TW: SA briefly mentioned
Jungsu nodded absent-mindedly at her words, taking a bite of a glazed donut.
Ara felt her mind racing at the different possibilites behind his words.
Moscow? She thought again to herself in doubt.
"What were you doing in Moscow, Jungsu?" She asked, trying to sound as calm and casual as possible.
He looked up at her then, his intense eyes meeting hers so suddenly that she nearly flinched.
"I was there to do my job." He said under the loud chatter of the cafe.
"Your job being?..." Ara asked.
Jungsu looked at her as if she was behaving strangely. "What spies normally do. Gathering information and killing when necessary."
Ara shivered slightly in disbelief.
"What was your mission in Moscow?" She asked bluntly.
"Obtaining their advanced missile system."
Ara looked at him in shock, her mouth parting as he went back to eating.
"W-what do you mean by that exactly?" She whispered.
Jungsu placed his spoon down on the table and folded his hands together. Looking at her again, he tilted his head in thought.
"Pavel Ivanovich. That is the man who aided in the infiltration and extraction of data. He was a skilled hacker. It's a shame that I had to kill him." Jungsu said as he ran a hand over his jaw.
Ara held her breath at his words.
Opening her mouth, she asked, "So you hacked into the military's research facility?"
Jungsu nodded his head.
"You did?" Ara asked in disbelief. "You also hacked into it? Or was it simply Pavel?"
"I aided a little, but he did most of the work."
Ara sank into her chair at his words, not understanding anything at the moment.
"Jungsu," Ara said silently.
"Yes, Ara." He said bluntly, ignoring formalities as she had for him. He continued eating from a slice of cake, and Ara was startled to realize that he had nearly finished all that he had ordered.
"You said you escaped from the North. How did you do that?" She eyed him while sipping on her coffee.
"I killed my superiors." He said simply.
Ara ran her eyes over the line of his forehead and nose as he turned his head to the side to sip on his drink.
"You just killed them? How many?"
Licking his lips, his eyes bore into her as he glanced up.
"I can't say how many there were. More than fifty probably."
Ara felt astonished, and in the same moment she felt a sense of horror as she looked at him.
"Fifty?" She choked out. "You simply killed fifty of them?"
Jungsu shook his head silently at the look on her face.
"You have no idea, Ara. No idea how long I'd been waiting for that moment. How long I'd dreamt of it. How many years I had planned for it."
Pausing, he looked down at his hands.
"Did you try to escape before?" She asked quietly.
He stared at the wall behind her blankly.
"Once. I was fifteen. From there I understood that I wasn't strong enough to leave yet."
Ara put her thoughts into words as she asked, "What happened?"
Jungsu sighed, "I almost died."
"Why didn't you simply try to escape when you'd been on one of your missions?" She asked.
"They were always watching. Even if I couldn't see them watching, there was someone. It was always new faces in the countries I visited."
Countries? Ara paused suddenly.
"Even I can't escape a bullet to the head. Or maybe I could, just not twenty riffles aiming at me from afar." He shrugged and continued eating.
Ara absorbed his words as she analyzed Jungsu's story.
"And this data that you obtained for an advanced missile system... how did the North implement it?"
"They didn't." Jungsu said, shoving a spoonful of matcha cake in his mouth.
"They didn't?" Ara was now confused.
"The day I left, I erased all the data from their computers. Despite what others may think, we did have technology there. It was just contained in certain areas." He said.
"You erased all the data?" Ara was now simply parroting his words in disbelief.
"Yes, that's what I just said." He looked at her with big eyes and for a moment, Ara thought he was acting his age.
"Do you want me to hack a computer? Or take you to Moscow?" He took another sip of his drink and Ara could see the corners of his lips curled upwards around the cup.
Huffing out a laugh in disbelief she asked smirking, "So, when did you eat the cake?"
"After I had completed the job. Pavel's fridge had a slice of cake waiting to be eaten. I figured he wouldn't need it where he was going."
Ara gaped at him, her mouth falling open as she stared at the serious look on his face. Then he was laughing loudly, a deep, and irritatingly attractive laugh that caused every female within the vicinity to glance back in curiousity. Though none of them could see the sight that Ara could at the moment.
She stopped breathing altogether when she saw his smile. His teeth somehow straight and perfect despite the life he had lived, shone brightly at her. She had thought he was beautiful when she'd first seen him, but now, she thought it was outrageous. He was outrageous.
He kept laughing, but Ara couldn't think straight as she stared at his face. He had two dimples. The only imperfections on his face. Yet, even they were charming.
Ara's hands twitched as she felt the need to wipe the smile off his face before someone saw him. She could already see the heads leaning back in their seats, hoping to catch a glimpse of the mystery man.
"In your missions, were you ever a prostitute?" Ara asked abruptly.
Jungsu immediately stopped laughing, his smile dropping as he stared at her with wide eyes.
Ara had only asked the question to get him to stop laughing, however, glancing at his face, she thought there was a chance it was true.
He glared at her, and Ara even relished the look he throwed at her then.
"If I was, what would you say?" He said as he straightened.
Ara wasn't sure if he was being serious, or if he was simply trying to get on her nerves.
"Well... I suppose you did what you had to in order to survive." She breathed.
He smiled again. But this time, a much more menacing smile which made it hard for her to swallow.
"I didn't sleep with anyone if that's what you're trying to get out of me."
Getting up from his seat, he grabbed his coat and flung it on.
