facearmsorlegs

[facearmsorlegs]

He's right, of course. It was a meaningless thing to say and he knew it at the time—of course Taeju couldn't do so. Who could?

"I don't want you to feel trapped. If you help me raise her, do it because you want to. Not because you have to."

Raise her. It's a dizzying concept, like staring down into an endlessly deep canyon. He's going to be responsible for this child for the rest of his life. So is Taeju. And he knows nothing, nothing about caring for a child, beyond the general idea of it one gets from having at one point been a child.

The alcohol didn't help, not really, still, Taeju needed to focus on something that wasn't the complete uprooting of the life he had finally made his. He couldn't even resent the situation, because there was a child, a scared child, in need of a home. And she was Mujin's family, his blood, Taeju would never have been able to turn her away. Still, he lets out an affronted scoff at the promise, and turns again to fix a stare on his partner, something between hurt and acceptance in his eyes. He doesn't speak for a heartbeat, two, then takes a deep breath. He was formulating his response, because Taeju really had never been someone to act rashly, even over something as simple as a conversation. He presses his lips together in thought, glances down at the almost empty glass still in his hand, then back at Mujin. "So I'm supposed to let you do it alone?" He asked, evenly, "Do you really think I could do that? Pretend she doesn't exist? Just because I - because we never expected her?"

[facearmsorlegs]

His chest aches as Donghoon details all the things he had thought Mujin capable of doing to someone he loves, the grief for the time being winning out over the new flare of rage at being told that he's being childish. The man he spent ten years of his life with thought him the sort of person that would do that. Thought that he would have been treated no differently than a business partner.

Even if he did love him, which is at least getting easier to allow back into his worldview, Donghoon thought himself morally superior. Probably still does, unconsciously. His guts twist, wrenching, his entire body in violent dissonance. He wants to kill Cha Gi-ho for this, because somebody needs to pay, somebody needs to bleed, and he knows he can't exact his revenge on the man he just uncovered.

"Maybe not. And you'll never understand what it's like giving ten years of your life to someone who doesn't exist." He was backed into a corner, in the beginning. He didn't have a choice. That much Choi Mujin is able to accept, but everything after it—

he doubted him. Donghoon did not trust him enough to not kill him.

"You're a coward, Song Joonsu." The strained quality to his voice gives way to coldness. "Did you ever trust me?"

“Because I didn’t have a choice.” Donghoon hisses, sounding more affronted now than he had dared to before. “I didn’t love you when I took this position, which - by the way, I didn’t ask for. I was put in Narcotics and shipped here a month later. I didn’t know you so I did my job. I met you, I started to fall for you, but I was still more cop than yours. So I did my job.” He took a deep breath, irritation darkening the fear and sorrow that had painted his face. “By the time I loved you it was too late, I couldn’t be pulled out without everyone going to prison. I couldn’t stop reporting without everyone going to prison, I couldn’t tell you without facing your childish fucking rage, and yes - I was scared you would hurt my daughter, I was scared you’d use her, or hurt me in front of her, because I have seen you when you go for traitors, you tear their entire fucking lives down. I wasn’t going to let you do that to her. So I kept reporting, I covered up for you, because I love you. I hid the worst of this fucking place so I wouldn’t lose you, and I did it for ten fucking years.” His voice was shaking again, and he tossed the lighter onto the coffee table, fishing out his own packet of cigarettes and lighting one with his own lighter before he could continue. "You will never understand having to wake up every morning knowing that everything ends in being killed or being ripped away and put somewhere under so-called protection to rot. There was no happy ending, not for me."

[facearmsorlegs]

"The cameras." Mujin huffs, disbelieving, too tired to fight the new wave of rage and incredulity. Of course there would be cameras too. The impulse is to tear them apart, but he has to be wise about this. If the wiretap goes dead at the same time as the cameras are cut, they'll know Donghoon's cover is blown. He'll be recalled.

That will be the end of them, permanently, and despite his fury he finds he's not quite ready for that. He looks up, stares him in the eye, finally asks the burning question that he still hasn't received a satisfactory answer to despite knowing there will never be one for Donghoon to give.

