it's okay, we're safe now || ATEEZ mafia au

chapter 1: pleiades

jongho burst into the room next to him, slamming the door shut as quickly as he could. he grabbed a thick four by four that had been laying in a debris pile on the floor of the warehouse and slid it between the rickety handles. his hand then darted down quickly to the wound that he was sporting on his side, pressing his fingers hard enough to try and stop the excessive bleeding. slowly collapsing to the floor, knees buckling under him as his legs finally gave out and the gun in his hand falling out of his grip. the steady drip of the blood spilling onto the concrete was ringing in his ears as he used his forearms to pull his body across the bottom of the floor.

the gaping wound in jongho's calf was splitting apart the more he moved before finally pulling himself up against the wall. his face scrunched in pain, eyebrows furrowed together as he hunched over on himself, blood mixing with sweat as it dripped down into a small puddle from his nose. soon after, tears that he had been subconsciously keeping down finally joined in the miserable cocktail. the amount of adrenaline running through jongho's veins caused his hands to vibrate with fear and rendered him unable to even pick his gun up again.

jongho leaned his head back against the wall, panting as he tried his best to catch his shaky breath. the yelling outside of the room made him cringe and want to shrink in on himself, disappearing to the point where he didn't want anyone to find him. when he pulled his right hand away from his side and grimaced at the sight of it. jongho had been injured a lot before, but nothing could compare to the wounds he scored tonight. he was losing an insane amount of blood in a time too short to tell, head already fuzzy as he tried to shake it to help clear up his swirling thoughts and make sense of the current situation.

this whole mission had been a joke. he had no reason being here, and he really had no reason dragging him here either. this had been for jongho's own selfish benefit, which he should've remedied on his own.

jongho pressed his soiled fingers against his earpiece, clearing his parched throat as he tried to whisper as gently as he could.

"hyung..."

it really was funny how he even ended up here. a smart, catholic-raised young boy who had been following the life path dictated for him and yet, by chance, swerved into one of the most powerful mafia groups in the nation. a well-known organization that had been built from the ground up, becoming widely know in only a few years. if jongho had been honest back then, he didn't even know mafias were still a thing. he thought that they were made for riveting and suspenseful movie plots rather than actually being real people who went around killing others out of their own vengeance and fear.

while jongho had his plans to go onto grad school to get his masters and then hopefully his phD to become a surgeon, none of that really ever happened. jongho didn't necessarily want to become a surgeon; he always found the visual arts more appeasing to him. but as he came from a long line of family surgeons, his future had nearly already been written for him. extremely intelligent, he had graduated university with ease and got into one of the most highly regarded medical schools to further his education. with quick wit, amazing composure under extremely difficult scenarios, and steady hands that never shook when he got nervous, jongho was the textbook example of a promising surgeon.

now, yeosang had been with jongho ever since the two were in middle school. both were extremely quiet and had lots of difficulties making friends, but thankfully found each other after their teacher had assigned them to write a few book reports together. yeosang was a special character; jongho had a hard time reading him in the first few years of their friendship and the other seemed to have an aura of secrets within him. while jongho was never the nosy type, he felt that yeosang was always hiding something from him, making him upset that the other wouldn't open up to him.