art of the kill || chensung

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"Don't kill anyone you don't need to kill."

"I don't need to kill anyone."

"This is a game. Whether or not you play honest moves doesn't matter. It's whether you win."

"People are puppets. That gun in your hand's a string."

"Wow, you're a fucked up kid. Go on like this and you might end up killing m—"

"He's heartless. He's perfect."

"He looks normal."

"SHUT UP! I SAID SHUT UP!"

***

Jisung watched his newest teacher throw knives over his head, listening to the deadly slice of perfect, point-zero through the air, right past his ear. The wall behind him was peppered with marks two inches deep.

"Fucked up," said the man throwing the weapons, shaking his head before tossing another through the air, with even more vigour. "You're fucked up."

Jisung sighed and stood up, dodging a whizzing knife and checking his face in the mirror for any pain he might have missed.

"That's shallow," said the man, Seo, watching the younger do, surely, what anyone would do in their situation.

Another knife flew and hit the plaster right above the mirror. Jisung turned, annoyed, and returned to his seat. Seo shook his head.

"I can't believe you're letting yourself be chosen for this, kid. You wanna die? This is different from the usual outside job. It's a real piece of work."

Jisung shook his head, raising his eyes to meet those of Seo. He held a dangerous gaze for a second and let his head drop. Seo dropped a knife on the floor, frustrated. "Flinch, for fuck's sake. Flinch so you're human."

"I'm human." Jisung's voice was warm and full of potential. It said I'm trying! and he knew that Seo hated it.

"No, you're not. You killed him." Johnny looked at him, with something approaching confusion, something a little disgusted, a little inspired.

"I had to. He needed it. I owe him that much." Jisung spoke softly and deliberately, as if a child was asking him why the sky turned dark at night.

Seo shook his head, "People don't always mean what they ask for. I've got to catch you up on folly."

"Me? Folly?" Jisung grinned humourlessly. It was honestly terrifying, because Jisung knew how Seo thought already. "I know how the human mind runs. I have one."

"That's not how it works." Seo sat down, but not before tossing another knife across the room. It ripped Jisung's jacket but drew no blood, to which he frowned. "This is a nice jacket."

Seo smiled, dropping the current knife into a sheath and sitting down on a misplaced sofa. He cocked his head at Jisung, judging him. "How can you say you know folly? I sure as hell don't. I can predict and test. You can't just —"

"I'm not a magician," spat Jisung, irritated. "Folly is infinite. You can't just glance at someone and scan their faults as if they had scratched them across their forehead. You've got to... know them."

"You're scary," stated Seo frankly. "I can both see you've never killed a man and that a hundred people whisper at you from hell."

Jisung grinned like a child, full of youth and mischief again. "It's cool, isn't it? I love playing dress-up."

Seo shook his head. "Fucked up."

+

"Chinese is hard," Jisung commented after blowing a colourless raspberry. The person sitting across from him shook his head, equally bored. "I'm afraid I can't agree, Park. Seeing as I'm both a polyglot and Chinese."

"This person doesn't know Korean at all?" Jisung both took into account and ignored Sicheng's retort. He normally wouldn't call any of the members by their first names, but Sicheng refused to reveal his surname. He was probably wanted somewhere, or was a sane person gone rogue and too ashamed to admit it.

"They might know Korean. They probably do. But don't you want to prove yourself efficient in this, Park? Language is a weapon. You don't have any weapons."

Jisung held up a gun and looked at Sicheng impassively. Sicheng shifted uneasily but turned back to the book in front of him, shifting his tongue to Chinese, "That gun isn't you, nor is it even yours. If you want to take credit for this, then pay more attention to the weapons that can't slip off. That gun might not be able to carry out your dirty work for this one.

Jisung turned back to his book, not replying even to disagree. Sicheng knew well enough that they were different. It was a waste to convince him of what he already knew. Jisung had an entire arsenal, who cared if it was a material one?

"And Jisung, don't lie." Sicheng closed the book and stood up.

"You're fluent in Chinese already. This isn't hard."

+

"You were bought and sold, payment in blood money. Doesn't that bother you, Park Jisung?"

Jisung shook his head, staring out the window at the snow. He shivered, remembering the endless endurance training RFN had put him through in the cold. He diverted his gaze to face the calculating one of his boss. He couldn't have been older than twenty-five. No one here was old. They all died young. That's why the ones who were alive at all were deadly.

"Lee Taeyong. What makes you the boss around here?"

"I'm not really the boss. We all work together," he replied softly, probably trying to catch Jisung off-guard. Jisung borderline hated this guy. He was tricky.

"Who's the boss, then? I'm not an employee they can hear from through you."

Lee leaned back, posture delicate, like he was anticipating himself snapping at any given moment. Their guns and weapons lay in a sinister pile on a table between them. Jisung stayed at ease.

"You're hired, that's all I know." Taeyong grinned warmly and Jisung almost laughed at the smile's contrast to his demeanour. It was grotesque. Lee was convincing Jisung he was scared, and Jisung wouldn't take the swell to his ego.

Jisung himself didn't seem that scary. He could never be so risky as to admit it to himself, or it would show, but he was all bark and half the bite. That was why his bark was as big as humanly possible.

He thought nothing of this.

He threw a big shadow anyways. It was a scary phenomenon, an eighteen-year-old killer.

"And then my indenture will be completely paid off? I'm free if I carry through?"

Lee stood up, a cool blanket falling over him. He stuck out his hand across to the boy. "You have our word." Jisung took his gun off the table, held it in one hand, stood up and shook hands with the elder using the other. He kept his grip light and gaze heavier.

"Good, because I'm getting the fuck out of here."

***

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