spies; a seventeen au

6

Warning: descriptions of gore and mutilation!!

Files in his hands, Jisoo made his way down the hallway, his footsteps echoing against the bare walls of the mansion. His body trembled in fear despite exiting his father's office minutes before. His eyes barely followed the words on the files as his hands shook like an earthquake. He absolutely despised the man he called his father, but as much as he hated him, his terror matched the intensity of those emotions. He was trapped like a bug in a spiderweb, struggling to break free from the sticky strands that held him back, as his predator sped toward him with its fangs hanging out ready to tear him apart at any moment.

He shook his head, an attempt to clear his mind of those disturbing thoughts, as he continued down the thousands of pathways in his father's mansion. It was late at night, possibly even close to dawn, but the mansion was still bustling with workers scrambling to sweep up the debris, mop up the dirt and blood, and dispose of the dead bodies that littered the floor like trash. He watched as the poor servants, white uniforms stained with red, hauled around the corpses dressed in designer tuxedos or dresses as their expensive, one-of-a-kind jewelry dangled from their limp body. Jisoo couldn't fathom how the casualties numbers were so high considering this was a party, one with many, many elites across the country. It didn't sit quite right with him that his father wouldn't take extra precautions to avoid a mess like this one.

But as he scanned the room in front of him, his nose wrinkled at the horrid scene, a moving figure caught his eye. One of the bodies, yet to be picked up by the ever so hardworking servants, slowly pushed itself up onto its knees. From their build and face structure as well as the long midnight blue dress and matching earrings and heels that the person was fitted in, Jisoo guessed that the body was female. She fell forward onto her knees, her chest heaving up and down, regaining her breath, and her head lifted up, her eyes flickering on Jisoo. For a few moments, they stared at one another, Jisoo clutching the files in his left hand and the young lady eyeing him up and down. But her eyes found the gun tucked into one of the multiple holsters hanging from his belt, and she scrambled backwards, eyes widening.

"Please don't shoot!" the lady screamed. "I'm begging you!"

Jisoo glanced at the gun in his holster. The black metal of the weapon shone under the light of chandelier, taunting him to pick it up and pull the trigger. His fingers twitched towards the gun, and the woman saw, suddenly bursting into tears. He grabbed hold of the gun, pulling it out of the holster, and he stared at the cold metal seeing his reflection in the smooth surface. He looked tired; heavy bags weighed down his eyes, the light in it long faded. Blood dotted his cheeks as dirt covered almost every inch of his face and hair. His lips were chapped, the bottom lip split open and dripping blood, pointed into a frown. Jisoo frequently faced the same image of himself every mission, just a run-down 22 year old who lost all purpose in life, following every command given to him like a robot because that was the only justification to his father of which he still lived and breathed at that very moment.

He turned the gun's surface away, pointing it at the woman who struggled to stand on her feet. Jisoo watched the poor lady as her legs gave out under her, her body taking a toll on the damage she suffered from a mere few hours or so ago. His finger glazed over the trigger, taking his sweet time to watch her panic and scramble to no avail, her sobs becoming hysterical.

"Please I'll do anything! I won't tell anyone what happened, I promise!"

Jisoo flinched at her words. Everyone said the same thing. They carelessly threw aside promises to save themselves, promises that they will later discard, and then everything will be out. He couldn't risk it for his father would kill him, or worse, his brother if anything slipped through the cracks. He didn't know how long this lady had been awake; she could've heard anything in passing in the previous few hours as servants, maids, himself, his team and his father hustled by. He felt some sympathy for the woman, of course. She didn't do anything to bring this upon herself, but sometimes life is cruel. She happened to be caught up in the mess and survived the gunshot wound in her leg luckily, or maybe unluckily in this situation.

"No hard feelings," Jisoo said, "but I can't have you alive."

The woman flew into a frenzy, desperately dragging herself across the tiled flooring, leaving a trail of blood in her wake. "Please! I didn't do anything! I just want to go home-"

Bang!

