Chapter Text
A dealer’s choice is the version of poker in which the deal passes each game and each dealer can choose, invent, a new poker game with each hand or orbit.
It was close to midnight judging by the number—or lack thereof—of people lurking on the streets of Aurora. Maybe it was past twelve o'clock but it couldn’t be earlier than eleven-thirty.
The Ace stealthily hurdled across the metallic barrier, suspended above ground for a brief two seconds before stumbling down on the hard concrete. He momentarily looked behind him and cursed harshly at the sight of two men clad in crisp suits and slacks. Without wasting another second, he took off as the sounds of three heavy footsteps reverberated throughout the dark, abandoned street. He was not sure how much farther he could run with his blood trickling down his side due to the knife stab he somehow got from the encounter but he was not the Ace for nothing.
Gritting his teeth in a futile attempt to alleviate the pain, he swiftly turned right heading towards a narrow alleyway. He knew he needed to either speed up to lose the men tailing after him or he could turn around and kill them and both required a woundless body if he wanted to be honest.
There was not much of an option and that made the Ace curse under his breath. He could not just turn around and kill them because one, he lost all of his three guns on the mission. He only had a small dagger in his right pocket at the moment and using it meant that he had to face them really close. And two, his left side was sliced open. He would be the one dead at the end if he pursued it and if that ever happen, his members would surely resurrect him from the dead just to kill him again. He learned his lesson once when the Queen, the King, and the Jack had to abandon their separate missions just to save his sorry ass. If he ever die from this mission which was only partially successful, the Queen would have his head on a stick. He was the scariest and most brutal among the three after all. And so, with the thought of the Queen, he decided to just fuck it and run as fast as he could.
He could outrun the two men, he was more than sure. They were in their early fifties, according to the briefing a week ago and their stamina would surely start to deteriorate sooner or later. Hopefully, that would happen sooner rather than later. He just had to endure running a bit more. He was a twenty-four-year-old assassin for heaven’s sake and he surely dominated the two men in terms of endurance and strength.
The Ace kept on running without a specific destination in mind. He could hear the footsteps of the men getting weaker and weaker but he still couldn’t stop. He couldn’t take that risk. For a moment, he even contemplated maximizing the darkness of the nighttime and just hide in the shadows but the two men were not stupid. They were once the entrusted men of the governor after all. Oh! The correct term should be ex-governor. He was nothing but a mere body right now.
The pain on his left side was beginning to numb and the Ace was not sure if it was a good thing or not. He looked up ahead and stopped for a few seconds. It must have been the heat of the moment that he didn’t realize he already arrived at the intersection. He looked back and forth between the two streets. If he enter the left street, twenty more minutes of running and he would arrive at their private hideout. If he goes right, that would be the suburbs. Another set of options that weren’t really options and the Ace’s head started to ache.
If he remembered it right, the Queen and the King were out on a different mission while the Jack was hanging out with his boyfriend… or boy toy, according to the Queen. The Ace could opt to lead the two men to their mansion but the Queen would certainly decapitate him if even a drop of blood dirtied his carpet. Cursing for the nth time that day, the Ace turned right.
***
It was supposed to be an easy kill. It was a relatively easy mission in the first place and yet it felt like something had gone wrong. The Ace was tasked and briefed to eliminate Aurora’s current governor. The middle-aged man was known for his corrupt ways and a tipoff was sent to their group stating that the governor was also involved in a series of human trafficking and child pornography. He was also said to be working with the bureaucrats to eliminate all the informal settlers in both Aurora which was the northern part of Limerencia, and Adria, the center and the capital. The Jack was supposed to accompany him but he refused to be convoyed by the oldest member of their group. He knew he was the youngest but he was convinced he could do the mission alone. Just like what he had said earlier, it was an easy mission after all.
Everything was going well for the Ace. He easily sent a bullet straight to the temple of the governor without even thinking of hearing the old man out. It was an easy kill and yet an unanticipated blaring of the alarms alerted the entire governor’s office and the next thing he knew, he was running for his dear life with a stabbed left side.
Something didn’t add up though and that made the Ace both confused and frustrated. The Jack already dismantled all alarms within a five-kilometer radius of the office two days before the attack. They even tested it out the day prior to the mission and it worked. So, what went wrong? Surely the Jack didn’t sabotage him or anything. Despite being one of the nastiest and savage assassins in the entirety of Limerencia, he treated the Ace like his precious little brother. That made the Ace think deeply. If the Jack didn’t do it, then who was responsible?
Omaha was the name of their group. They consisted of four members. The King, the Queen, the Jack, and the Ace. Their group was based on the game of poker because aside from the King and the Queen’s shared obsession with card games, they thought the concept sounded cool. Yeah! That was all there was to the name of their group.
