#otherwise i’d be agonizing about two weapon angles

[gingergari]

me when it takes me 4 days to do day 1 of @hadalzonee ’s splatober prompts

(splashtag made using this website!)

[productivewriting]

Inevitably Entwined *In Progress*

Chapter 2 - Exo & NCT Mafia

UwU if you’re not my sister reading this then wowie thanks for coming to the second chapter. You can find the first here if you haven’t already read it. 

Chapter Two : And Thus Our Stars Winked

A bright green EXIT sign glowed at the end of the corridor like a hidden gem in a survival game and a heavy iron door was the only thing standing between me and freedom. A slightly dappled ray of light in the otherwise hopeless looking situation I was in. I reached out and tested the heavy door handle, not surprised when a pressure prevented it from fully turning and letting me out. It would be beyond my luck for this door to be unlocked already. A sigh forced out of my lips and I bit my bottom lip hard while I thought about how I could manage to get this heavy ass door open. If I’d been better prepared, like I should have been, I would have had a set of lock picks on me for this exact kind of situation. But I’d left in a rush, heart aching at the idea of being locked up in that house with those people a second longer and I’d thought little about the fact that I’d be tracked and followed. My phone vibrated insistently in my pocket, distracting my train of thought and I pulled it out, answering and putting the receiver to my ear without checking the caller ID. There was no doubt in my mind that it would be Sana anyway. “Eunnie-” I leaned back against the thick metal door beside me as Sana’s voice spilled out of the phone speaker in a quick rush of words that were almost indecipherable, sending away the brief moment of relaxation that hearing her brought. “Where are you? I’m coming, they sent Taeyong out there.” Slowly I straightened up, sending a panicked gaze down the hall I was standing helplessly vulnerably in. Taeyong… He had been a sweet kid, had grown up alongside Sana and I and treated us like an older brother would. He’d never wanted to be involved, never wanted to be out on the field or hurt anyone much alike the both of us. But then by some unlucky chance he’d ended up out there, thrown into the middle of a war with another gang that he’d had nothing to do with and he’d been the only one to get out alive. The sweet older brother had disappeared right in front of our eyes below his pain and regret at being unable to help anyone and slowly he’d lost countless nights of sleep in the training centre until he became someone out in the real world that scared me. As easily as he’d been the older brother who would protect us with his life he had become the older brother of our entire family who would slaughter an entire household of people with nothing more than a silver knife at his disposal. He was not just someone to be feared within our family, but within the whole of Seoul. If he was here, I didn’t stand a chance. Not only because he was the best of the best but because my heart would only ever see Taeyong as the tired older boy crumpled at my bedside while I fought off some illness no matter what my mind knew he had become since then. And despite the horrible person he had become, he was still Taeyong and he would never take me back to that place. Not alive. Tears welled and spilt down my cheeks, hot on my cold skin and I angrily swiped a hand across my eyes to dispel the liquid. No, Taeyong would kill me on the spot because he couldn’t leave the job unfinished and he would take my limp body back to that cold, empty house. And however cold hearted he had become, killing me would still break whatever of his old self was left inside him. I didn’t want or need to be responsible for the lives that he would take to extinguish his guilt and anger at himself. With a trembling voice I gave Sana the rough location of the hotel trusting her to be able to figure the rest out, turning my attention back to the door and giving it a desperate kick. A solid ringing of metal met my foot and I grimaced as the pain in my foot grew tenfold, becoming near unbearable to handle without screeching. If it were possible to physically see time slow and tick down second by second in front of you, that would be what I was experiencing as I waited with bated breath for Sana to arrive. She was my only chance now and the inevitability of my looming death only made time that much more precious. At some point the phone had fallen to the ground from my now numb fingertips and a quick glance downward told me there was no point picking it up and taking it with me; the screen was shattered, and the sides dented thanks to the impact. Though it was unlikely that Taeyong would yet venture up here I couldn’t help casting regularly anxious glances down to the other end of the hallway At some point they would feel confident that I had fallen into a light slumber and take their chance then, rather than having to face me awake. I shuddered, rubbing my arms in hopes of dispelling the goose bumps rising along them. It was eerily quiet in the hall, barely anything more than the sound of my panicked breaths filled the air, which of course only made the air thicker and the walls seem closer like a box slowly encasing and crushing me in an inescapable grip.   