1 | pathos

noun

an emotion of sympathetic pity

"Hey, hyung," Namjoon greets his elder as he enters the room, the said man sitting regally on the leather armchair like it's a throne, fiercely tapping away at the screen of his phone.

He lets out a growl, crossing then uncrossing his legs and ruffling the back of his newly combed hair, wrinkling his immaculate dark suit. His usually unreadable face is twisted into a frown.

"What?" Yoongi questions angrily, clearly annoyed with Namjoon but still not looking up from whatever it is he's doing. His already furrowed eyebrows close in on each other further and he squints at the screen.

Curious about what's making the man so irritated, Namjoon walks over to the elder one.

'It must be someone giving him shit,' he thinks to himself, feeling pity for whoever is the object of Yoongi's ire this time.

Min Yoongi is not just "Min Yoongi". He's the Min Yoongi. The anonymously infamous kingpin of the South Korean underground. Nobody except the selected few who were sworn in to protect his identity since the very, very beginning of his empire know who he really is.

There is no mafia in this country, Namjoon muses to himself, Min Yoongi is the mafia.

This single man in his late twenties unified the feuding mafia families of all major cities in each of the four regions. And he lived. He lived and created the largest network of organized crime in the world.

The group has many names, none of which are official. This is widely due to the fact that the whole group itself is unknown; the pre-existing mafia families are used as a front for a much grander enterprise. That didn't stop the members from trying to nickname it themselves though. Namjoon mentally snickers as he recounts the many ridiculous names they told him about.

Hard Steel, Knuckles, Flying Monkeys...

They sound like some middle schooler's gaming account. But he does have a favorite one.

'Invisible Ink,' he thinks contentedly to himself, a permanent stain you never knew you had.

It has an edgy backstory and doesn't sound cliché, which is why he likes it so much.

...Granted, he does have some bias as he did come up with it. But it's starting to catch on with the younger ones, who have come to call themselves the Invisible Inksters, a mix of "ink" and "gangsters".

That name Namjoon isn't so into.

Namjoon is the only one who knows the group's early history. To those in the lower ranks, Yoongi's just another one of the few higher-ups who answer only to the leader, and to the ones in direct contact with him, they're still puzzling over how he made it this far. But no one knows about his past.

With an expectant grin he looks over his boss' shoulder to look at the phone, wondering what monstrous thing could piss off someone in his great and powerful position. The only other time this practiced stoic had been this bothered was when the former leader of the Kim clan tried to kill him right before a meeting they were supposed to have at their family headquarters. Runners reported it was because of a rumor that Yoongi was controlling the other leaders.

He wasn't wrong, which was a problem.

Namjoon's sure there's still bits of the poor guy's overflowing gut somewhere in his Swiss Army knife and the corners of a sinister place known only as The Room.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Escapes his mouth without another thought.

Yoongi's face eases up from its tensed position and looks at Namjoon with a questioning look, eyebrows raised.

"What?" He asks, oblivious to the epic recount of his dominion that went on in Namjoon's head.

"You beheaded five international mafia giants during dinner and you're getting frustrated over a fucking Tetris rip off?"

Some Russian and American groups didn't agree with Yoongi in a meeting they had in Tokyo, so changes in administration had to be made.

Frustrated and frankly disappointed, Namjoon runs a tan hand over his dark blonde hair. He doesn't notice how Yoongi's expression turns dark.

His hands are dirty but he doesn't like to talk about it; murder is not something to brag. But he shakes it off, choosing not to mention it. He understands that the younger has committed his own sins and indifference is his way of dealing with it.

Instead, Yoongi takes a calm breath.

"I'm solving a very significant level of a game that's much better than Tetris," he explains patiently, because he finds it quite important for his close friend and subordinate to properly understand.

Namjoon lets out an exasperated noise.

"All you do is place blocks inside other blocks!" The younger one exclaims in disbelief to who he thought was a faultless leader. "There's no difference!"

"There is," the elder one replies with the patronizing tone he usually saves for when he's making deals with belligerent mobsters, "this game is more visually pleasing."

"You can just say you find it cute," Namjoon says, knowing his weakness for such things.

Yoongi sighs and rolls his eyes at the oversimplified generalization.

"BT21 is much more than that but sure, let's go with cute," he says sarcastically, air quoting the last word.

Namjoon stares at Yoongi incredulously as he returns to playing his game.

"Oh and Min Incorporated is one of the main investors for this game and the line of products," he says like it's just an afterthought.

"You invested in this without telling any of us!" Namjoon yells.

Min Inc. is a huge conglomerate that reflects Yoongi's underground empire; it controls all the major, well-known companies while also keeping its operations covert. Though the profits from this company is minuscule compared to how much he makes off his illegal business, it serves as a good alibi as to how he and the other members make outrageous amounts of money.

And he used their legitimate company to fund his hobby?

Yoongi gives him a withering look that shows he's stepped over the line. They may trust each other with their lives but the man sitting in that chair is still the boss. Namjoon understands and looks down in repent but holds on to his disapproval.

