House Of Cards (BTS EDITION)

Think Of It Like An Army

There was a burger in one hand and a disposable phone in the other. Taehyung was holding them in front of himself as if weighing them, considering his current options. Right now he had to do one or the other, and he was torn between choosing which. Seated on the sidewalk, legs c****d up in front of him so that his suit trousers had hitched up to show his ankles, he could feel that he was attracting a lot of attention. It was certainly warranted but he couldn’t sit inside the food joint because it was too risky. Too many chances of being overheard. That might just be paranoia kicking in, he didn’t know. All he did know was that it had been just a day and he couldn’t risk f*****g up already. Being caught blabbering to the department with grease all over his mouth whilst a dealer sat two tables away staring right at him; Taehyung knew that if anyone would f**k up such an elementary mistake it would be him. That was why he was sitting on the curb beside the gutter like a destitute being stared at by everyone that went past.

After leaving the meeting yesterday he had been ordered into a small room for the time being. That was where he was to stay until further notice, the building fulfilling its true purpose as a boarding house. The room had been nothing more than that of a shitty motel room but he hadn’t cared at all. It had been somewhere to hide away for the rest of the day, to get his mind sorted and to figure out a plan of sorts. The first thing that he had done when he had left the building this morning had been to hit the unfamiliar streets of Mapo-gu. He had needed to locate two things, a convenience store and a fast food joint. He had needed to get his hand on a cheap disposable phone, a throwaway that could be used once and tossed like a condom. The costs of said phones would be covered by the department but they hardly cost a thing. So he had bought one and had went to get some food, and now it was time to for the plan to kick into action.

Yet Taehyung was too scared to do so, too paranoid. There was s**t that he had to report but he didn’t know what to say, how to say it.

Taehyung lowered the phone onto his lap for a moment before unwrapping the burger so that he could take a bite. It was so hot in his mouth that it burnt and he tasted salty and fried meat on his tongue. He didn’t even think about having a nutritious breakfast right now. What he wanted wasn’t healthy and pleasing, but rather hot and and packed with enough sugars and fat to make him feel full. What better choice at hand than a fried slab of meat slathered in cheese and sauces and salad; a veritable walking coronary? The kind of meal that Namjoon would tell him would clog his arteries if he just sat behind a desk all day. But he didn’t care about that s**t right now. After spending the entire afternoon and evening hours of yesterday too nervous to possibly eat his stomach was hollow and aching under his ribs. It had been too hard to eat when all he had been able to think about was what had happened in the meeting. Just the thought had been enough to make his stomach jittery, feel all loose and slippery as if it would slide all the way up into mouth.

Fuck health, he was living on borrowed time right now. If he was going to f**k up and be strangled to death then he thought that a single cheeseburger for breakfast meant nothing in the grand scheme of things.

He had vomited several times yesterday even when his stomach had been empty, bringing up nothing more than burning and foul-tasting bile that made his eyes and nose sting. As a result Taehyung had woken up on the bathroom floor this morning, cold with an aching head and stomach. His hair had been sweat-clumped and his shirt had been damp, clinging to his skin disgustingly. Cleaning up in the small shower cubicle had been a blessing, even when it had meant the heat had made him feel woozy and weak. Then he had gotten dressed from the small holdall bag that Lim had suggested he should bring with him. Taehyung wasn’t stupid. He knew that the bag had been searched thoroughly whilst he had been made to stand out in the courtyard like cattle at an auction. It would have been checked for anything that could become a weapon, that could be a sign that he wasn’t who he had said that he was. Whoever would have checked would have found nothing more than pressed shirts and trousers, rolled up bundles of socks and underwear, and a small ziplock bag of toiletries. Taehyung didn’t know how long he was supposed to stay in this boarding house for, with the rest of the recruits. All he knew was that he was here to stay unless someone took an interest and pulled him out.

Someone like Jungkook perhaps?

Even now, nearly an entire day since it had happened, he couldn’t believe what had happened in the courtyard. He couldn’t believe that The Boy had walked right up to him and had spoken to him like it was nothing; a rather hard to read sensation coming from him. Taehyung couldn’t ascertain if it was faux friendliness like he used on every lackey to turn them into his slaves or if it was something else. Hadn’t his attention seemed a little…strong, maybe even eager? Taehyung didn’t want to assume that it was but he very much looked back on the encounter and felt like it was borderline flirting. The thought was enough to make him squirm on the sidewalk. The Boy flirting with him? No, he was just reading things wrong of course. Jungkook had merely been trying to charm him under his sway, like he had likely done to most of the men in the meeting yesterday. But still…the way his gaze had lingered on him; his lips, down his body, it had felt very much like Jungkook had been eyeing him up rather than sizing him up. As if he had been mentally undressing him.

The way that he had placed his hand on his knee and had smiled at him whilst Do had lain dead on the table a few feet away...

Taehyung stopped in the midst of chewing, the mixture of fried bread and burger suddenly too thick, too greasy on his tongue. His stomach did another one of those hard lurches and he closed his eyes and tried his hardest to suppress it. He had to stop vomiting and shaking of else he was never going to make it. What kind of Haedogje Pa man acted like this? If he didn’t toughen up soon he was going to get removed from the recruit lineup, he just knew that he would. All of their hard work would come to nothing because was too chickenshit to handle it. Namjoon had been through s**t too, he had told him that he had. He had probably seen worse, hell the man had been f*****g stabbed at some point in his operation. So that meant that he needed to try harder.

But the sight of Do’s face turning a livid shade of red, the guttural gagging sounds that he had made, that was something that Taehyung wasn’t going to forget for a very long time. Possibly forever. It would keep him awake at night like Namjoon’s past did, and he would hear those sounds whenever silence fell.

After a few horrible seconds of wait his stomach finally settled down again, all thoughts of Do shoved back into the dark recesses of his mind. He swallowed the mouthful of food and opened his eyes to look at the opposite sidewalk. Taehyung was more than aware of the fact that he was attracting some attention. Of course passing pedestrians were going to look at him, the man in the fitted suit sitting on the sidewalk. The one with a paper bag of fast food beside him, burger in one hand and phone in the other. Taehyung knew he himself would stare at a sight like that if he were to pass it on a street, it would be too hard to ignore. That meant that he couldn’t sit here all day; he had to get his ass in gear.