My heart slammed heavily into my chest as the door in front of me gave a sudden creak followed by a muffled curse, giving off an undesirably loud warning that someone was on the other side. There was no way to tell whether the voice that had, and continued to, curse was female or male through the thick metal and the new noises coming from the other side of the lock were no help in figuring out whether it was a friend or a foe. I took a step away from the door as if the distance would be enough if it were the latter.   It wouldn’t change the fact that I had no way out aside from this door, it wouldn’t save me, but I took the step anyway. A few agonizing slow minutes of the tapping and twisting sounds passed and finally a solid click echoed far too loudly throughout the long corridor. A bead of sweat slid down my forehead from below my hairline, slowly dispersing on its path down my skin.   My fingers sought out my pockets, checking for the tenth time for a weapon to use, but as I’d known I found nothing more than an old plastic pen in which the ink had long ago dried up in making it not only useless as a source of protection but also as a piece of stationary. If you’d been brought up in a mafia family though, anything could be used as a weapon and my fist closed eagerly around the thin tube of plastic, ready to whip it out and plunge it into any exposed skin of whoever was on the other side of the door as it swung open. The door swung open in a sudden movement, nearly knocking my careful position out of whack as I scrambled back to avoid the heavy rectangle of metal. Heavy darkness obscured the face of the person leaning in through the door and I lurched forward, arm jerking upwards to release the pen from my pocket. “Don’t you dare stab me with whatever is in your damn hand.” A harsh whisper met my offensive advance and I recoiled in shock, forced to drop the pen onto the carpeted floor in my surprise. There was no mistaking the breathy light tone of that voice or the small silhouette standing in front of me. Kim Sana leaned forward with a proud smirk peeking out from below the hood of her dark jacket. Her short hair barely fell past her chin in naturally wavy twists and her dark angular eyes glittered below thin straight eyebrows that were a few shades lighter than the pitch black of her hair. Her button nose scrunched up as her small mouth moved around her soft greeting that was lost below my overwhelming relief. With no time left now to waste on exchanging words she gripped my wrist and angled her head back, indicating we needed to leave. I nodded back and stepped carefully behind her out of the door, mutely surprised that I hadn’t earlier noticed this alley on my way down the street. The door creaked slightly on its hinges as we hurried down the steps two at a time, away from the hotel. Normally it would be better to close it and at least attempt to obscure our exit and buy extra time, but by the time they figured out I wasn’t in there it would be too late to use that extra time as an advantage over us. I pitied whoever fell into the grasp of Taeyong’s rath when he figured out what had happened.   Now that I was somewhat out of immediate danger the throbbing in my ankle was becoming an problem that it was getting harder to ignore, demanding to be rested. I tucked my long hair back behind my ears in frustration when a particularly unsteady footfall sent a debilitating wave of pain through my entire left leg. Sana glanced over her shoulder as I bit back on a hiss of pain and paused in the deep shadow of a tall building. “Eun-Jae you should have told me something was wrong, idiot.” She scolded me as I leaned breathlessly against one of the crumbling brick walls, casting a cautionary gaze up and down the footpath just in case somehow Taeyong had caught onto us. But there was nobody hiding in the shadows and no soft footfalls following us. For now we were safe enough to take the rest that my foot needed. “I’m older than you, watch your tone.” I snapped back, too tired and in too much pain to soften my own tone. We were a year apart, but I’d never once asked her to speak formally to me and her surprise at the sudden request was brief on her small oval shaped face. “Then act like it and speak up when something isn’t right.” She grabbed my face in her hands and squeezed hard, irritation showing in her dark irises. “And don’t run away like a child. What the