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.
my past has tasted bitter for years now
so i wield an iron fist. grace is just weakness
or so i’ve been told. i’ve been cold, i’ve been merciless
but the blood on my hands scares me to death
maybe i’m waking up today.
the exhaustion seeps into his bones; smell of burnt wood, soothing sound of a violin, laughter that resonates against thick walls — they all mingle together to a remote memory of what used to be his home. and as he stands alone in his flat for the first time in weeks, he knows what he has there has never been his home. it feels empty, bare, too minimalistic even though he had put great care to decorating his flat. his feet take him to one of the wardrobes, and he needs to pull a chair to reach the top of it, taking out what is a dusty old cardboard box. his eyes tear up at the sight of it, and a few minutes later, he’s sat on the ground cross legged, the contents of the box laid before him.
it’s all he is, all of his past is right there, in front of him. all that’s happened, and maybe all that ever will. there are some old photographs, ones that were salvaged from the fire, a teddy bear that’s missing an ear, and the most precious one of them all, in the middle of them, is his mother’s violin. its strings are worn and broken, the wood discolored around the edges from use. gentle, shaky fingers reach forward to hold it in his hand, his grip tightening around the neck of it. his eyes are filled with tears that refuse to spill — not now, not just yet. there’s so much that’s going on in his head — too much to handle at times, the guilt amplifies tenfold at the sight of the instrument, and he is hit with the memories, even though it has been over a decade since he heard that sweet melody. it hurts; hurts as if scratching an old wound, one that’s supposed to close up years ago. he wants it to close, and even that thought makes him feel selfish — it’s wrong, so wrong. but it doesn’t change the fact that he thought everything was over and done. it had taken him a long time to accept that there was nothing he could do anymore. but now, the universe proves again and again that everything was too good to be true.
what happened in the last six months feels like it has been years instead. he feels old, tired, bitter, unsure, hurt. people he trusted so much has left — the what-ifs that never had the chance to become something, opportunities that slipped away from his fingers, secrets, the doubts that piled up on one another. and it felt like a low blow to learn just then, that his parents’ murderer was never dead, never apprehended. the man who had plagued his nightmares for years have been wandering around for over a decade, and junho, foolish, naive junho had no idea at all. where was the feeling of revenge now ? wasn’t it the reason he joined kingsman ? to feel closer to his parents, to be able to do something with his life, something that his father has left him ? it burns, it burns like the fire that took away everything he loved, everything he had held close. a flame that threatens to destroy everything, the hope, the happiness he built with shaky legs and false hopes. to have believed in a lie for most of his life leaves him breathless, so much that he doesn’t know who he is anymore, what to do with his life.
and the only thing good in his life that he can hold on, one person that makes him feel at home is jun. he doesn’t feel just as alone with him. he has him in his life, and jun is perhaps the only reason that he’s standing there, tall, still part of kingsman, and if he dares to say it — still maybe a part of something bigger. jun’s there to patch up the unseeable wounds he has kept away from the world for so long, the wounds that resurfaced so recently, bled and bled as he scratched them over and over again. he’s grateful for the man’s presence, he owes him so much — glad to have him at times where he felt like he would crumble over, lose every sense of who he was. he knows jun can’t fix everything, and he can’t fix jun’s problems either. still, that sense of closeness — family, is something that he hasn’t felt for so long, one thing that he clings to. he holds on to it with a childish hope, one that he had sworn to destroy the moment he left busan. he had promised himself that he would always be alone. people didn’t believe him, no one kept their promises — and since there was no one to watch his back, he would do it himself. it’s who he was, a team consisting of him and him only. but jun had changed that, and junho had begun to realize that he didn’t have to be alone. that the walls he had been putting up was a front — once again, he was a fool to believe himself to be so cold. junho had always cared too much about the people he loved, and gave that love sometimes too easily for his own sake. it was used, or perhaps never reciprocated in some case as he thought of people who left without a second trace, but thanks to jun, he knew it didn’t need to be like that with everyone.
