many-faced god

look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it.————————————

[nso-csi]

200407 Taemin instagram update

[xxxxprjinil]

ARRIVISTE

[xxxxprjinil]

yongji‌

“you know, it’s a pity.” her knees creak as she stands back up and she grabs onto jinil’s shoulder for support. “this is some of my best work, and it’s all going to a kid who thinks manet is a type of cheese. i’m almost offended.” 

it requires patience, these cons, sometimes a patience that feels excruciating. but disregard it in the face of assumed safety and that’s when everything collapses, jinil had experienced it enough when he was younger and prone to overestimating himself. so he takes his time now, even with a mark like hamin. had let their relationship grow, and then flourish before he even started to get the bright idea of harvesting his spoils. it’d be a shame to let an entire person he’d spent time building up collapse because they wanted to get the job done a little faster. there was no real reason to retire park hyunwoo as a concept if he didn’t really need to. it was easier to pick someone back up from the pile than create a new one, especially when he often needed papers and licenses to pair with them. good fakes weren’t cheap.

time drags out, and then their plan slowly starts to unfurl. yongji’s voice catches, trembling like a leaf in the face of wind, the kind of thing someone could either read as lust or fear -- but jinil can tell by the look hamin throws him that he thinks he’s won either way that scale tips. so jinil mirrors it, grips little tighter at her waist and takes it as their cue to leave with an annoyingly knowing “we won’t get caught.” offstage and to the left, they’re finally able to duck away into the closet.

he helps pick her coat from the rack and peel away the flimsy stitching they’d needled into the lining. “i’ll take it as a compliment.” a lift of his brow and a smile that seems a little too complacent for the situation. but what’s an actor without a way to subdue whatever unsightly emotion is simmering underneath the surface?

jinil reaches out to offer a hand when yongji climbs back upright, accepts the painting and slides it under the back of his own blazer. not a surefire place to store it, but it should last for the short walk to find the original. most everyone seemed to be back in the throes of the party anyway, too drunk to care about the rooms that don’t house a fantastic array of liquor. “maybe he’ll decide to sell it.” jinil leans closer to the door, eyes shut in concentration as he listens for noise on the other side of it. “you know, i convinced him to invest stock in a defunct children’s show the other day.” it had been an incredibly boring round of golf. 

satisfied and he pulls back, though takes brief pause before he twists at the handle. reaches out the ruffle a hand through yongji’s hair, skates a thumb across her lipstick and smears the excess off near the corner of his own mouth. “just in case.” he admits with a grin before he turns and opens the door, fingers still curled around the bottom edge of the painting underneath his jacket.

[xxxxprjinil]

IMPROVISE

with @prdaimu at headquarters.

jinil walks like he’s late for a meeting, long strides and with that tight flicker near the corner of his lips, somewhere between pissed off and anxious. it might make more sense if there was a meeting to be had, but the house is largely empty. nobody to crane their neck when jinil kicks at the heels of heavy dress shoes to get them off and invites himself in. that just makes him frown harder before he starts circling the building in searching loops, like a hawk hoping for prey. 

and then he finds daimu hiding on the couch, who might as well be the very definition. jinil inches in closer near a blind spot, fingers sinking talon sharp against the boy’s shoulders, tips himself closer and greets him with a smile. it settles like a greasy film of oil over the situation, the type of mood where it’s easy to tell that a mess is going to be inevitable, that everyone will need to scrub their hands clean by the end of it.

“busy?” it’s a question, but one that comes with a near-mandated answer of ‘no.’ half because jinil often has a problem with being told something he doesn’t want to hear, and half because jinil’s gone convinced himself daimu’s essentially an intern. he’d asked him to buy him a latte just two days ago and hadn’t bothered checking back to see if he might’ve been offended by it.

