when they finally let him in, deeming that the aftershocks of the explosion have settled enough for it to be moderately safe. junho’s grateful, for he wasn’t sure if he could hold back any longer, the idea of doing nothing bothering him the most.
a mask strapped over his face as he goes through the rubble, the small team he’s in spreads across designated areas each time to figure out whether there’s still anyone inside, helping them one by one. to see the people he greeted each day sprouting serious injuries is jarring, that he’s faced with such violence in a place that has been safe for so long. it makes him even more determined to help, throwing himself forwards when he hears a small voice, digging through the ashes and rocks to aid whoever’s there.
each time they help someone new, junho feels better and worse at the same time, unsure if he should be grateful that he hadn’t stumbled into those he was searching for, or whether they are lying somewhere, unable to save themselves. once again, he chides himself as he advances forwards — they don’t have time to worry about personal matters, as much as he finds it difficult not to think of people he cares about.
the aftershocks leave him with a few bruises and nicks here and there, his right shoulder aching sharply from shouldering a tricky pile of rubble that fell on top of him in the end. he doesn’t even feel it, the adrenaline high enough to dull any kind of pain and panic that threatens to seep into his mind. even his lingering fear of fires is left forgotten as he tries to help, taking a mental note of the worst cases of cave-ins, calculating where the next person could be.
06:20
his mind is on overdrive as he works, even more so than when he’s on a mission. it is a personal attack, to somewhere they had deemed as a safe place, a low blow to the whole agency after the other explosions across the globe. he wants to find who’s responsible as much as others who are a part of the kingsman, and once they made sure they couldn’t find anyone else inside, he knows the answers he years for could be hidden in plain sight.
at a rare moment of silence, where the rescue efforts have slowed down and most people have been saved, he takes a moment to go through everything, his eyes closed as he rests against a wall. the sleeves of his button-down are pushed up to his elbows, his once impeccable suit is a mess, torn, dirty and bloodied at places. he remembers vaguely that he used the suit jacket as a tourniquet for someone in the east wing, begging that same person to stay awake as they got them out.
there’s a ringing in his ears, the exhaustion taking a different shape as he forces himself to think. with his phone left forgotten in the office, and no news from that list of people he’d die to hear of, thinking is the only thing he can do.
he forces himself to take a deep breath and stand still, not allowing a moment of weakness. he has to figure out how and why it happened, and most importantly, who’s behind all of this. a vendetta against the agency wouldn’t be anything new, but this, this is something organized and precise, the work of thorough planning and many people.
where did they help the most people ? where was the most of the damage inflicted ?there’s a correlation between them all, one that’s so obvious now that he can think more sensibly. he shakes his head, an attempt to clear everything so that he can look at the whole picture. one of the most crowded places, the offices, dorms, had nowhere near gotten the brunt of the damage — and junho realizes that while he had been grateful for the lack of dead bodies that would be found in an attack like this, it seems to be a reason for that.
but why ? why would someone go through all of this, plant so many bombs, for it all to end in so few casualties ? it doesn’t make sense, the whole point of an attack is to inflict as much as damage as possible, yet the majority of the agency made it outside, unscathed and unharmed.
junho fears it’s not more than a hunch, something that he forces himself to believe in for the lack of something other to do. that’s why he’s reluctant to let the higher-ups know, especially since they have a whole mess to deal with. with another look at the few people still gathered at the front, it’s not a difficult decision as he sneaks inside when they look away, heading towards the security rooms.
07:15
it’s no hidden fact that junho isn’t the best when it comes to technology, but as he sits there in front of the computers, he’s filled with a new rigour, to get to the bottom of it, to find some clues about what the hell happened. it’s clear that the computers haven’t been tampered with, the room left empty after the security workers have fled, but there is no sign of forced entry, and the screens light up without any signs of an error.
he first goes through the recent tapes, to see if any of the cameras are still working — and as he suspected, the places that are the most crowded have been relatively unharmed, some of the cameras are even working albeit the feed is fuzzy. once he makes it clear that his thesis for before is somewhat true, he sets the clock back to 18:30, half an hour before the attack.
the feed is fuzzy, and as he zooms in on the spots where the explosions start from, he can see the vague shape of a bomb one moment, appearing out of thin air. there’s a lapse in moment, a scene cut away, obviously missing from the whole picture. although he’s glad that his suspicions prove to be true, it feels him with sudden dread. he had expected signs of a hacking, a cyber attack to go with the physical one. this, this tells him something different, that the records have been tampered with, but not by outside force.
could it be an inside job ? could someone have infiltrated the agency, turned in on them ?as much as he doesn’t want to believe in that fact, for he has always been stubbornly loyal to the kingsman ideal, everything in front of him shows that whoever planned this had help from inside.
as the same sixty seconds repeat on the screens in front of him, he’s frozen, staring into nothingness as he tries to take it all in. it’s too much and not enough all at once, the sliver of doubt added into the mix now. the flurry in his mind takes in another shape, going faster than before, could it be anyone he knows ? are the survivors still in danger ? could their information have been compromised ? how many people were they ? how deeply embedded is their involvement with kingsman ? — who could he trust ?
as if the gnawing worry about his friends isn’t enough, he is plagued with the burden of doubt this time, unsure what to do- who to ask for guidance. letting everyone know wouldn’t be right, what if it is someone he knew ? reporting it through the usual means is simply out of the table. when he thinks about the people he would trust with his life, the list of names shortens to a few, and he has to go from there now.
he copies all the records to an usb in the end, so that he can investigate everything more clearly back at home. throwing that in his pockets, he sits there in silence, head in his hands. maybe it takes half an hour, maybe more before junho finally gets up on shaky legs, his hands buried in his pockets.
as junho finally leaves the agency, he heads home, picking up a prepaid phone on the way back. he has a lot to do.
