11: 'TROUBLEMAKERS THE LOT OF THEM'

AKA THE TIME GRAYSON GOT HIS BEST FRIEND BACK

WHEN THE IDEA of a sub unit composed of two 'psychologically compatible' individuals was first proposed - it was a whisper of a rumour around the halls of Headquarters Korea. Unbeknownst to most of its agents that, in fact, high positioned officials and its own government was signing the plan into action and they were slowly choosing through the people that would fit the requirements.

To Agent Kim Dong Gu at that time, he thought it was laughable.

A compatible pair of people that came from the slums of the world. Those who knew how to fight like it's their last lives, those who didn't care who gets in the way or how many civilians would get hurt. As long as they got their goal - what else is there?

People - monsters who came from horrific places to do something better with horrific methods they knew.

When Agent Kim was asked to report to HQ Korea's Director, he had never expected it was for this.

To become an overseer - a babysitter for them.

As the Director talked at that time, all that the agent thought, the flashes of memories were filled of every hardship and award he had endured and gotten awarded, everything he had ever done right and learned and believed in - all thrown to become someone who manages two dangerous people.

The agent knew, from the very beginning, this plan was psychotic.

But things progressed. A year went by. And slowly, the agent saw their progress. They had no prior knowledge of each other, and both essentially very different from one another, a hot and cold variable, one of the doctors said. But compatible to work together enough to finish missions successfully, at the same time, not want to kill each other in the process.

Slowly, very slowly, and the agent hated himself to admit this at points - he had become fond of them.

Okay, so maybe fond was too big, too touchy-feely of a word.

But slowly, the agent understood and became somewhat proud of his two guys. Which he will never admit. Ever. He'd rather get shot between the eyes and get boiled alive.

Of course there were still trying times when he wondered 'what the fuck, I really don't like these people, are they even people? Humans?'. Things they said, things they did... completely unorthodox to the methods he had learned and put to heart.

The agent's entire family worked for the government. For the people. To protect and serve. And everything the two did - Minwoo and Grayson - they did it with disregard. They didn't do it to protect and serve. They did it for a reason.

To get themselves free.

But even the agent could feel for that.

So yes, maybe he was starting to like them.

And then the call came.

The agent knew only of one number from the two, and Minwoo was the only one who used it. The familiar contact flashed - 'YOUNG BROTHER' to avoid any confusion since he had four younger brothers, and at least this would solve the continuous problem of honorifics.

He answered after one ring. That was protocol. Anything they needed, anything they asked, anytime they called - he picked up without preamble.

"Hello?"

"Where the fuck is Gray?"

The agent halted in his steps. Some of the other agents turned to him curiously, but he ignored them. Minwoo had always sounded smooth like water from fiords. Cold, distant, and ever flowing through your veins like ice. But now his voice sounded like fire - anger, bursting, vicious.

"What do you mean?"

"I meant - if this doesn't get through your thick skull, you dumb mule -" every insult was emphasised with gritted teeth. The agent distinct the sounds of breathlessness, running, and - things being thrown? " - Grayson isn't in our place and he went through all his clothes and found all my tracking devices - ripped them all out like an idiot, and I can't find him, he's not here."

The agent frowned and started running to his office desk. "Hold on. I talked to him yesterday, nothing was wrong. He was picking off small cases without you." As the agent went around his desk, he clicked his laptop, and there, from the secret tracking device instilled in the bracelets that was put on both of them, the agent clicked on Grayson's location.

As for the near three months Minwoo was on his mission, the agent had kept an eye on him since the two were seperated. Grayson remained around the close area of their base, but Minwoo went around a lot with his 'girlfriend'.

As it loaded, he needed to talk through Minwoo. None of them know about the tracking device.

"Why do you need him so bad? What about your mission?"

The anger didn't disappear completely - or why it even appeared in the first place - but there's a hint of triumph and distraction in his tone. "It's done. I got in the facility."

The agent blinked. That was fast. Three months - scratch that, two months and two weeks and he had managed to bribe the girl for the facility? A dark thought. "Did you join the cult?"

"No, you imbecile. Then why the hell go through all the shit of flirting with her and making her happy?"

The agent frowned. Yes Minwoo was annoying in a way that Grayson wasn't - Grayson made you seem like you were best buds while Minwoo striked like a viper, but he had never gone low as to use inane nicknames. Like a middle schooler.

"What's wrong with you? What happened?"

"Listen," Minwoo stressed out the word, his growing impatience made way for that terrifying coldness to creep through. Like a gas, pure black, pure ice. "I appreciate if you tell me now where Grayson is from his bracelet tracker, because evidently, that's the only thing he can't take off. If you really want a new update on the case - you'd better get your ass moving to tell me where my partner is first or I will find you myself, and I will rip through you with a fork."

Something about the way he said it, though he has heard many of the same threats, made the agent's blood curl. With a dry throat, he recited the location of WANG, GRAYSON from the screen.

As soon as he finished, the phone clicked. The line dead.

Somehow, the agent understood something. Like a puzzle clicked together. Without Minwoo, the times Grayson had to work alone, the agent noticed that his usual warmth, that constant fire that could roar into a flame that burn down villages, would make way to a blue flame that punctured you from the inside out.

And without Grayson, Minwoo, who had always been cold and drowning, over-spilled and brought with him an omen. A promise. A tsunami.