Without a word to her, he went to leave the cafe, a trail of eyes following him as he left in a rush without his mask on. Ara rushed after him, grabbing his arm and dragging him to a corner of the street in between buildings. He wrenched his arm from her and stared down at her with raging eyes. Ara took a step back in fear as his face morphed into a sneer.
"I didn't mean for my words to hurt you." She said in confusion, wondering if that was what he was right now. Hurt.
"You know what I hate about people? They always assume so many things." Jungsu shook his head as his lip curled up.
"It's always about the things we do to survive." He laughed.
"Yes, and I suppose killing people, innocent people was also something you did to survive." She said, not backing down as he moved forward.
"But what makes you think I did it to survive?" He bent down to her level and looked right into her eyes.
"What if... I enjoyed it, Ara?" He pushed her back against the wall, gripping her neck lightly as her eyes widened in fear. Pushing back against him, she struggled in his hold while Jungsu shielded her from the other end of the alley and any prying eyes.
Ara looked into Jungsu's calm eyes and realized after a moment that he wasn't going to do anything.
"Stop trying to scare me." Ara gritted, and after a moment, Jungsu let go of her neck with a chuckle.
"Go home, Investigator. You got enough out of me for today. Though I didn't get what I'd come for." He frowned.
She looked at him for a beat before nodding and turning around. Before she could leave, however, she said, "Don't forget to put your mask on. I asked you that question for a reason. You may not be aware of how you appear to others, but I am." With that, she turned around and walked away.
Jungsu stared after her for a beat before dragging his hand down his face. Despite what she thought, he was aware of what he looked like. He knew he was considered to be handsome, the superiors had told him so in a mocking manner. Nothing good came from looking as he did. Neither with his comrades and superiors, nor within missions. As he got older, he started seeing more and more of its negative effects. While Jungsu had never been on a mission as a prostitute, that was not to say that his superiors hadn't forced him into uncomfortable situations.
He was always acting. Though in those moments, all he had to do was stand there before he found himself approached by the targets, men and women. They were always drunk, so Jungsu figured they had mistaken him as someone they could seek companionship with. Or perhaps as someone much more handsome than he was with their judgement being impared. If they would've paid closer attention, they would've seen that despite his height and stature, he looked quite young.
But those missions would always end as soon as they started. A beckon leading him behind closed doors while another member in his team waited in the shadows.
He could only recall one time when it had gone too far, when he'd fought tooth and nail to get out of the situation. He had been too young then, not strong enough. That was clear in the way his team had abandoned him then.
He knew his comrades would look at him differently because of those missions. They would assume the worst of course, despite there being nothing more than a hand on his shoulder, a caress on his chest. But still, Jungsu was never mocked for it openly. They were too scared of him.
He clenched his jaw as he put on his mask, thinking of Ara's words that had unintentionally sent him on a spiral. As he walked along the streets of Myeongdong, he stopped by a stall that was selling headbands. His hair was quite long now and would sometimes obstruct his view. He knew that if he cut it short, Officer Hyun-su would have a problem, thus here he was standing in front of a headband stall.
As he searched through the headbands he found one to his liking. This one wasn't pink or any of the other bright colours on the stall. It was a headband with dark purple ears, a bow, and a skull in the middle. Jungsu thought that while it seemed a bit theatrical, it was a nice colour.
Grabbing it from the rack, he moved towards the friendly looking woman who seemed to be the owner of the stall.
"Hello. I would like to purchase this."
The woman smiled and said, "Of course! Kuromi headbands are really popular these days. Who are you buying it for? A girlfriend?"
"No." Jungsu shook his head as she offered him a bag.
"Your sister?" The woman questioned as she grabbed the money he offered and gave him back his change.
"No." Jungsu said again.
"Then who?..." The woman asked, baffled.
"Me." With that, Jungsu left the woman staring after him in astonishment.
Deciding that he wanted to wear it now, he swept the headband on his head and pushed his hair back. Jungsu felt satisfied with the way it cleared his sight and freed him from the irritating feeling of his hair above his eyes. As the sun was setting, the people in the market glanced at the modelesque man walking around with a Kuromi headband on his head. Unintentionally, Jungsu had started a trend that day as someone clicked a picture of Jungsu as he walked away.
"Jungsu! Is that you?!" Jungsu exhaled as he heard Yujin's voice.
She raced towards him along with the staff. It hadn't been hard to spot him as there were only so many men that were near Jungsu's height. And none of them looked quite like him still.
The staff raised their brows as they took in Jungsu's appearance with his purple headband. Immediately, as if unconsciously, their hands raised the camera up to capture him.
"Jungsu...what are you wearing?" Yujin asked, her mouth opening and closing at once.
"A headband." He replied simply, watching as her gaze moved back and forth between him and the headband.
"Did someone give it-"
"I bought it. We should head back to our hotel now, it's getting dark."
The staff was not about to point out that it was only six o'clock as they all knew Jungsu liked to be in bed by eight.
"Fine, we will head back on one condition." She pursed her lips while Jungsu nodded his head at her to continue.
"Your dinner, you can have it in your room alone, so long as you have a camera recording you. All we ask is that you talk to the camera, simply tell the viewers what you did and what you're eating...simple things, nothing complicated." Yujin pleaded with her eyes.
Jungsu thought for a moment before nodding his head reluctantly, causing the staff to cry out in joy.
As they headed back to the hotel, Jungsu felt a presence that had attached onto him as they made their way inside the hotel.