Work Text:
Haknyeon is parked halfway down the block, close enough to watch the office building’s entrance in the rearview mirror. Jaehyun’s silhouette is all louche angles, tilted toward a security guard. It’s dark, and raining, and light slashes through the mirror all red and chrome.
The security guard leans into Jaehyun for a kiss—Haknyeon is too far away to see the details, but the angle of faces meeting is unmistakable.
After a second, the security guard’s body slumps into a shapeless mound, and Jaehyun rolls it heavily behind a low wall around the building’s courtyard.
Haknyeon checks his phone—Jaehyun got that done two minutes early. Jaehyun's silhouette stretches in satisfaction before he ducks under the building’s entryway, probably to make sure Haknyeon would see him.
Haknyeon shakes his head, gives it a rueful eyeroll and a small smile. Even when no one can see him, it’s important to play his part.
Jaehyun stands up straighter, first, and then a few of the others pile out of the building. It’s Changmin and Juyeon, along with the package they’re delivering to Haknyeon.
The package, in this case, is a person. His white dress shirt stands out awkwardly in the dark, already wilting in the drizzle as the guys hustle him down the street. His posture is hunched because he’s clutching a box of files close to his chest.
That’s Taehyun. Haknyeon knows his name—they’ve been in meetings together leading up to this job—but he still kind of thinks of him as some guy Soobin knows. Honestly, he still thinks of Soobin as some guy Changmin knows.
He’s been with his crew a long time—he knows them. He trusts them. Haknyeon is friendly with everyone, but that doesn’t mean everyone is his friend.
Juyeon opens the passenger door. His other hand is still touching his earpiece, holding it close so he can hear over the rain and passing cars, because Kevin must still be reporting what’s going on with the computers inside. Juyeon only makes quick, quiet eye contact with Haknyeon as he guides Taehyun into the car, and Haknyeon nods in return.
He’s already peeling away from the curb as Juyeon closes the door.
“Hang on,” Haknyeon says. He meets Taehyun’s eye with a sidelong glance.
Taehyun has seemed a little petrified and pink-cheeked leading up to this job, but now that it’s done—now that he can’t go back, maybe—he meets Haknyeon’s gaze evenly and buckles his seatbelt without fumbling.
Haknyeon is driving Sangyeon’s little silver Mazda, a less distinctive sight waiting on the curb than his own car would be. Haknyeon makes fun of this car a lot—it’s what both Sangyeon and the car deserve—but it handles well in the dense traffic as he darts through.
It’s lucky, because his phone lights up on the dash as a police siren flashes red with a wail behind him.
“Check that message,” Haknyeon says as he shifts gears.
Taehyun grabs the phone. “Sangyeon says the security closed down with Kevin still inside. It’s going to take them extra time to get him out but we should go.”
Haknyeon nods. “Do me another favor?”
“Yeah?”
“There’s a Bibi playlist in there,” he says. “Put it on loud.”
The light ahead turns red, and Haknyeon slams on the gas. The Mazda’s rising engine whines like a mosquito underneath him, and he flings it hard left onto a narrow side street, the startled barking of horns trailing away behind them.
Haknyeon zips them fast through the smaller streets, neon signs of noodle shops and electronics stores blurring into red streaks that flash on the beat of the music. Taehyun clutches his files to his chest and doesn’t move except to lean into the car’s tight turns.
A block ahead of the wailing sirens, Haknyeon pulls into the empty garage of another dark office building—with a quick nod to Eric in the attendant’s booth.
His own car is parked on the second floor. The black Challenger is almost too big for the spot in this garage, a beast that prowls the streets to devour little commuter cars. Haknyeon adores it like a partner, like a lover, like his own right arm.
Haknyeon reaches to help with the box in Taehyun’s arms—they need to move fast—but Taehyun holds it tight, stumbling out of one car and into the other in a rush. Haknyeon raises his eyebrow at no one as he moves more smoothly to the other driver’s seat.
At the exit of the garage, Eric sticks his head out of the booth with an animated bounce to his eyebrows. Haknyeon stops a few meters back from the exit as police cars zip down the road.
“Oh my god,” Taehyun murmurs, mostly to himself.
“Well, they’re looking for a Mazda now,” Haknyeon says. He hands Taehyun his phone, music open. “Do you want to pick something to listen to?”
Taehyun shakes his head no, hesitates, and then reaches for the phone. He pulls up some Brave Girls—not Haknyeon’s first choice for a job, but he respects it. Eric waves from the booth, and Haknyeon pulls forward as a police car turns into the garage.
He navigates them onto the expressway and crosses the bridge, the engine’s leonine purr comfortable underneath him, and though the job isn’t really done yet, they’re free.
“Congratulations,” Haknyeon says. “You did it.”