"If you loved me, how could you do that to me?"

Mujin finally looks up and meets his eyes, critical and unyielding. "You're sorry I found it."

Not sorry he placed it there. He wonders what Donghoon told himself to make such a thing as that morally justifiable, leveraging someone's obvious love for him to plant a bug when he could have done so any number of other ways less personal. The only way it could hurt more were if it were concealed in a wedding band.

"It doesn't matter how."

[facearmsorlegs]

Mujin finally looks up and meets his eyes, critical and unyielding. "You're sorry I found it."

Not sorry he placed it there. He wonders what Donghoon told himself to make such a thing as that morally justifiable, leveraging someone's obvious love for him to plant a bug when he could have done so any number of other ways less personal. The only way it could hurt more were if it were concealed in a wedding band.

"It doesn't matter how."

The lighter. His blood runs cold as Mujin holds it out to him, his eyes lock on it, and suddenly he understands. The bug, he'd found the bug and then he'd found the typewriter and the gun and figured everything out. He had wanted to arrest him, once. Back when he'd started at Narcotics, and his head had been filled with a hundred stories of how terrible Choi Mujin was. But then he'd met him, he'd spent time with him, he'd fallen in love with him. The murderer, the violent crime lord, who could be so gentle when no one else was around, who loved passionately and completely. How could he harm him? And yet he did. Every single day. "I had to." He murmured, "You don't know the pres-" He cut himself off, fingers closing around the lighter, slowly. He couldn't make an excuse for it , there was no excuse that wasn't 'it's my job,' no words he could find that would make it any better. "You found it... How- No... I... I'm so sorry."

[facearmsorlegs]

Mujin swallows thickly. Tries to think of something, anything to say. He's been acutely aware of the weight of the stupid fucking lighter in his jacket pocket since he put it back, weighing on him as a manifestation of everything that's just unfolded, a chain around his neck.

Fuck that. He reaches into his pocket, holds it out to Donghoon even at the great pain of doing so, like he's tearing it from his own body—but it shouldn't mean anything to him. It wasn't the heartfelt gift he treasured it as, it was a way of getting a bug onto his person.

Doesn't make it less painful, but he knows that the sooner he strips himself of all of Donghoon's presence, the sooner he debrides the wound, the sooner he'll at least be able to function.

"Yes you did. Take it. It's not useful to either of us now, is it?"

There's a moment's reprieve while Mujin lights the cigarette, but the silence only serves to point out that Donghoon still didn't know what he had done that had given him away, that he still didn't know how he had been discovered, what had led to Mujin tearing through the apartment so ferociously to find the proof. He didn't want to know. Not really. And the silence is filled with more of Mujin egging him on, he seemed desperate to accept the police in his blood, to wipe out everything that he had become over the last ten years. It was probably easier that way, he reasoned; to make him completely different, a true villain, black and white and blue all over. He couldn't give him that closure, he couldn't even give it to himself. "I've already told you why I won't." He says, fighting not to make it sound confrontational. He lights his own cigarette, and notices that his hand is still trembling. "You're not my fucking meal-ticket," He sighs, exhaling the smoke from his lungs with it, "You're - I'm not cop enough anymore to do that, I don't want to, I don't want to see you behind bars, I haven't wanted that for years. I don't know if I ever really did."

[facearmsorlegs]

Keeping clove cigarettes on his person even though he doesn't have a taste for them. Ha. Mujin resists the urge to crumple it in his hand, if only because he desperately, desperately needs a smoke; he manages that but doesn't thank him. He digs in his pocket, grasps the cold metal of his lighter, remembers.

Fury flares up again like the flame of a gas stove jumping at a turned knob, an overload of propane. The kind that burns a house down, that eats a man alive.

He needs a cigarette more than he hates to use the very symbol of his own betrayal, barely. He lights it quickly, closes the lighter, drops it back in his pocket. Takes a long drag and stiffly exhales before he even begins to address that. It's not as soothing as the simple act of breathing the fragrant smoke usually is.