"I consulted Hoseok," Yoongi explains, still looking at his phone. This placates Namjoon, who looks up. Hoseok is another one of the handful who know of his identity. Just like Namjoon he has his own high position in the corporation. He's the head of marketing and the third in line.

"Really?"

Tapping away, he nods.

"Yeah, he even encouraged me to connect with Sanrio."

Namjoon's back to mentally deadpanning his senior, adding a mental note to talk to Hoseok about not encouraging the boss.

"The mafia is funding Hello Kitty."

"I guess so."

"Wonderful."

Yoongi shrugs at his sarcasm and finally puts down his phone, tilting his head backwards in a yawn, relishing the subtle crack of his stiff bones. His long, smooth neck is exposed, the small bump of his Adam's apple twitching slightly.

Namjoon's eyes rest on the sight a little longer than normal.

But it's normal to admire beauty when you see it, right? This is a completely platonic act. It's no secret that his boss is handsome, so naturally handsome that it's unnatural. The pale peach of his plump, Cupid's bow lips complement his piercing almond eyes, which contrast wonderfully with his slightly tanned color. And he's toned too, smooth muscles hiding under his expensive suit.

Namjoon's just complimenting his good friend. That's all. He's not gay. He's whatever the opposite of gay is. What he wants to do is serve and protect Min Yoongi, nothing else.

But he does wonder how the vanilla skin on his throat would taste on his tongue, or how it would feel like under his intense gaze, the man's deep, gravelly voice ordering him to strip—the ultimate humiliation for men in his high position and a form of punishment, the severity of which is second only to torture.

But he only thinks of this upon occasion. Upon very, very rare occasion.

Heterosexual is the word, right? He interrupts himself before he goes any farther.

"What time are they coming again?" Yoongi asks and Namjoon damn nearly moans.

At his young age, he may or may not be sexually frustrated.

He's been abstinent for a while, yes, but he is well respected for it, being praised as virtuous. He uses the excuse of "I've sinned enough" when asked why he remains obstinate. But it's really just because his desires aren't exactly easy to sate. It's getting harder to lie to himself.

Truthfully, he wants his boss.

Wow, he thinks. That sounded kinkier than expected.

That and he's most definitely gay.

He knows that wanting Yoongi is impossible and unreasonable but nothing else can satisfy him. And he's tried. Gay strip clubs, gay bars, gay prostitutes. There's a surprising amount of gay around the supposedly conservative city.

He's truly amazed he hasn't contracted any STDs yet.

"A-ah right," he stutters out and looks at his watch to avoid looking directly at Yoongi. "In about half an hour."

The man nods and Namjoon gulps, directing his eyes to the floor-to-ceiling windows that offer a panoramic view of the sprawling metropolis around them in an attempt to ignore his hormones.

Ah, Seoul. He crosses his arms and lets out a small sigh, feeling both the old nostalgia and the crushing exhaustion coming back.

On top it looks like a flourishing model city—modern architecture, wealthy businesses, flashy celebrities—but the real progress is below.

Lights shine brighter in the dark.

When the sun sets and the daytime workers go to bed, that's when he wakes up. That's when the dreams begin.

Fantasies of the most ostentatious kind are right there within reach and your worst nightmares will jump at you from the shadows.

The finest liquor from the vineyards of Spain is poured into priceless flutes from France, adorning the hands of the obscenely rich and powerful as they each take a turn eyeing a ruby so large it's almost vulgar and shining so bright it's blinding, illegally smuggled in from Mumbai. They turn to a stolen Da Vinci. Then an heirloom Monet. High quality booze. Psychedelic drugs.

"It's not about what you need son," his father told him once, himself a shameless, profit-driven capitalist but nonetheless a family man, "but what you want."

Take whatever from whoever, whenever, he learned early. Morals don't matter, but money does, and where money is, that's where the happiness lies.

Namjoon was never just an ordinary person; he was bred to be a mafioso. He's the eldest son in the Dragon Dynasty family of Seoul and Incheon, previously the most notorious and covert transnational mafia of South Korea. In the modern world where true organized crime has declined and all that was left from the glory days of the fifties were petty gangs throwing tantrums on the streets, this family had connections with all the few real groups left—the Japanese, Russian, Australian, and even the arcane Middle Eastern mafia family.

A silver spoon was put in his mouth even before he was born, and with it came the crushing weight of his responsibilities. Nothing about the business was hidden from him growing up; he witnessed a man get tortured to death at age thirteen and did one in at fifteen. But he saw the dizzying glamour that came with it—money, sex, alcohol. Everything was within his reach; the bloodshed was simply business.

And so before he graduated from school he had already become everything his father wanted him to be. A mafioso.

It didn't last, however.

Things started becoming more dangerous as they fell into hard times; his father had angered some high-profile assassins and mafia leaders, so extra precautions had to be made. Right before he went to college he was given a fake identity to go by for the rest of his life, and left everything he knew.

His family, though in danger, was still affluent, so he lived a luxurious life travelling from country to country as an exchange student, with zero contact from Korea except to receive money. All was well.

As he graduated from university he began to forget his old ways. Sure, he would have to live a much simpler life than before, but he made peace with that. Time had made him regret what he had done, and he didn't miss the killing as much as he thought he would. Spending time with different people around the world taught him the beauty and sanctity of life he never truly understood back when he was home.