hell were you even thinking, Eunnie? What are we supposed to do now?” White hot guilt flashed through me and I tore my face from her hand, rubbing my right cheek where I was sure her thumb nail had indented my skin permanently. Her words echoed around my head like a shout in a deep cavern and I bit down on my bottom lip hard. She was right in a way, it had been stupid to run off like this with no money and no way to protect myself, like a child running off in search of the magical pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. And though the decision to leave had been long in the works, this had been a rushed departure and had become messier than I’d anticipated. But the last thing Donghyuck had said to me still repeated like a never-ending chant in the back of my mind, keeping me out on the street instead of in the relative comfort of my spacious room back in that house. “He won’t let us sit out anymore.” I said slowly and cautiously when she’d calmed down from her angry outburst and was pacing up and down the pavement in front of me to ease the racing of her own thoughts. At first I wasn’t sure if she’d heard until her body stilled, unnaturally stiff and her eyes fixated ahead of her on nothing in particular, both unfocused and unseeing. After years of being taught to read even the most closed of people like an open book it would have been hard for me not to see the trembling of her fingers as they curled into a loose fist at her side and the way her chest swelled slightly with a breath she was holding in. There was no possibility that she’d missed my words, or the meaning looming behind them and if she hadn’t understood why I’d left before, she did now. Since the day I’d been old enough to know what our family did to keep such a luxurious lifestyle I’d been adamant in never being a part of it. Though my childish desires were accepted in stride back then, as I’d grown up and been exposed to more and more of that world it had been impossible to remain completely uninvolved with it. It had been a question of safety to be trained in at the very least protecting myself, which was how I’d finally met Sana. The best trainee of NCT and possibly the worst, we should never have bumped into each other on the first day in the mansion’s giant gym. But we had and somehow from that day she had stayed by my side, supporting and protecting me. We’d gone to training only to humour everyone and to ensure we would be able to protect ourselves if needed. But it had been no secret that we just wanted to live normal lives and until now that had been a respected choice. “Are you sure?” She whirled to face me, the blank slate gone and replaced with a fiery expression that would have any opposition kneeling to the ground below. “Eun-Jae, you start your first mission tomorrow.” I looked up at Donghyuck as he leaned comfortably on the wall beside me, a small smirk playing on his small mouth. His wide eyes held mine in assessment of my inevitably negative reaction to his casual statement. He’d been home less than an hour, the clothes that hung on his frame still reeked of blood and I’d instantly retreated to the safety of the library upon his arrival at the huge entrance gates to the property. And yet here he was, nonchalantly waiting for a response as he invaded the only room in the house I’d come to expect he’d never come into. “No.” It was a simple word, but it was loaded with venom, with my distaste for the words he’d just uttered and for his nearness. I slammed the book in my hands back down on top of the small table beside me and glared at him. He was well and truly aware that I would never willingly go out there, if I could walk out of this life right now and never look back, I would. So he was just here to get a rise out of me and I was determined not to give it to him. “It’s not a request. You will do it, or people you care about will start dying.” His light brown hair flopped easily over his forehead as he spoke, giving off a disarmingly cute aura that didn’t match his words and my stomach turned as I pushed off the wall angrily, completely forgetting my resolve to ignore his words. There was an underlying threat to his words that hadn’t ever been there, ringing bells of alarm in the back of my mind as I rounded on him. “You can’t threaten me, Donghyuk. You may have your way with everything, but Johnny is the one who calls the shots ultimately, not you.” I spat at him, hoping I was right and clenching my hands tightly at my side as I struggled to contain my hatred. He just laughed, the sound soft and gentle in the silence of the room and out of place with the stupidity leaving his mouth. “And I only care about one person. You wouldn’t risk her skills just to get me to cooperate.” I was confident in that much, my own small smirk beginning to play on my lips now as I crossed my arms over my chest and waited for his