The other person was not just a comrade, but a crutch. A gate. Without the other - they were monsters begging to be released.

For maybe the millionth time since he became part of this project - the agent wondered what the fuck was he doing.

Then, like a shock, he remembered.

Minwoo knew about the tracking devices in the bracelets.

Shit.

• • •

It wasn't that Minwoo just needed Grayson.

It was the fact that when Minwoo arrived back at the apartment, the place was too perfect. Too clean. Too awkwardly put together. And then the spot of blood on one of those hideous potted plants Grayson had insisted on putting.

"We have so much dead energy in this house that we need to compel it with something alive and breathing," Grayson had said, hauling about fifteen different kinds of plants, all organising them in some sort of feng shui order.

"Am I not breathing?" Minwoo had asked, genuinely curious.

"Ha ha, no. I meant all of those -" He waved a hand at the photos of dead bodies, of plans, of people to hunt. "We need some countermeasures." He grinned, that standard smile.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid," Minwoo muttered now behind the cab he had waved. The driver was terrified of him now, after Minwoo barked at him to go faster.

His pondering left him in dangerous thoughts that started since he stepped inside the house, trailing after him like a lost, hungry dog. He didn't even had the chance to change clothes - wearing one of those preppy, cheap sweaters and jeans. Jeans for god's sakes. And white sneakers.

What kind of idiot wears white sneakers?

With his thoughts running in different kinds of directions, screaming one way and whispering into the next, the taxi stops. He pays and he crashes straight to a person.

The impact left them both on the ground, rubbing their rumps. Minwoo's mouth curl, and if he hadn't forgotten his damn cane, he would've started swinging.

"I'm sorry there, but you got to watch where you're going, kid, or you'll end up pissing people off," the voice said, low and gruffy, humorous. A hand was offered in his face, big and hairy.

Minwoo's retort was ready to bite, his glare able to end men to their knees - until he looked up and saw the badge on the belt. That was the first thing he saw - then the police station behind him, blue and small, local station that usually has patrols than anything.

It was these reasons and not this police officer's kind smile engulfed in a five o'clock shadow, eyes crinkled with age and smile lines. Minwoo pulled his head back down to reel in all his emotions, all floating, all raging.

He couldn't make a scene in front of a goddamn law enforcement.

So he took his darkness back and kept it again. Locked it and put on another face - the college student, Lee Bong Gu, Baek Anna's little boyfriend. As he grasped the officer's hand, he smiled sheepishly, bowing straight on repeatedly.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't see you! I'm so sorry, please accept my apology!"

The officer chuckled indulgently and patted him on the back. "It's fine, it's fine. From the looks of it, you might be called in to save a younger brother, huh? Troublemakers the lot of them."

At his suggestive eyebrows, Minwoo looked back at the station and made sure the address was correct in his head, while the rest of his mind double checked everyone around the vicinity, how many officers around (five - walking), how many of them have weapons (three - two guns, one baton), how many other people, how many exits...

"Well." The officer smiled. "I can help you, if you want. Come on. Let's get your younger brother out."

• • •

Grayson woke up because of a pothole. When he swore with a voice gritty with exhaustion, an unfamiliar voice asked, "Is he okay?"

Which made him wonder if he was getting kidnapped, until a familiar, cool-toned person with as much emotion as a pile of garbage said, "Oh he's fine. The dumbass deserved it for getting drunk." And with a lowered hiss, "I know you're awake, dumbass. Wake up."

Grayson cracked one eye open first, just to make sure, but as soon as he figured out the familiar features of his partner, the slow bloom of his smile turned into a rakish grin.

"Heeeeey best friend."

Minwoo turned to him slowly, his face clean off emotions, just like usual. He was still wearing his dumb civilian college outfit, which made Grayson want to laugh into the Netherlands, but kept mum.

"Do you even remember what happened to you?" he asked under his breath.

Grayson spun around and the scene started clicking to him. A taxi ride, his head is painfully against one part of the door, while his feet was, shockingly, over Minwoo's lap.

Then his best friend raised his legs abruptly, letting Grayson's legs fall. Grayson's head pounded as he forced his body to sit straight. He met the eyes of the taxi driver.

"Oh, I guess he's awake. Good afternoon, sir."

Grayson bowed swiftly and clung at his head. His body, his brain... felt like someone was pounding hammers. He groaned. The past two days went by in flashes. Then the rest of his two months and two weeks.

"I guess you remember some things," Minwoo murmured quietly.

Grayson nestled his head back, massaging his neck. He closed his eyes again, as if this would stop the nausea building up. "Your mission's done?"

"Yes."

"Your girlfriend?"

"Done."

"The facility?"

"Nothing."

Grayson's eyes opened. "Seriously?"

"I wouldn't say not nothing." Minwoo exhaled through his nose, his eyes sharp and dead, scheming. "I found two things."

"And of these two things?"

"I'll tell you the second one first - it's the place we're going to."

"And the first one?"

Minwoo turned to him, and Grayson's small musings dropped. There was something wrong. He turned away again, as if that gave the answer.

Grayson turned to his lap, his hands, peppered with bruises and cuts. He still wore the black pants and blazer, the white shirt that reeked of alcohol. Minwoo's gaze...

What the hell?