Chapter 02 (1/2)

Chapter 02

Warnings: nothing much this time  Minseok stood up on shaky legs, wiping away the blood at his mouth. He was mostly skin and bones—just like the other kids around him—having lost all the weight comfort and privilege had brought him in the years when he was younger.

The adult in the room yelled at him calmly but loudly in a language he didn't understand. He may not have known what he was saying, but Minseok knew what he wanted.

Get up. Try again. Fail and he wouldn't eat.

So he got up and raised his fists again. His sparring partner was younger and shorter than Minseok, but the child continuously kicked his ass until he was beaten down and covered in bruises. Minseok tried to reason it as unfair advantage—unlike some of the other kids here, he hadn't grown up his whole life training like this.

But that was what he had to do now, and Minseok wasn't going to skip out on his dinner without a fight. ❉❉❉ "I have... a proposition."

"Fuck off," Minseok growled angrily, spitting onto the floor by where he was sitting and staining the concrete ground with a wet spot. "You always have some damn proposition—I don't want to fucking hear it. I fell for it the first time, and I saw you manipulate Jaebum—like hell I'm going to let you feed me your bullshit again."

"You have a point," Lu Han laughed as he leaned back slightly, his hands in his pockets. He was standing in the center of the room where Minseok had woken up in, cornered against the wall with his hands and legs cuffed while he faced the politician and four other bodyguards. He had been stripped of all his weapons and left in just his boxer briefs and tank top. Defenseless and vulnerable—the worst state he could find himself in. "Then I won't make you a proposition. This is a threat—I need you to work for me, and until I'm finished with my business, I'll be keeping you in China. Failure to comply will have unfavorable results for you."

"What?" Minseok scoffed, his smile mocking. "Like killing me?"

"No—I know that when faced with inevitable death, that kind of thing doesn't scare you. But," Lu Han stepped closer till he was a few feet away from the other man and knelt down. "There are plenty of other ways to make you very afraid."

"I don't think anything you have in mind can possibly match up to the things I've been through." Minseok argued, staring at the other man dead in the eye without breaking contact.

"Maybe. Maybe not. The only way to find out is if you don't cooperate." Lu Han said vaguely with a shrug. He didn't seem particularly bothered by Minseok's resistance, and the complete nonchalance of his attitude was boggling the assassin's mind. The smaller male had expected the politician to be more frustrated with his stubbornness—had been expecting to see a crack in the perfect mask that Lu Han had put up before him—but no such luck. Lu Han really did seem to be unconcerned about Minseok's choice, and it made Minseok nervous. The man acted like he knew he was going to get what he wanted in the end, and it made Minseok wonder if he really did have some kind of method that could potentially work against him and make him suffer something worse than death.

The politician was something of an enigma. He was too calm for Minseok's liking. He didn't act in the way Minseok expected of rich and privileged little boys.

And maybe that was the reason why—despite being the successful assassin that he was—he felt fear. Fear of the other man's indifference. Minseok couldn't understand what Lu Han was thinking or what he was expecting. It bothered him, and Minseok wasn't the type to be scared of others easily. Not after what he had been through.

"So what will it be?" Lu Han asked when the silence had gone on too long. "If it makes you feel better, I'll make sure the end result will be worth it for you. It will only turn out as a win-win situation for both of us if you agree."

"Taking away my freedom isn't a 'win-win' situation." Minseok said blandly.