Taehyun makes a sound like a parody of a laugh, weak and high-pitched.
The team’s shop is made to look like a generic and slightly intimidating auto shop, a sign outside labeled with luxury European brands. Haknyeon pulls around back and hits the button so a garage door rises on all of Kevin’s sleek, glimmering computer equipment.
Haknyeon pulls in as the last strains of “Deepened” fill the dark. When he turns the engine off, the silence seems to ring. Taehyun deflates in the passenger’s seat, slumping sideways.
“Fun, right?” Haknyeon says.
Taehyun cuts him a glance, almost shocked.
“Well, I had fun,” Haknyeon says as he gets out of the car. “Do you ever talk?”
Taehyun gets out slower, still babying his box of files. “Too much, usually. That’s what my mom says.”
Haknyeon feels a little spark of interest, wondering what Taehyun usually talks about. He has heard Taehyun say perhaps a hundred words in total, most of them pharmaceutical science Haknyeon has no interest in understanding. The only thing he knows or cares to know about office work is how bad its security protocols are.
He opens the safe so Taehyun can deposit his precious files. Kevin is supposed to be getting this same data out of the system, but there is evidence in hard copy that isn’t backed up, Soobin claimed, and anyway as far as they know, Kevin is still stuck in the server. Taehyun closes the safe very slowly.
Haknyeon gets a couple of beers out of the fridge and leans against the hood of the car as he hands Taehyun’s forward. It’s a little too dark in here, shadows cut by the flashing lights of computer equipment and the hazy glow of the sodium lamp outside, but the overheads will be too glaringly bright. Sometimes it feels safer to be in the dark.
“You’re still wearing your lanyard,” Haknyeon says, grinning.
Taehyun looks down at his chest. “Oh. Ha,” he says, not a laugh. He pulls the lanyard over his head and puts it down on the desk next to him. Kang Taehyun, Research Assistant looks earnestly up at them through a pair of round glasses. “I guess I don’t work there anymore.”
“That calls for congratulations,” Haknyeon says.
Taehyun shrugs, not looking very congratulated. “I was so excited when I started. I really thought I’d be helping people.”
Haknyeon takes a sip of his beer and doesn’t look too closely. It’s hard to tell if Taehyun is really talking to him, or more to himself.
“Not killing them,” Taehyun adds.
Haknyeon looks up sharply. “You didn’t kill anyone.”
“Technically, I did,” Taehyun says in the unmistakable drone of a perpetual know-it-all.
“Technically, the people above you knew what they were signing off on,” Haknyeon says. “You blew the whistle as soon as you knew. That’s all anyone could ask of you.”
Taehyun shakes his head. “I ask more of me.”
Haknyeon can’t really argue with that. He shrugs again. “It’s a good thing you’re going on vacation, that’s what I think.”
“Am I?” Taehyun’s eyes are wide.
“Well if you’re not going to work, you might as well have champagne in the afternoon,” Haknyeon says. He pauses. “Sangyeon didn’t tell you to get out of town after this?”
“No, he did,” Taehyun says. “But I didn’t have time to make plans.”
Haknyeon’s heart plummets in a sick swoop. “You’re not going back to your apartment?” Taehyun will get killed before Haknyeon can even have a proper argument about girl groups with him.
Taehyun shakes his head. “I know I can’t. I was going to ask Soobin.”
Haknyeon checks his beer—still full, he’s only had a few sips—and makes a decision.
He nods toward the car. “Get in.”
Taehyun starts. “Huh? Is something wrong?”
“Yeah, you need a vacation badly.” Haknyeon opens the drivers-side door. “I have a little place—a place on Jeju-do that will work just fine.”
Taehyun gawks. “Umm… I don’t have anything packed.”
“Well, you can’t go back to your apartment,” Haknyeon says. “And they sell toothbrushes on Jeju.”
Haknyeon’s family’s staff will have plenty of toothbrushes and anything else Taehyun might need, but—better to explain that later. He walks around the car and opens the passenger door himself. “What?” he asks. “Did your parents tell you not to get in a strange man’s car? I only bite with permission.”
“They did mention that, in fact,” Taehyun says, but that, of all things, finally makes him smile.
“What about stealing industry secrets and a couple billion won from your employer?” Haknyeon asks.
“No, they never mentioned that,” Taehyun says. “Wouldn’t everyone’s parents love that?”
He’s already getting in the car, though. Maybe scientist Kang Taehyun has a little rebel in him, after all.
“Pick some music,” Haknyeon says as he closes the door.
“Oh, I am.”
Haknyeon draws a beach umbrella on a post-it and, just to be obnoxious, leaves a print of cherry lip gloss right on the paper. He sticks on the safe for Sangyeon to find and be annoyed at before he goes to drive Taehyun back out into the night.