“because i need a warm body and you’re the only one here.” he could’ve sold it in a more positive light, talked daimu up in a way to see if he could catch at his self-confidence and convince him he was just the right man for the job. but jinil’s on a timer and he’s supposed to be meeting with a mark he’s had in the works now for ages. he doesn’t want it to all collapse just because sleaze-bag of a grifter jinil had partnered up with had gone and spooked himself right out of the game. that’s what he got for dealing with amateurs, and yet...

“you can act, right?”

[xxxxprjinil]

FAVORS

with @prwonjae, examining the finer things in life at his studio.

out on the flat slab of sidewalk concrete in front of a building that probably shouldn’t look familiar to him, jinil pats at a box tucked against his inside pocket. jinil’s carrying enough to out-value the rows of cars lining the streets. shiny, heirloomed, and not often looked at, but jinil often doesn’t deal with jewels. they’re easier to stow away in his pockets though, so maybe he should. 

“wonjae,” he says it like wonjae might’ve been expecting him. from the way his head jerks up unaware and startled, he hadn’t been. jinil grins, an easy slide of an expression. he’s never been in wonjae’s studio before, but he makes a home of fast enough. elbows to a empty gap of counter top and an easy roll of his shoulders. “got any coffee?” a wider smile, a pause, “and maybe, can you lock the door?” jinil eyes the windows, tries to discern what can be seen from the other side of them.

“i’ve got a favor.” there are various ways people can ask for a favor. pleading’s the worst, step a foot in pleading and they know they’ve got you, can ask for practically anything at that point. there’s the kind backed with violence, where favor doesn’t mean favor so much as it does ‘i need you to do something, and if you don’t you’ll end up with a broken nose.’ and then there’s the way where it sounds like a proposition, like a two-player game, someone invited in and necessary. that’s how jinsol often goes about it.

“but i need you to keep it a little quiet, you know? just between me and you. you always struck me as trustworthy sort of guy.” jinil trusts nearly no one, and so that’s a lie. but it’s the kind of lie that can make someone feel at ease, and so he leads with it. “and besides, i’ve been thinking that the two of us should get closer, haven’t you?” 

it’s only after jinil finds assurance that he reaches a hand into his blazer and pulls out a thin box. cracks it open to reveal a necklace dripping in grapefruit-pink diamonds, slides it closer for wonjae to take a look.

“think you can make a replica?”“

[xxxxprjinil]

BARGAIN

with @przhiruo, private meeting in her office.

jinil can admire art. can step into a museum and stand enraptured at the foot of a classic. but it’s not so consuming that there won’t be a small part of his brain clicking its way through the possibility of taking it, wondering how much someone might be able to sell it off for if presented with the opportunity. so he likes art, even has a few pieces stolen and stashed and called a private collection -- but perhaps not in the same way that people like yongji or zhiruo might. not that he’s asked outright, but it’s the kind of assumption that sits harmless enough on the sidelines. jinil’s gotten good enough at spotting the sorts of assumptions that are likely to make trouble. 

but it endears her to him, zhiruo. a commonality, and he figures it’s just human nature to seek out people with the same interests. less so to go digging in their past in order to find out whether they’re lying blind about it. call him a paranoid person. it’s half the reason hyunsoo keeps him around anyway. 

she hadn’t been lying, but he’d discovered a past that was immeasurably more exciting than his own. would’ve planned keeping it to himself for the greater part of a decade if she’d only bother playing nice with him. now, usually if people bond over a hobby they might make plans on it, a museum outing or a watercolor cafe. for jinil, it’s scheduling a meet and greet with a select few names on her contacts list. he can do the legwork past that, but she’s been uncooperative.

pan to him now in her office, nudging what might either be a modern art piece or a paperweight in a slow-moving line across the edge of her desk. she’s finishing up a call, and he’d gotten annoyed over that fact three and a half minutes in. jinil only manages to find patience when he’s getting paid for it. four minutes later and he plucks a ballpoint from a holder, scrawls a message on a post it and sticks in on the file she has opened in front of her--

are they that important?

his fingers wrap in a staccato beat against the wood. mahogany maybe. bored enough that he’s contemplating carpentry. lovely. 

