red ; bts

fifteen

Dear Chaenlo,
I'm so sorry.

"Well, well, well. Look at you." Hoseok chuckles, watching you come out of your room puffy faced, sleepy eyed, and rocking a bedhead while holding your new phone tiredly in your hand. It woke you up this early with an incredibly loud and annoying notification that read: '[TH] YOU HAVE TO TAKE THE PHONE WHEREVER YOU GO NOW. Don't think I don't know about how you left it in your room all day yesterday.' "You know the homeless shelters are further in town, right?" He teases.

"It's five in the morning, don't try me." You rub your eyes, dragging your feet as you walk, tired but not tired enough to go to sleep. Once your brain is active, that's that. "Tell me," You start, clutching the cellphone a little tighter and looking over at Hoseok. "Why the fuck can't I silence this damn thing after midnight?"

"Maybe because Taehyung doesn't like you." Hoseok shrugs, chucklingly. You shove his arm as a small smile appears on your groggy face, cause of his laughing grin. "I can silence mine, that comes in handy when he sends out texts at three in the morning."

EXO's HQ.

"I spoke with Chaenlo yesterday, back in the apartment building." Kyungsoo says, practicing his knife skills outside with Jongin. Chanyeol had brought in a few men who didn't hold up their ends of a few deals and tied them up to the splintery poles out in front of the trimmed bushes for them to get some practice as well. After all, this type of practice is one everyone should have.

"Chaenlo—the brother, right?" Jongin asks, adjusting his grip on the sharp, silver weapon. The surviving tied men scream helplessly through the bloody rags stuffed in their mouths, anxiously keeping their eyes on the red-dripping blades. Kyungsoo looks up at them briefly and wipes the dark blood on his own weapon off on his pants. Jongin could care less about keeping the knife clean right now. He can clean it after the last one. "He knows who you are?"

"Yeah, he knows." Kyungsoo nods, glaring over at the annoying screaming men, growing very annoyed with them the louder they get. "I used to see him often there, going into her place. The guy thinks his sister's dead. I figured he just went to feel close to her, but it was too often for that. I never got to talk to him because I'd always be leaving when he showed up, but yesterday he ran into me in the hall. He said he bought the place and we talked about her for a bit—I swear I should be an actor, Jongin. I pulled the whole act with her, and now I'm pulling another with her family. The guy even invited me to his brother's wedding. I'm guessing he thinks I was her boyfriend or something, I don't know. Just wait until I tell them—"

"PLEASE! LET ME GO! I'M BEGGING! HAVE MERCY! WE CAN WORK THIS OUT!" The men's muffled, strained words can still be understood through the stained fabric, irritating both Jongin and Kyungsoo with every damn syllable. "I-I'LL HAVE YOUR MONEY, I SWEAR! PLEASE, JUST GIVE ME MORE TIME!"

"We gave you time." Jongin walks up to the man closest to him, showing him how the red-covered blade in his hand still catches the glint of the sun so perfectly. The man squirms and yells some more, begging and crying for his life, for his kids, for his wife, for time—even though he knows well that in a few minutes he'd no longer breathe. "Plenty of damn time—which you agreed on. Time in which you were supposed to have given us all you owed. Well, the funny thing about time is that it never stops. And for you, it ran out. You knew what would happen. What do you think we run around here, huh? We're gonna get that money no matter what, so pray your wife and sons aren't as stupid as you."

With that, and with Kyungsoo and the last tied man watching, Jongin plunges the blade into the squirming, crying body. The first blow was lethal enough, slicing straight through the liver, but Jongin plunges the knife in two more times just for the hell of it—with a grin, of course. The man tied up next to the bleeding-out body flinches and screams out pathetic pleas, while Kyunsoo watches unamused, without reaction.