rebuttal. Kim Sana, the best trained member of our age group in this city and my closest friend. They wouldn’t kill her or even hurt her just to get me to run missions, because they needed her more than they needed me, however much higher in the blood lines I was. “You’re right.” Donghyuk leaned forward with a small frown, that someone else might have really fallen for. But despite my revulsion for the business, I’d been trained for enough years to notice the smallest of details in someone’s face and know if they were lying to me or concealing something. His top lip twitched ever so slightly and his left eyebrow raised as he waited for a moment, allowing the tension to build, knowing that I was aware of his thinly guised glee. “But you’re not very good at watching innocent people get hurt, are you?” I stiffened at his words, head spinning at the suggested meaning behind them. He was really willing to put people who had done absolutely nothing wrong in peril just to force my hand? “And you wonder why I want nothing to do with this shit.” I muttered softly, more to myself than to him. He lifted his shoulders in a shrug and pushed off the wall, barely more than a step past me when he paused to look over his shoulder at me. “You will do what we ask of you. And so will Sana, because if you don’t then people will get hurt. There is no room for escaping your duty to this family anymore.” His parting words filled me with dread and revulsion. Whether I continued to tell him no or whether I allowed myself to be forced out into their world, innocent people would still have to die. I’d never really expected to be allowed to live the normal life I craved, but now that it was becoming a reality that I hadn’t yet prepared myself for it was a harder pill to swallow than I’d been expecting. There was no question… I wasn’t being involved in their wars with other gangs and I wasn’t going to hurt people who didn’t deserve it. I’d rather die. “Yes. He told me three days ago. When I left.” I responded to her shortly, pushing the conversation from my thoughts, turning and setting back up the footpath again, ignoring the constant shooting of pain up the length of my leg. Soft footsteps trailed behind me, quiet but heavy with burden and anger and I didn’t bother to turn back. There was nothing I could say to erase what she was feeling or what I was feeling. There was no escaping this fate, we could run now but eventually we were going to be dragged back in or we were going to die and she knew it as well as I did. But I was going to keep running whether she choose to follow or not. “You should have told me Eunnie… Instead of running off by yourself.” She said after some time of walking and I slowed my steps until she was beside me, the both of us keeping alert gazes each side. We were very much at risk out here in the open and there was no immediate way out being so exposed. “If I’d told you, you’d have been at more risk.” I caught the roll of her eyes out of the corner of my eye and spoke again before she could start up. “Not to mention if I’d contacted you sooner than today you would have been out here with me. I didn’t need that weight on my shoulders.” Indignation grew on her face in the form of reddening cheeks and I resisted the instant smile that sprung to my lips. Now wasn’t the time to tease her about her sensitivity.   “You’re so dumb. If I’d been out here with you, you would have been safer.” “I might have been, but you’d have been less safe than you were not knowing what Donghyuck wanted from you. He wouldn’t have dared try to force you out into the front lines if I weren’t there to use as a bargaining chip and he couldn’t risk you running off to look for me if you figured out the reason I’d gone missing.” Sana breathed in sharply at my words and shook her head angrily, though understanding dawned in her eyes. By now the sun was rising slowly but surely, lighting up the streets and giving us less cover out in the open to keep ourselves concealed. Luckily enough it was unlikely for anyone outside of NCT to be actively searching for us which narrowed down the kinds of people we needed to keep an eye open for. Although given we came from such a hated family, the risk factor might not be as low as we hoped for. As we walked it occurred to me how truly ridiculous it was to allow our family’s name to become so widely known and feared. Where there was something to fear there were also secrets best kept hidden. The members of a gang were supposed to be highly guarded secrets to protect them from being the target of some other group, and yet there was no doubt in my mind that the members of NCT were widely known so as to either be avoided or targeted. With me being the grand-daughter of the founder and Sana being the most highly skilled, young, member we made a pair that could be easily used to any gang’s advantage. If they recognised us. “We