“finally. jesus christ.” a heavy-lunged sigh when the receiver’s clicked down. he shouldn’t take the lord’s name in vain, he calls himself christian after all. 

“i came to follow up with you, about your contact. jung hobin, right?” jinil says right like he hasn’t asked her about the same man at least five times by now. “i heard he’s looking to sell some of his collection...?” that one’s dragged out at the end, like he hadn’t already known it for a week and a half. 

[xxxxprjinil]

DOLOS

with @prsebin, econ alumni meetup.

as jinil slides his shades down the bridge of his nose to glance over at sebin, he decides the sun’s too bright. a flare of too-goddamn-much dancing across his retinas. he shouldn’t have drank until the early dawn, but it’s not in his wheelhouse to turn back time and convince himself out of a bad decision, and so he quietly suffers his consequences instead. jinil squints his eyes shut with a groan and slides them back into place. he body follows suit, hefted up from the lethargic slump he’d taken up position in on the car ride over. 

her music’s clicked off with the engine, and jinil doesn’t bother replacing it with words. just falls in step and helps pick out which blocky, nondescript building is their blocky, nondescript building. an alumni meetup, and it hadn’t been purely coincidental the moment jinil found out they’d both majored in the same thing, but it’d been a discovery regardless. not that there was much to do with the information aside from hitch a ride to the place. but he likes being in the know.

now, jinil doesn’t really have a right to be there. sure, he has a degree, and sure, he learned enough to help him figure out the things he wanted to. but he hadn’t gotten through on true merit alone, and his university wasn’t exactly clocking in at prestigious. but that didn’t mean jinil couldn’t lie through his teeth about both of those things if needed. he had enough fake aliases with pre-packaged backstories that he could make something work if push came to shove. and that was mainly why he was here anyway, to see if there was anyone worth shoving. 

he wasn’t so sure about sebin, but he was willing to bet she didn’t consider knocking elbows with tax advisers to be all too entertaining, unless it led into their clienteles bank accounts.  

“god, where’s the free food?” jinil’s always liked free anything -- to the point where he’ll take it and decide that makes it free, price tag attached or not. the sunglasses are pulled down again, like he’s testing the wattage of the lighting inside the building against his headache. “recognize anyone fun?” he asks her only after they’ve circled the room a few times and jinil had managed to find himself a handful and sandwich triangles. 

[xxxxprjinil]

ARRIVISTE

with @pryongji, party at a nouvea-riche penthouse.      -- aliases, park hyunwoo and kim eunjung, silver-spooned couple.      -- con, change out a painting for a forgery, fence it off and split the earnings.      -- mark, lee hamin, twenty-five, son of a self-made mogul.

the first time jinil had seen the collection was by chance. three paintings, hanging garish in a foyer and clashing spectacularly with the modern-leaning furniture scattered almost abstractly around the room. there was a certain boastfulness to the way it was hung, like they were trying to buy prestige. it’s easy enough to find types like that, all this new money, and they’re still not let into the kind of places they’d gone and imagined in the before. not that there’s a whole lot of old money to kick around, but it’s still easy to spot the ones who wear it with an awkward unfamiliarity. those are the types jinil likes to target most of all. enough money to go around, and often willing to pass it hand over fist if they think it’ll cast them in some enviable shiny-gold veneer. 

how he’d gotten here? a game of golf, names exchanged. funny -- they’d gone to the same university and could hardly recall each other, ‘and god don’t you just remember what hard-ass professor gong was? by the way, did you ever end up landing a job at your father’s company?’ information vulture-pecked off the bones of social media, regurgitated back up like genuine memories. it’s been months now, since they’ve become friends. it hasn’t been the hardest alias jinil’s ever kept up, likely because his target’s too young and trusting to really put him through the ringer. hadn’t even been that concerned when he’d brought yongji in with him so she could see the artwork he wanted to replace up close. 