A hole in her forehead, the woman slumped onto the floor with a sickening wet sound, her mouth and eyes wide open in surprise. Blood began to pool out of her wound, a large puddle already forming around her head and drenching her hair. Jisoo approached the body, gun in his hand, as he poked at her with his shoes to confirm if she was still alive. Despite knowing that a gunshot to the head meant certain death, it was prodicall to always double-check kills, so Jisoo raised his gun again aiming lower at her head, closer to the neck, and he pulled the trigger sending another bullet through the body and a deafening noise through the air. In the growing lake of blood, he noticed white dotting the dark red liquid streaming from the woman's mouth. In quick realization, Jisoo averted his eyes hastily shoving his gun back into his holster. No matter how many times he murdered, he dreaded looking at his victim's faces, but once again, it was to confirm the kill. Using the tip of his boot, Jisoo carefully pushed the woman over from her position, face to the ground, to her back where it would expose everything to him. He gagged the moment his eyes laid on her face. The deathly pale skin strongly highlighted the oozing punctures on her face. Blood trailed off of her forehead from the bullet that pierced straight through her brains leaving a gaping hole behind. His second bullet horrifically mutilated the rest of her face ripping straight through her nose and grazing the top lip. He could see in full detail the broken tissue and pearl white bones that were never normal to even glance at in one's lifetime. Staring at the injuries, it was clear that the dotted white in her blood were the couple of teeth that were now missing from her jaw.

"I'm sorry," Jisoo whispered, tearing his eyes away from the view. He took a nearby tablecloth that had been yanked off the table it belonged to, and he laid it over the corpse, covering the nightmarish sight from any of the servants who were unfortunate to handle her.

"Hey."

Startled at the sudden call-out, Jisoo whipped around and drew his gun again, all in one swift motion. His gun landed on Soonyoung who defensively put his arms up, his eyes trained on Jisoo's face. Jisoo sighed in relief, glad that it was only his friend and not another innocent, and he dropped to his knees, his gun clattering to the ground. Soonyoung rushed to his side, frightened that his leader had been injured, but that wasn't the case. He held Jisoo in his arms as the older boy began sobbing, his tears uncontrollable. Soonyoung could only wrap the ink blue haired boy in a warm embrace, shocked by his sudden show of emotion. He had never seen Jisoo in a state like this; the boy usually didn't show a flicker of any sort of emotion on his face, only a rock hard sculpted expression. He stroked Jisoo's hair, rubbing circles into his back just like Jisoo's father did, but to Jisoo, it was much different. This felt right. It filled his body with a radiance of light and warmth, his heart put at ease from the pain and fear he found himself enveloped in. It wasn't anything like the stone cold touches from the heartless tyrant that controlled him all day and night.

"Why don't we take you to Jeonghan, okay?" Soonyoung suggested, his hand coming up to Jisoo's face and rubbing off some of the blood of his cheeks.

A weak nod from Jisoo was his reply, and Soonyoung stood up onto his feet dusting his knees. He then held out his hand for Jisoo to take and heaved the boy back up picking up his gun on the way along as well. Taking Jisoo's hand into his own, Soonyoung led the boy to Jeonghan's room, one of the few rooms Soonyoung actually knew how to get to in the humongous house. Ever so often, he would take a peek back at Jisoo who diligently followed him. He was quiet the entire walk there, his head hung low, as he wiped his cheeks or nose once in a while. Soonyoung was pained from seeing his hyung that way, but he kept moving forward hoping that talking to Jeonghan would heal him.

When the two finally reached Jeonghan's room, Soonyoung let their hands fall, and he turned around to face Jisoo. "Hyung, I just wanted to say I love you."

Jisoo glanced up at the younger, his expression now sprinkled with a bit of confusion.

"I don't expect you to open up so soon, but I- I mean, we, the team, we care about you, so take care of yourself, okay? We're always here... right by your side."

The older nodded and embraced the latter in a big hug muttering, "Thank you."

Soonyoung returned the hug. Jisoo was the one to let go first, telling the younger he didn't want to keep him up any longer and that he needed sleep. He handed Soonyoung the files that he asked for before then sending him on his way. He faced the door, taking a deep breath, before knocking on the wood.