need to find somewhere to go.” Sana voiced the thought on both of our minds as a particularly tall man with bright purple and pinks dyed into his slightly curly locks pushed past us, head bowed down to mask the curious gaze that flickered in our direction. I nodded silently, all too aware of the many eyes burning into the back of my neck. It was a small blessing that our signature family emblem was tattooed into a part of my skin that covered easily or the curious gazes might have quicker become stealthy attempts to ‘obtain’ one or both of us. Despite my agreement that we needed to find somewhere to rest up, anxiety and worry twisted into a nasty ball in my gut as we stood, using up precious time and considered our options. The last time I’d stopped for a break it hadn’t ended well and there was no way to predict what could happen even if we found somewhere seemingly safe. As long as we remained in Seoul there wasn’t any way to ensure either of our safety. With this in mind I trailed behind Sana when she finally began to move again, making sure to keep her short cut hair in view as we allowed a few people between us, adding to our disguise. If anyone was actively looking for us, they would be looking for us together and it would slow their eyes down a bit if they could only pick out one of us. The sun had slightly warmed the air by the time I noticed her discretely sidling off of the footpath and down a somewhat deserted looking alleyway. I followed after her, heart in my throat as she disappeared into a doorway, a soft clang of metal scraping over metal indicating she’d found an open door and gone inside without a moment of hesitation. For all we knew, there could be an ambush in there, but the opportunity to tell her this was robbed by her speed and impulsive decision making. I slipped inside the doorway, the metal cold against my skin as I pressed my back against the now closed door and squinted into the dark cavern of a room beyond the doorway. Apprehension crawled over my skin like bugs and I resisted the urge to call out for Sana. Rule number one when being trained by your mafia family, never call attention to yourself in a situation where you’re at a disadvantage. Better to stay quiet and possibly remain hidden, that way you evened the playing field for yourself. Either I could stay here in the doorway and wait for something to happen or for a noise to come, or I could step into the darkness and look for my friend. After a few moments of intense thinking I decided that staying here would be safer, but it was also the more cowardly option and however little I wanted to be involved in the mafia business, I wasn’t about to sit here and act like a helpless child cowering in the relative safety of a giant metal door shadow. With soft and sure steps I slipped beyond the small hallway that was the doorway, sticking as close to the wall as I could. No noise greeted my first few steps into the surprisingly non-musty smelling room and I relaxed slightly, pausing to cast my gaze around again. By now my eyes had begun to accustom themselves to the dark hue of the room and the hard edges of furniture began to solidify around me beginning to waver into more detail than just dark shadows. Directly to my left was the wall which my hand remained pressed to in an effort to keep my bearings and in front of me was a desk, seemingly covered in various pieces of paper and books. Just beyond it was a wardrobe that might have put even the ones back in the mansion to shame with a 6 foot tall mirror embossing one of the closed doors and intricate patterns carved deep into the ebony wood of the other. It was the safest looking thing in this room and I tucked that fact deep into the recesses of my mind as I allowed my eyes to continue searching for Sana in the darkness. In the centre of the room a luxurious couch like shadow filled quite a large amount of space it was clearly made to cater to more than the normal four seater. If anything this looked big enough to fit somewhere near 7-8 people, with a few matching armchairs scattered around it. I turned slowly, eyebrows furrowing as my gaze swept over useless furniture shapes that I didn’t care about beyond noting that everything in here seemed to be pretty expensive looking for the crabby warehouse room I’d been expecting. There was no sign of my small friend and my suspicion only grew the more I had to twist and turn to see more of the room without revealing her. The silence suddenly seemed stifling and my skin was beginning to burn with the familiar sensation of panic. If I’d only called out to her and stopped her, I might have a damn clue where my idiotic friend had planned to disappear. Without warning or sound, light flooded the room, briefly blinding me. I winced away from the source of the bright light and covered my eyes, trying to get my bearings. “Who the hell are you?”