introduced her as his girlfriend, ‘shy as can be and studying art history of all things, bores me to death half the time. but hey, she’s pretty, right?’ the easiest way to get through to people is to mirror their traits, interest. especially the real bad ones. find a common denominator in something taboo and they’ll place their world in his hands more often than it rains in july. now, hamin? he’s a misogynistic brand of terrible; jinil and yongji have fallen into spirit-drunk laughter about the wordy blunders he’s tripped himself into on more than one occasion. 

but the setting’s less intimate tonight. a long list of names invited, and if not for the job jinil would be making his rounds. some of them read so desperate to please even he thinks it’s a little pitiful. probably why hamin invited them here. “eunjung, should we slip into the coat room for some fun?” jinil gets close enough to murmur it into yongji’s ear from behind. a hand on her hip and they look like the couple they’re playing as. it’s not the first time they’ve pulled this trick; they’d just gone by different names in the past.

a cut slit in the back lining of the trench she’d worn in, that’s where they’ve stowed the fake. a little bigger than a sheet of a4 and jinil had gone for which would be the easiest to swap out over sheer price value on the market this time around. 

“or do i need to ply you with more wine first?” he grins, deviant and wolfish to their newfound friend. the expression’s traded back, trust built on the back of assumed lechery. 

[xxxxprjinil]

hey everyone! i’m excited for opening and can’t wait to plot/write with you all. my timezone tends to be the exact opposite of most people, so i wasn’t here for opening time, unfortunately. this is the spy canon, do jinil. i wouldn’t describe him as nice, but he’s great at pretending to be if it’ll help him in a con. his bio is here and his profile is here. if you’d like to plot just like this or im me. i also have a discord if that’s easier, too. under the cut is some additional info.

grifter extraordinaire. he usually cons through adopting another persona and bluffing his way through the process. uses things like social engineering to walk into places he shouldn’t be, find out things that shouldn’t be privy to him. 

is good at getting people to trust him, has a decent enough read on people and tries to adopt positions or personas that might appeal to them, along with a few psychological tricks he draws from.

that is not to say that he is a trustworthy person. he most definitely is not.

he finds blackmail a stronger influence to getting people to do what you want than outright violence.

as far as jini’s concerned, there are people that matter and people that don’t. the ones that matter you pull a job on, or make good enough friends that you can call them later when needed.

plays information about himself close to the chest, he knows how powerful it can be when placed in the wrong hands. jinil’s likely told five members of the club five different answers on where he grew up paired which a plausible backstory for each, for instance.

for the same reason, he’s not into social media, at least not where it’s identifiable. he uses instagram or the like to try and pull information he can use to mine for info and the like, but there wouldn’t be a single picture of his face or interests on his profile. the only reason he bends this rule is if he needs to create one for a con so he doesn’t seem suspicious. but the persona and information is fake, and it’ll be deleted afterward.

some misc facts-- prefers reading over tv, considers himself religious, can play the piano, takes his coffee with milk only, his drink of choice is gin and juice, what he wears will often depend on who he’s pretending to be, doesn’t like having his picture taken, trades stocks with insider information, enjoys art, he likes impressionism best.

he’s supposed to have/find weak links on all the members so hit me up with your muse’s dirty secrets and weak spots for a fun time 🔥

for plotting i figure we can mostly try to brainstorm off their direct personalities and roles in the club? though i will say i wouldn’t mind some plots where they don’t get along fabulously and there’s an underlying tension there despite the fact that they both agreed to work with each other.

hmu tho! and just ask if there’s something else you want to know about him.

[quotemadness]

Feelings are just fleeting on the surface. But emotions, they’re very deep, primal; they linger.

Phillip Noyce (via quotemadness)

[mystericmoon]

taemin - want (2019)