"You have no reason not to. An arrest like this, you could probably be chief."

He hates the way it sounds on Mujin's lips, his eyes twitch as he hears his name, his real name in the voice of the man he had hoped would never have cause to learn it. He's only grateful that Mujin can't seem to be able to look at him, that he didn't see it. "I'm not - it - fuck." He gives up trying to explain that he wasn't Joonsu anymore, letting out a breathy curse and lifting his hand to run over his own face. But then he's distracted once more. If you're going to arrest me. He should, he should report that he had been burned and couldn't wait anymore, he should take Mujin in and draw a line under the mess that was the last ten years, go into protection, take Jiwoo somewhere nice. He should, Song Joonsu should.

He won't.

"Here." A packet of Mujin's clove cigarettes that rested always in his pocket is produced, and passed over. "Smoke your cigarette. But I'm not going to arrest you."

[facearmsorlegs]

"Song Joonsu," he repeats, quietly. A name that holds no relevance to him, that sounds like any other listing in a phonebook, and the man he's apparently been in love with for the past ten years. That's the person he was expecting to spend his life with. Song Joonsu.

Mujin swallows, doesn't look up from the coffee table to meet his eyes, though he can see Donghoon—Joonsu—daring to take a few steps closer in his peripheral vision, like he wants to lay a hand on his shoulder, do any of the things Donghoon would have done. As though he's not the source of the grief.

God, what a nightmare. This has to all be an elaborate, vivid nightmare. There's no way he's really just lost ten years of his life.

He knows nothing about this man. If the cheeriness was an act, if he's really that extroverted, that friendly, that fraternal. If every trait he fell in love with was fabricated. The only way to know is to continue to stay in his presence and watch as the knife in his chest steadily bores deeper.

He presses his fingertips together, and leans forward, elbows on his knees. He knows the stranger is still watching him.

"If you're going to arrest me, let me have a cigarette first."

Why couldn't it have been an affair? Why couldn't Jiwoo have turned out to be some woman he didn't stop seeing when they consummated their bond? Why couldn't it be something they could recover from?

He felt his throat thicken, felt his tongue get heavier in his mouth. His name, his real name, the name he had promised to discard for as long as it took to bring Dongcheon down. The name that he had distanced himself from so thoroughly that it sounded foreign to his ears, that it caught on his tongue and left the taste of blood in his throat. He couldn't say it. But it was the one thing he knew Mujin needed him to say. Donghoon took a few, faltering steps towards the couch that Mujin had thrown himself onto, but stopped a good few feet short of it, not trusting himself to get any closer, lest he lose his nerve entirely. What was his name? What was the correct one? The one that identified who he was under the tattoo and the badge? He didn't know any more. "Song Joonsu." He said, eventually, and then swallowed, as if the action could take it back. "My name is Song Joonsu."

[facearmsorlegs]

"She went to kill him, Taeju-ah."

Still.

"I don't know what he may have told her, but I plan to speak with her." He pauses, lifts a hand and rests it on Taeju's shoulder, squeezes. "I can handle it. You need to concern yourself with keeping the men together and your own condition."

Because he's still capable of leading them, and he needs to, and he needs to be reminded of the prior—that he's not useless.

it’s a truly astounding show of hypocrisy, and taeju isn’t exactly sure how to process his part-scolding part-concerned intervention. he doesn’t plan on taking the painkillers for long, only until moving without them isn’t excruciating, still, being lectured on the correct way to take pills that he knew mu-jin usually avoided like the plague.

“right.” he says, slowly, “of course.” he doesn’t quite give in, not quite able to promise that he’d take the advice on board, even though he knows it’s the right thing to do. don’t drink, limit smoking, take with food twice a day. the doctor’s instructions rang in his ears, he swallows, nods. he can’t bring himself to speak much more, still in the middle of processing what was happening to him, still in pain, still angrier and more ashamed than he had been in years.

eventually, he manages something. “you need to speak to jiwoo. i don’t think she saw me, but she was there. she went to cha gi-ho, we have to run damage control.”

[facearmsorlegs]

"You do too."

Moreso than he does, and Mujin knows it.