and it was jun that he found solace in the past few weeks, after all that happened to both of them. having moved over to his place with miska, junho has been close to him, that sense of safety that doesn’t feel as fake as everything else does. yet, there is something burning inside of him, threatening to tip him over the edge, crumble him into a million pieces. and he knows that he had to take some time off, for himself, to accept what has happened and to move on rationally. life has pushed him to reveal his cards to the world, to bare his emotions, and act rashly — and junho knows it won’t end well for anyone. so he goes back to his own flat, with a task in mind. the violin is held tightly as he walks back to the living room and puts it inside a black case, one that he bought a few hours ago. without looking back, he locks the door and leaves. he’s inside his car soon after, the black case of the violin settled down on the passenger seat.
the familiar silhouette of busan sends a pang through his chest, no matter when or how he sees it. it has been over a year since he has done this, and even though the act itself sounds foolish, it’s something that has given junho peace, and with everything that has happened, he knows he has to do this. it’s early in the morning, lights of dawn newly shining through the dark clouds. it’s not a bright day, and junho can’t help but think it’s fitting. he parks the car in a nearby spot before he takes the violin and a bouquet of orchids from the passenger’s seat. before he steps out, he takes the shovel from the backseat and heads towards the cemetery.
he knows where the tombstone is by heart, and as he gets closer, his grip on the case gets tighter, his shoulders growing tenser. it’s not only the only connection he has to them, but it also reminds him of the times he has visited his parent’s graves. the most memorable one was when he left busan, an eighteen-year-old boy who had nothing else to hold on to but a pair of stones. he knew that their ashes weren’t even under the soil. there was nothing left of them after all, only remnants to identify what was left of the corpses. he knows no one ever believed him about all that has happened, and when he was right there, seven years ago, it felt like he had to put that truth away before he could proceed with its life. a secret that was held inside a too small body, it only pained him, that bitter truth that they were murdered instead. and what good did it do when it was only him who knew ? police officers, nurses, his foster families — no one had believed him. and if people looked at you like you were lying for so long, at one point, junho had begun to doubt himself as well.
it was with those feelings that he had visited that exact spot so many years ago, and it shocked him how much had changed. the contrast of that to a year ago, when he was happy in his own skin and life, with a job he cherished, surrounded with people who he loved, and people who loved him in return. the affection had made him believe so -— yet he cuts that thought short. lingering on the people who had left wasn’t something he wanted to do anymore. he was there for another reason as he knelt down on the grass, and gently put down the orchids, his mothers favourite. it’s then that he breaks down, days after he has broken down in jun’s arms. sobs wrack his frame as the shovel and case falls down on the grass as well. one hand grips the tombstone as tears continue to spill down. and there is so much he wants to say — but only mangled “i’m sorry — i’m so sorry” leaves his mouth. would they be ashamed ? would they blame their son for not finding their killer ? junho doesn’t know — he feels like he doesn’t know anything anymore. it hurts, and even though he has accepted everything, he curses at whatever god that’s above, for everything that has happened to him.
the air is thick, and it feels like hours pass with him just mumbling apologies. “i — i didn’t know — i’m sorry i didn’t — i thought — i was such a fool — i’m so sorry —” hands fall down on to the soil, and he clutches it tight, head dropped down between his shoulders as he cries and cries. the last time he cried like this was with jun — but this, this still feels more visceral, as if he’s baring down his whole soul for no one to see. once there aren’t any more tears to spill, he pulls back, sniffling. one hand goes to rub his eyes, and he feels more coherent this time. “i swear i’m going to find him. whatever it takes. i — i’ll come with good news next time. i’m leaving this with you. i — it feels like the best thing to do.” and with that, he stands up, and digs a hole in the ground. delicate hands cradle the case and put it there carefully, and one single tear drops down from his cheek again. it feels like he’s leaving a part of himself, something that he has been holding on for so long, held to tightly to let it go. it contradicts with the promise he just made, he knows — but he feels undeserving of the memory of her mother playing it to him. this, this feels like a better place than the dusty top of his wardrobe. he knows it will stay there forever, maybe wilt and rot, but it just makes it all more special.
he puts the soil back to its place, and smoothes it out with the back of the shovel. it’s fresher than the rest of the soil, and he puts down the bouquet of orchids on top of it. “i’ll — i’ll come back to you with better news. i promise. i’ll be good.” his legs take him away, and junho finds himself feeling more at peace. slightly — but he is glad to have done this. the promise is heavy on his tongue as he gets back into his car and turns the ignition on.
