House Of Cards (BTS EDITION)

Damn Good Bluffer pt.6

“Well, I can tell you that I’ve shot people before. Disabling shots not killing shots, but it still feels bad Tae, ‘cos it’s supposed to feel bad. What you need to remember is that you’re being taught this for self-defense. If you’ve gotta shoot someone, then you gotta.” Hoseok slipped the safety back on the unloaded gun. “They’re not gonna stop. It’s you or them.”

“You think I’ll even get my hands on a gun?” Taehyung asked as he reached over to pull the gun out of his hands. Hoseok watched him fiddling with it, snapping back the magazine lock so that he could slip another round of blanks into the bottom. The magazine slipped in with a crisp click. “You think they’re gonna trust me enough to give me a gun?”

“I think you’re gonna get as close to The Boy as possible and you’re gonna get one,” Hoseok explained, arms folded over his chest. “You’re not gonna be allowed in certain buildings without them. The closer you get to the top, the more dangerous s**t gets. All of his men, the ones you see him with. They’re carrying. They have f*****g permits to carry, security personnel. Can’t stop them, but I know. I can tell by the way they walk, the way they carry themselves. Armpit holsters.”

“You and Namjoon, f**k, all of you think I’m gonna get close to him. What if I don’t, huh? What if fall at the first f*****g hurdle?”

“You’re not gonna fall, Tae, stop acting like a f*****g p***y,” Hoseok muttered as he reached up and pulled the headphones back in place. Taehyung glanced over at him for a moment and he saw that this expression was entirely serious. He wasn’t laughing, or joking. No, looking at him it was easy enough to believe that he was telling him the truth. If only he could believe it. “Aim for kill shots this time, OK?!”

“Yeah, sure thing,” he said as he reached up and fixed the headphones in place too. It was strange, the sudden muffled hearing, but even that could only bring the sound down to a reasonable level and not block it out fully. Then he slipped the thumb safety back and lifted the pistol. Beside him Hoseok slipped a new sheet of target paper onto the hook and then pressed a button on the wall. The machine kicked in with a faint vibrating sound as it carried the target back to the designated distance and then it stopped in place; just waiting to become a bullseye.

Taehyung took a deep breath just like he had advised and let it out slowly before pulling the trigger. The gun jumped in his hand just like always, the dull bang of the recoil. But he was certain that he was getting better now. Maybe that was foolish optimism but he was certain that he was. After all, he managed to keep his arms straight and steady with each pull of the trigger and he no longer had an aching shoulder when the practice was finished. That had to mean that he was improving somehow.

When there was nothing more than a dry click to signal that the magazine was empty he lowered his arm and breathed again. Then he reached up to pull the headphones free whist Hoseok pressed the button so that he could collect the sheet. Taehyung placed the gun down on the counter and flexed his fingers.

“Let’s see…” Hoseok pulled the sheet free and held it up. They could see clean through the bullet holes. “Stomach, two shots. Crippling, maybe enough to drop a man for the count but we need to work on that. Chest shot, good, right through the middle.” Taehyung gnawed on the lip as he eyed the one around the shoulder, knowing that that was a mistake. “Clip close enough to an artery and it’ll be fine but shoulder shots are for disarming, not killing.” Hoseok stopped talking and they both stared at the perfect holes in the target’s head. “Both excellent shots but remember-”

“Headshots are hard, moving targets, small area,” Taehyung said, repeating his words back to him like an elementary school kid.

“Exactly, so we need to fix those stomach shots,” Hoseok said as he placed the ruined sheet down. “I want to see at least five shots in the chest before we finish today.”

“s**t,” Taehyung moaned as the other man collected a new target sheet and stuck it on the hook. “Hoseok, do Haedogje Pa a favour and just kill me now instead.”

It was a day before he was set to leave with Lim for the hoped date of infiltration when Taehyung found himself outside of Namjoon’s apartment room door. He didn’t know why exactly he was standing in the slight hallway area, staring at the security system on the wall rather than pressing the button to let himself in. Something at the back of his mind told him that it was too late for this. The time on the system told him that it was nearly 11pm and yet here he was, frozen to the spot. He should just turn around and leave but he couldn’t. Taehyung knew the reason why he couldn’t and it was quite simply this.