Guilt isn't a frequent emotion for a man like him, but he feels it now, crushing, suffocating. And there's no way to take his hand off the hot stove, no way to remove the source. No way out. If she's with anyone else, they'll be killed too. They can't send the sheer scale of security detail they'd need.

And she's his niece. Minhee is his blood. And alone.

"I wont... Yeobo, I won't make you raise her."

Like that's a choice, like Taeju would ever just ignore a child in the same household as himself. He doesn't know why he says it, but he feels the need to, desperately.

" i know. " his thumb brushes gently over the soft skin on the inside of mujin's wrist, then he releases it, leaning against him and letting the weight of him sit solid and comforting against his own. " i'm not going to take anything from you, okay? i just... you don't need to shut me out from this stuff. " taeju sighs, and tries to find something that would be more comfort, that would make any of this feel more winnable. more normal. but he's too caught up in the whirl of emotion and confusion that's wrapping around him and taking everything that he was away, the careful calculation, the unemotional logic. it was all gone. " it's... it's fine. you need to process. " he pushes up from the couch and returns to the bar, taking a long sip of the drink he had abandoned there.

[facearmsorlegs]

Mujin stills, at least for a moment. It's logical, enough so that his own calculating nature can momentarily take the reins again, a brief moment of clarity in the storm of emotion. He's not wrong. There are a lot of things, a lot of murders, that would have been grounds for arrest if he'd wanted to. They could have taken the entire organization down by now. He would be serving time by now if it were anyone else in Donghoon's position.

He has, for all of the cruelty of what's been done to him, been kept relatively safe.

He lets out another wavering breath, resisting the urge to swipe at the tears in his eyes, as though that is what will make Donghoon realize he's crying, as though it's not already self-evident. He strides lamely to the couch, collapses onto it, rubs both hands down his face.

How could you do this to me? That, more than anything, is the question that circles endlessly. And there's no answer. There will never be an answer. If there is an answer, it won't be one that satisfies him.

"What is your name?"

You could have told me, Mujin cries, as if it wasn't impossible, as if Donghoon could have ever found the words. As if he could roll over, lying next to Choi Mujin at night, kiss him on the cheek, and say 'by the way, my love, I'm an undercover cop.' As if the longer it went unsaid the harder the words were to find. He would never understand the battle, the blurring of identities and allegiances until heart, head and soul all belonged to different corners of a fight Donghoon would never be able to win. The alcoholism was swept under the rug, the sleepless nights ignored, the drugs he'd used just to keep his head when he was being torn apart. All of it unnoticed. But he couldn't blame Mujin for any of that. "I know." He says, taking a deep breath, the tears slow, but still trail over rounded cheeks, he rubs at his cracked knuckles, "I know... and I know I can't make this right, there's - there's nothing I can do. But... I've tried to protect you, I have protected you, or you would have been taken away years ago, you have to know that." Surely that had to count for something.

[facearmsorlegs]

And you chose her.

It's so evident. Even as he uses the same term of endearment he's always addressed him by, as tears spill from his eyes.

"You could have told me! You could have told me and fed them false information!" Mujin lets out a ragged breath. "You had ten years of chances to get out of this. I should kill you. Were you anyone else you'dalready be dead, Yoon Donghoon."

The words, he knows, are meant to placate him. He's right about the likely reaction of his masters, but the rest—his assumptions about Mujin only drive the spear deeper through his heart.

"No. I wouldn't have." This is worse, the worst possible outcome, and he hasn't, has he? Even though he should. He doubles back. "Jiwoo." A scoff, disbelieving. Tears still glisten on the sharp rises of his cheekbones. "You think that little of me? That I'd kill a child in cold blood? Your child?"

You didn't love me. You never loved me. Maybe you thought you did. But I was always an immoral criminal lowlife to you. And that's a thought, a realization, that makes his chest ache.

[facearmsorlegs]

The words, he knows, are meant to placate him. He's right about the likely reaction of his masters, but the rest—his assumptions about Mujin only drive the spear deeper through his heart.

