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If there’s one thing Seonghwa isn’t, it’s unobservant. He can’t be in his line of work. Being unobservant and therefore ignorant or oblivious would get him killed. In this case, however, it only marks more points against him. Because it means he’s doing this anyway.
Seonghwa sits at the counter of this seedy, underhanded bar nursing his second drink of the night. The only reasons he’s ever at a bar are to meet with a client under a thin veneer of propriety or to carry out a mark. Liquor at home is usually much more comfortable.
Right now, all of his attention is on the one person who’s always been in step with him. Dyed-light hair free and floating. Shoulders artfully curved and intentionally alluring. Long legs leaning up against the bar with at least two knives strapped beneath those pants. Deceptively friendly smile hiding a deadly purpose.
Wooyoung is like a blue-capped ifrit. He flutters with his flashy colors, a pretty bird with a pretty voice, drawing in people around him as easily as a moth to flame, and then surprising anyone who comes near enough to touch with poisonous feathers and a cutting beak. Just like a bird, he’s hard to catch, always just too quick to get a grip on. But like a leopard is an unsuspected predator.
As they catch each other’s glinting eyes in the dim haze of the bar, Seonghwa feels his insides burn as though he’d downed a shot.
Seonghwa is one of the only people who’ve ever gripped Wooyoung. Time and time again, he gets his fingers around one of Wooyoung’s wings, feeling the scalding burn of Wooyoung’s poison, only for Wooyoung to break his own wing to slip away. They clash with blades and barbed tongues, inflict whatever they can to catch or evade, unable to truly best the other. In the private places within his own mind, unspoken, Seonghwa doesn’t think they want to best each other.
This isn’t one of those times. This is something more foolish.
The crowd swallows Wooyoung when he steps back.
When he doesn’t resurface and Seonghwa only catches glimpses of honeyed brown hair, Seonghwa finishes what’s apparently his last drink. People part for Seonghwa as he moves through the establishment. He allows himself to be intimidating, doesn’t obfuscate himself entirely, and everyone else subconsciously acts accordingly. So he strides easily towards the back, into the hidden hallway housing back rooms and bathrooms, a place even darker than the main space.
And dodges the punch that comes out of a shadow, blocking with his forearm and giving out his own right hook.
It makes solid contact with a chin.
Tingling adrenaline makes his heart flutter and his stomach swoop.
His hit is repaid with a knee to his ribs. Seonghwa pushes through his lack of air, harshly gripping the bones of a familiar wrist and dragging Wooyoung out of the black doorway.
Wooyoung smirks at him, an honest glint shining from narrowed eyes. It makes his insides coil. With what must be a painful twist, he loses his grip.
Pain sparks from where Wooyoung drives a fist into his bruising ribs. It aches wonderfully.
He tries to push Wooyoung off balance and manages to land a heavy hit on Wooyoung’s shoulder but Wooyoung is already ready for it, had expected it. A thrill goes down his spine. Wooyoung shifts his weight and dances on light feet.
When Seonghwa tries to follow, Wooyoung is already moving in close.
A knee to Seonghwa’s hip then hooks around his thigh.
A tight grip on his opposite elbow restricts movement.
A knife presses against the hollow of his neck.
Wooyoung’s smile is sharp and beautiful. Seonghwa can feel his stomach burning. His free hand holds Wooyoung’s waist roughly. His heart trots and skips away in his chest.
“So happy to see you, Phobos, but you’re late. I almost thought I’d have to wait another few weeks.”
“What good would it be to be so predictable?” He licks his lips, leaning forward into Wooyoung’s grasp. Always wanting to be closer. “I thought you were better than that, Vixen.”
He’s delighted when Wooyoung’s eyes dart down to watch his mouth. Even more so when Wooyoung’s smile goes excited and sinister and his eyes go heavy. This is the most real face Wooyoung ever wears, and it’s all Seonghwa’s.
“Better than you,” Wooyoung exults, bringing the rest of his body closer. The body heat only makes the burning inside Seonghwa brighter. “But who knows? Maybe you’ll have better luck next time. Oh, say in a couple months?”
Seonghwa can feel his own want and excitement on his own face. But it doesn’t feel vulnerable when he can see the same on Wooyoung.
He doesn’t move when Wooyoung hides the knife away and brushes searing lips against his cheek. He watches as Wooyoung slips back out of the hallway and into the main area to get eyes on his client once more. The music just barely drowns out the pumping of his heart, the heat in his center making his head addictively light. His skin tingles wonderfully where cold steel kissed his neck. He knows he’ll press on his new bruises in the days to come to get an aftertaste of this.
In a few months, Wooyoung will be pursuing a mark. Seonghwa will make sure he’ll be too. When they happen to collide, Seonghwa will be delighted to feel Wooyoung’s wing break just as much as he will be when Wooyoung’s blade writes his name in his skin.
But just like tonight, however, he’ll see Wooyoung before then. They’ll do this little dance that sparks flames in their chests, tantalizing and priming them for when they cross actual blades and engage in the chase and evade.
Seonghwa knows it’s dangerous and unwise and it could get him killed.
He does it anyway.