The four of them were the only assassins ruling Aurora or the northern part of Limerencia and so they were respected and feared by literally everyone. The latter more than the former. And not to toot their own horns but they also believed they were the best assassins in the whole country followed by the Armada. They, on the other hand, were assassins in Almirante or the southern part of Limerencia.
To give a brief description of the members of Omaha, first, there was the King. Most of the time he goes by the name King while some people in the assassin world knew him as the King of Diamonds, the Cowboy, the Knight, or The Man with the Ax. He was two years older than the Ace making him the second-youngest member of Omaha. Why give him the title of the King? That was easy. He was the best in both long-range and short-range combats and his power was unrivaled. He also used his looks in deceiving his victims or targets and nine out of ten targets fall for it. He was also the Queen’s partner for as long as all four of them could remember and maybe the Ace should have started introducing him with that instead of laying out the King’s strengths. His only weaknesses? Omaha and his Queen.
Then there was the Queen. He was the second oldest member of Omaha and some assassins knew him as the Queen of Hearts, the Cowgirl, Black Maria, or the Dame. Despite being a male himself, the Queen perfectly embodied his title. One should not be fooled by his ethereal looks because he was the most cunning of all. He was also the most brutal among the four and what the Queen wants, the Queen gets. He was their mother figure and would not hesitate to pull the trigger anytime and anywhere for his family. He specialized in using any kind of weapons to take down his targets but his all-time favorite was using his special palm-sized dagger on his right hand and a gold knuckle brass on his left. It was a deadly combo and up to this date, no one walked out alive from that specialty. His only weaknesses? Omaha, his King, and his past.
The third member was the Jack. He was the oldest member of the group and he was also known as the Jack of Clubs, Jackal, the Hook, One-eyed Jack, and Bower. Despite his unbelievable strength and combat skills, he preferred working in the background. His impeccable skills in hacking and anything related to technology were one of Omaha’s greatest assets. He could steal money from a bank with the tightest security in a blink and no one would notice until it was too late. He sometimes takes on missions by himself if one of his two conditions was met. One, if he had a personal grudge on the target or two, if he had nothing else better to do. The Jack was also charming in a way that it was deadly. You would be fascinated by his manly stature and the moment you double-take a look at him, there was already a bullet on your forehead and you’ll be on your way to hell. His weaknesses? Omaha and his boyfriend… or boy toy whatever.
And lastly, there was him. The Ace. He was the youngest among the four members but he should not be underestimated. He joined the group the latest among everyone two years ago after being taken under the Queen’s wing. Several assassins knew him as the Ace of Spades, Bullet, Blackberry, or the Death Card. His greatest strengths included his unsurpassable speed. His extreme speed had always been his paramount advantage compared to other assassins and as he grow older, it seemed as if his speed was improving better. He was also well-rounded in both short and long-range combats and his skills in weaponry were also acknowledged. He also would like to believe that he was gifted in the looks department and he could pull off a seemingly innocent face which was beneficial to take down targets of old ages. His weaknesses? Omaha and… nothing else.
Omaha was a group that would go beyond everything and everyone to take down the Academia. They were a group of assassins that would not kill just anyone unless they have their reasons.
The Academia was the governing body of the entire Limerencia and to say that they were corrupt and totally manipulative would be understatements. The bureaucrats forming the Academia already took over Adria (the capital), Erasmus, (the western part of Limerencia), and Osalia (the eastern part of Limerencia). The Academia was turning the people in those three lands into machines and robots and the Omaha was there to stop them.
It was not easy and they would die for sure but they would die trying.
After running for what felt like an eternity, the Ace stopped. The two men were no longer running after him. He silently thanked his speed and the fact that he knew the way around the suburbs like the back of his hand. But as soon as he knew he was no longer in danger, he stumbled to his feet and realized that he was losing a lot of blood. He needed to find a place as soon as possible and hopefully, someone would help him although that sounded rather impossible. No normal and sane person would just entertain an assassin to their house, wounded or not.
Fuck it.
The Ace wandered for a short while before he found an open window on a two-story house. The lights were on and if he wanted to live and not face the wrath of the Queen, he had to take chances. With the little amount of strength left in his system, he propped his body up and climbed the wall with difficulty. Upon his entrance to the well-lit room, he was met with an empty bedroom. He briefly looked around and there seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary inside. The room looked like it belonged to someone his age if the posters of some singers plastered on the wall were any indication. It also had three cabinets with books in them. Who the heck needed that many books in their lives? The Ace could only wonder in silence.
Letting out a sigh and a painful grunt, his knees gave up on him and the next thing he knew, he was slumped on the ground right below the glass windows. He was so close to dozing off when the door opened and he was suddenly face-to-face with a boy whose eyes widened upon the sight of him.
“What the actual fuck?!”
***
“Don’t you fucking die on me, Mister. I don’t have a single idea on how to hide a fucking dead body and I don’t want the police on my ass.”