"No. I wouldn't have." This is worse, the worst possible outcome, and he hasn't, has he? Even though he should. He doubles back. "Jiwoo." A scoff, disbelieving. Tears still glisten on the sharp rises of his cheekbones. "You think that little of me? That I'd kill a child in cold blood? Your child?"

You didn't love me. You never loved me. Maybe you thought you did. But I was always an immoral criminal lowlife to you. And that's a thought, a realization, that makes his chest ache.

It makes sense. It would have been stupid to consider any other reaction to what he had said, but the words still cut into Donghoon, hard. Of course Mujin didn't want to revel in the good times, they would be forever stained by his true identity now, forever cloudy with the smog of betrayal. And the rose coloured glasses Donghoon had worn to look back, to forget which moments had been him, and which had been Joonsu, which moments had been reported, and which kept secret... those glasses were gone. Everything was over.

He flinches when the gun clatters onto the coffee table, but doesn't look at it; he can barely stand to look at Mujin, let alone a symbol of his lies. Honour. He had thought himself the honourable one once, still did, occasionally, and when Cha Giho reminded him how many people he could help, when he had struggled to justify the crimes he committed, before he'd fallen in love. After that he had just been concerned with doing what Mujin wanted. Could he call himself a cop, now? Could he call himself a gangster? What name would they carve onto his urn? "I wanted to tell you, so many times." Because it was true, he had, he'd almost let it slip a hundred times, over the years, lips parted, then closed when this reaction would come to mind. "Mujin I was terrified. Of losing Jiwoo, of losing... of losing you. You have to - no... sorry, I-" He had never had to argue with this man before, and he was failing spectacularly at it. "If I had stopped reporting, they would have pulled me out, and arrested you. If I had... told them I loved you, they would have pulled me out, and arrested you. If I had told you..." His eyes finally flick to the gun, "You'd have shot me in an instant, and I'd never get to say sorry."

[facearmsorlegs]

Two hours ago he would have returned the sentiment without question. Now he just watches Donghoon, police officer, as he says this, searching for some tell, some outward indicator of dishonesty.

Not that he's likely to find one. The man is apparently a pretty good liar.

Ten years. Fuck. Ten fucking years of his life.

The rage boils up until he's speaking just to speak, not even formulating his thoughts before they hit his lips. "I wish I'd never met you. I wish none of this had happened! None of it!" He doesn't know if he means it.

Mujin takes a step forward and tosses the gun onto the coffee table; if Donghoon wants to lunge for it, if he wants to shoot him, fine. Fine. It would be a relief.

"I would never do something like this. Ever. I have enough honor for that."

"Not every action." There's no grit in his voice, nothing to match the ice that was creeping back into Mujin's, wiping away the hot fury and replacing it with a steely, clinical hatred, even as the tears still glistened on his cheeks. But he's right. Because he had been typing up little reports of everything that could put Mujin away, others, too, but they didn't matter even half as much. There's no insult in being called a hypocrite, not anymore - to deny a swift death but enable him to rot behind bars, to be sworn in as an officer of the law and then swear an oath to an organisation of criminals, to be a father, a lover, a liar. Sometimes he forgets his own name. "Ten years, and they've never come for you, not with anything that sticks." He doesn't elaborate, somehow can't bring himself to ask Mujin what that means, because, in all honestly, Donghoon hadn't even noticed he was doing it. Not until it was too late to fall out of love. Donghoon, finally, lowers his hands. The expression on his face is tumultuous, fear and pain and loss twisted together in a mess of knots and lines. He didn't know what to say, if anything he could say had a chance of saving him. He wasn't sure if he wanted it to. "I - I didn't ask for this. But - fuck... I'm glad I met you anyway."

[facearmsorlegs]

The muted, more rational part of his mind tells him that's probably true. The gun is sticky with old residue from the duct tape that held it in place, and that wouldn't develop if it had been taped down again recently. It's stayed in the same place for a while.

But still. Mujin studies him, breath still coming fast and shallow in his fury. He tries to assemble his voice into something cold and passionless, tries to remember his position as the head of Dongcheon. "But you were able to report my every action for ten years. You were able to see me go to prison for life."