He was terrified and he couldn’t possibly face the idea of travelling across the capital to enter Haedogje Pa territory without getting to speak to Namjoon at least one last time. That was why he was standing here with his hand hovering above the buzzer and his brain filled with frantic thoughts. He felt the most pressing urge to gnaw on his lip and before he could do so he pressed his finger down on the button.

“Namjoon, it’s me, Tae,” he said, leaning forward to talk into the system. “I need to talk.”

Taehyung let go of the button and leaned back, letting his breath out in a heavy sigh as he did. He reached up with his free hand to rub at his eyes with his rolled up fingers. He was tired, so very tired. The entire morning had been spent in the gym and the early afternoon in a meeting. Taehyung had seen Nam again, that annoying f**k, and had once again heard the man talking about him openly as if he were an object. He hadn’t liked it, it had made him feel uncomfortable but his words seemed to hint that he might just have a fighting chance at this after all. The rest of the afternoon he had been memorising last minute information and he had practiced at the target range alone because Hoseok had been coordinating a raid.

This was it. The three months were finally coming to a climax, and Taehyung was terrified.

After perhaps ten seconds of silence and waiting he heard something on the other side of the door. Footsteps. Then the door was swinging inwards and Namjoon was leaning in the doorway. The man was still wearing his work clothes and it seemed like he had still been working. The shirt was wrinkled and free from his trouser waistband and his black hair looked a little messier than usual.

“You shouldn’t have come here, Taehyung. You should be resting before D-Day,” Namjoon explained as he studied his face.

“I know I know, I’ll go right away I just…I need to talk,” Taehyung replied, dropping his hand to his side and darting his eyes everywhere rather than settle on his face. It took a moment for him to react but then Namjoon was moving out of the way to let him step inside. “It’s about D-Day.”

“I figured as much.”

Taehyung glanced over the apartment room only briefly before deciding to stay standing by the door. He didn’t need to remove his shoes and step inside, he just needed to get all of this weight off his chest right now. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, detecting the unmistakable scent of jajangmyeon from across the wide room. Yes it seemed like Namjoon was still working, eating takeaway food to save himself the trouble of having to prepare the meal.

“Namjoon?”

“Yes?” he asked, also staying by the door seen as he had figured out that he wasn’t moving.

“D’you…d’you think I can do this?” Taehyung asked, trying to not fiddle as he did. “I mean, be honest with me. D’you think I can do this without f*****g up? ‘Cos I keep hearing from the team that I can, that I can do this but I dunno. I need to hear it from you man. D’you think I can do it?”

Namjoon didn’t reply straight away, didn’t give him a direct and almost spontaneous response. Taehyung was glad of it, for hearing the words “yes you can” without even the slightest bit of consideration was not a comfort to him. He needed to know that he was really thinking about what he had asked; was weighing up the pros and cons of it all. So when the other man fell silent and didn’t speak Taehyung felt something close to relief. After perhaps a minute of this thick silence Namjoon moved to stand right in front of him.

“What I think,” he said as he placed his hands on his shoulders. His palms were warm and the weight was comforting. “Is that we’ve got one shot at this and you…you’re our only chance at success. I’m not going to tell you that you can do it, because I don’t know that. I don’t want to lie or give some shitty attempt at false comfort. I want to be honest.”

“That’s all I wanna hear,” Taehyung agreed with a nod. “Give it to me straight.”

“I think we couldn’t have picked a better person for the one shot that we’ve got Taehyung. I’ve put my trust in you, and you know I don’t often trust people with such a high level of responsibility. Not because I think they will f**k up, but because would rather take the risks myself. I can’t do that, so that’s why I’ve put all my trust in you.”

“I don’t wanna let the team down,” Taehyung explained in a quiet voice. It wasn’t like he was going to have to live with it after all. No, if he f****d this up he would be dead long before the team even had a clue. But knowing that his f**k up would affect them even long after he was dead was what scared Taehyung the most right now. Death was f*****g terrifying, but leaving a legacy of failure behind. No thanks.