The Ace stifled a laugh as the male ran around the house to get the necessary things to patch him up. Who would have thought his day would end with him on a random guy’s bed as the said random guy tried his hardest to treat his wound?
Upon seeing the bloodied assassin on his bedroom floor, the guy immediately sprang into action to hurl him to his bed. He didn’t ask any questions nor didn’t his shocked expression stay on his face for longer than ten seconds.
Just as he was starting to close his eyes, he felt warm fingers stitching his stab wound and that shifted his focus on trying not to doze off to the face of the man currently helping him. The guy had the prettiest shade of brown for his skin tone and the softest-looking tuft of chestnut brown hair. Maybe it was the pain speaking but he swore his heart momentarily stopped when their eyes met.
“Stop staring at me, Mister. I can’t concentrate on not stabbing you even further with a needle,” the guy huffed and the Ace let out a few chuckles. His side ached even more because of the action but the guy was hilarious.
“I’m an assassin, you know?” The Ace murmured, staring at the guy’s breathtaking side profile.
The guy snorted, deep brown eyes not looking away from stitching the wound. “Assassin or not, still a dead body if I let you die on my bedroom floor. Goddamn it! I just had my sheets dry cleaned.” The last sentence was more of a whisper but the Ace heard it clearer than the water.
“What’s your name?” He couldn’t help but ask. The tanned male briefly looked at him before returning to tending his wound.
“Why? So you could know me first before killing me?”
“I don’t kill innocent people,” the Ace muttered. “Only those I have reasons to kill. Or at least that’s what my group does. I’m not sure of the other assassins in Limerencia.”
The guy hummed, “My name is Haechan.”
“What do you do? University student?”
“No. I’m a kindergarten teacher. I finished university last year.” Kindergarten teacher? Well, that explained the ridiculous amount of books on the shelves.
“What about you? What’s your name? Or your assassin name whatever.”
“My name is Ace.”
The moment he said those words, he saw how the guy—Haechan’s expression morphed into that of something he couldn’t understand before returning to its peaceful state.
“Like the Ace of Spades? Omaha?” Haechan asked, raising his eyebrow. “You’re all done by the way. Just rest there for a bit or whatever.”
“Thanks,” the Ace closed his eyes, letting the other guy pull down his shirt. “Wait! You know our group?”
“Huh. I’m not a recluse. I’m pretty sure everyone in this goddamn country knows of Omaha and those other assassins. You, assassins, make up at least 12% of the population.”
That made the Ace laugh still with his eyes shut. It was a calculated risk. He was well aware that the guy could easily kill him while he was lying on his bed but there was something about the man that tells him he was harmless. Heck! He even patched him up knowing the Ace was a dangerous man.
“That’s oddly specific, Haechan-ssi.”
“Whatever. Do you want something to eat? I think I still have leftover kimchi fried rice and cheese tonkatsu. It’s not much but one of my students who went here liked that food.”
The Ace shook his head, the fatigue and pain slowly catching up with him.
“I’m fine, Haechan-ssi. I’m sorry for occupying your bed. I’ll make it up to you when I’m better, I promise.”
A laugh resonated throughout the room and the Ace had to force his eyes open only to see the guy laughing at him.
“What’s so funny, Haechan-ssi?”
“Nothing,” Haechan cackled uncontrollably. “I just find you amusing, Ace-ssi. An assassin that apologizes and makes promises? Woah! You’re one of a kind.”
He snorted, “I’m not like any other assassins, you know? Omaha is not like those typical assassins you see in the movies.”
“Yeah, okay. Now, go to sleep or whatever. I will just be downstairs on the couch. Call me if you need anything.”
And with that, the guy switched off his lights before closing the bedroom door.
Huh. Truly a weird encounter but he was more than thankful nonetheless.
The Ace woke up after a few hours feeling a hundred times better. He gazed at the window and the sun was just beginning to rise. As much as he enjoyed the presence of the weird guy he just met, it was time to go. He grabbed his leather jacket that Haechan placed on the electric heater a few hours ago before putting on his shoes. He soundlessly went down the stairs after checking up his stitched wound and found the guy who seemed to have no fear of assassins sleeping on the couch like a dead log.
Trying not to be too creepy, he stared at the other’s sleeping face and stifled a smile. The other’s mouth was slightly open and soft sounds were coming out of it. The sight was just adorable. In fact, too adorable for the assassin’s weak heart. With a shake on his head, he got the blanket that had managed to fall off from the guy’s lithe body and settled it once again on Haechan’s sleeping figure. He looked around the living room and when he spotted a whiteboard and a marker near the television, he knew what he had to do next.
Thanks for helping me, Lee Haechan-ssi. I hope to see you next time with me not bleeding and unscathed.
Ace
And he plastered an Ace card near his name. It was his trademark after all. A signature that meant he was there.