"No." It comes out as a gasp, and he steps forwards stopping himself after the first movement, knowing that he can't take hold of him, can't touch him, can't ever make him feel better again. "I wasn't, I was never - I could never have killed you." His own eyes are hot and stinging, and Donghoon swallows back to try and save some of his breath for explanations instead of tears. "They gave it to me, ten years ago, and I haven't even thought about using it once. I couldn't. Not ever."

[facearmsorlegs]

'Right now'. He doesn't miss the hope in the words, like Yoon Donghoon's still somehow unable to comprehend the scale of his own path of destruction.

He comes dangerously close to saying I should have when the topic of shooting him comes up. He still should. It's his first real moment of weakness since he can remember. Were it anyone else, he'd already be motionless on the floor at his feet—but his heart wavered in the critical moment.

He lifts the hand holding the gun, a ghost of a disbelieving smile revealing a sliver of teeth.

"You were going to kill me."

Every word adds to the blinding rage as he digs himself deeper and deeper, insisting on love like someone could do such a thing to someone they even remotely care about.

It's all gone. All of it. He found the one person in life he was meant for, except he didn't, because he was fictional the entire time. Mujin swallows.

"Love." He scoffs, throat tight as the tears finally spill over. "How stupid do you think I am? If you loved me you would have defected ten fucking years ago!" He takes another shaky breath.

"You're going to give Taeju the contents of every report. All of them." Another sharp breath. "I don't even want you in my sight."

[facearmsorlegs]

Every word adds to the blinding rage as he digs himself deeper and deeper, insisting on love like someone could do such a thing to someone they even remotely care about.

It's all gone. All of it. He found the one person in life he was meant for, except he didn't, because he was fictional the entire time. Mujin swallows.

"Love." He scoffs, throat tight as the tears finally spill over. "How stupid do you think I am? If you loved me you would have defected ten fucking years ago!" He takes another shaky breath.

"You're going to give Taeju the contents of every report. All of them." Another sharp breath. "I don't even want you in my sight."

And "Yoon Donhoon"'s still shamelessly lying, even now that he knows he's been caught. Like he thinks Mujin will fall for it a second time.

He fell for it the first time, didn't he?

Tears of rage continue to well in his eyes without spilling over, blurring the lower half of his view of the wrecked apartment. Mujin breathes harder, stares him down, teeth bared.

"Was it?" He abruptly reaches for the lid of the case and rips off the duct tape securing the police issue revolver, holding it out with a violent gesture. "You took ten years of my life. You lying son of a bitch! Did they tell you to do that too? Or was that your idea? Tell me!"

[facearmsorlegs]

And "Yoon Donhoon"'s still shamelessly lying, even now that he knows he's been caught. Like he thinks Mujin will fall for it a second time.

He fell for it the first time, didn't he?

Tears of rage continue to well in his eyes without spilling over, blurring the lower half of his view of the wrecked apartment. Mujin breathes harder, stares him down, teeth bared.

"Was it?" He abruptly reaches for the lid of the case and rips off the duct tape securing the police issue revolver, holding it out with a violent gesture. "You took ten years of my life. You lying son of a bitch! Did they tell you to do that too? Or was that your idea? Tell me!"

He wants to be someone who's able to delude himself into listening. He wants to believe there's any possible explanation that could absolve Donghoon of guilt—but Mujin knows there's not. It was all over from the moment the bug fell out of his lighter. The lighter he'd thought was a heartfelt gift.

"No. You can't." He doesn't manage to keep the low tremor of fury from his voice, though his throat aches with the effort of keeping it from being so much more than just that. It doesn't matter much, anyway, because the next thing he knows, Mujin's yelling, eyes beginning to burn. "You lied to me! This entire time! You lied to me!"

It should be about betraying the organization. About what a disloyal piece of shit he is. But that's not what's at the forefront of his mind in this moment; it's shamefully human of him, though he's far too upset to feel any emotions outside of fury and anguish in the moment.

"You're a cop! You've been a fucking cop the entire time!"