Yes, home. He still thought of it as home no matter how much time had passed and how much sin that had been committed.

A few years passed and he still hadn't heard from any of his family members or old friends. They stopped sending him money a few months after he started working but he was alright; he had a steady job as a teacher at a prominent college which paid quite well.

Then, he got a letter.

It was a nondescript white envelope, blank on both sides and contained but a small message scrawled across a blank page.

Come back home.

It was his mother's handwriting, looping and slanting as always but messier than usual. Dark spots scattered across the page, blurring the black ink of the words. It took him a minute to realize that those were tear stains.

He got on the first flight back.

When he arrived at his ancestral house everything looked the same but everything felt different. Surrounding the house, the tall bamboo that bore the color of spring all year round seemed to wilt as he looked at it, its spritely leaves having turned into an unhealthy brown. The structure itself was falling apart, its once stately, traditional grandeur having broken down. The reds and golds weren't as vibrant, the tiles on the sloping roof were broken, and the stone floor leading inside had a web of cracks across it.

Then he heard it—

His mother, crying.

He ran inside, throwing his bags by the gate. As he threw the door to his home open he paused, taking in the area. People he'd never seen before were crowded around the main floor, wearing the customary mourning clothes. They were gathered around something at the center of the room, not noticing him.

But who died?

He spotted his mother sobbing by the corner of the room, her hands covering her face as she sunk into an armchair.

What happened?

His mother was always composed, no matter what situation befell her. She never showed her weaknesses. And yet her she was, her once luscious, impeccably kept black hair a disheveled gray mess at the top of her head, her clothes all crumpled.

Slowly, he approached her and touched her shoulder lightly.

"Mom?" He whispered quietly under the muted noise of the others.

She looked up and his body turned cold.

It hurt him to see his mother this way, this pained, and he couldn't believe that after all these years the first thing he would see when he returned was his mother in anguish.

"Joon-ah!" She cried out hysterically, and stood up to hug him, attracting the attention of the guests.

He hugged her back and did his best to comfort her.

"Shh, it's okay, I'm here now," he said, then added loudly for the others to hear, "auntie."

Through her tears his mother looked up at him and clenched her jaw as if the pain she had grew by a thousand-fold at his words. He glanced back at her with an equally tormented expression, regretting how he couldn't even talk to his mother as her son.

As she wept he heard the guests whispering behind his back.

"Poor mother," he heard a man say, "she thinks her nephew is her dead child."

"Let her be," another one said, "she just lost her husband."

His breath froze in his throat.

He replayed what the woman had just said.

She just lost her husband.

His father?

Was that who they were mourning over?

"She must be in shock with how he was murdered in cold blood," a pitying voice chimed in.

"Yes, how horribly he died."

His father was dead.

Murdered.

What the fuck happened?

He went to the police station the day after and pulled a copy of the police report, using his father's old connections.

It was unlike anything he'd ever seen before.

There was his father—mutilated beyond recognition with blood and organs sprayed across the grimy walls of a dark alley.

His father was dead.

Dead.

Murdered.

He was in shock for a long, long time.

Namjoon was supposed to be mourning the death of his father but instead numbed himself to it, his mafioso ways returning easily as he threw himself into ruthlessly purging the ranks—someone died every other day. Traitors had to pay. People who made errors had to pay.

His father died because of someone's mistake.

Someone he trusted must've given him up; he knew his father as the most paranoid man in the world. If he was paranoid enough about his family's safety that he gave his child a new identity, why wouldn't he have done the same for himself?

He executed incognito but everybody knew it was him, the "nephew" of the former family leader and the new head. The way he took someone's life without warning and leaving without a trace sparked tales that he was a ghost. Nobody had even the smallest proof that he did it and nobody dared speak to him for fear they might be next on his hit list. It was such circumstances that caused him to live in near complete isolation for a time.

In a few short months he became known as the Reaper.

But the voice of his bodyguard came through the intercom one day, telling him that his mother had sent someone to see him.

Surprised, he glanced at the cameras and saw a young man that didn't look much older than him in a dark suit, waiting outside the gate. He called his mom to verify and sent her a picture of the guy.

"It's very important that you see him," was all she said before she hung up.

Ominous.

What does my mom want with him? Namjoon thought as he allowed the man inside the maximum-security compound he had shut himself in.

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree; he ended up just as paranoid as his father. He wasn't sure what to expect of this visitor, but he wasn't risking anything and hid a gun in his waistband.

As the heavy steel door tumbled open he put his hands casually at his back, a hand gripping the cold metal.

When the man walked in, Namjoon felt scared.

His hold tightened.

At first it was because he didn't know someone could look so...angelic. He had features like the cherubs in Michaelangelo's murals and was calm—serene as a pond on a hot summer day. Not shaking the way everyone else was around him.

This man wasn't afraid.

But it was his eyes that truly struck a chord within him; they were unlike his placid appearance. Their brown color was so dark it was almost black and had a steady, fervid look in them.

Namjoon thought of coals resting still inside a fire.

For a second he thought he was going to die, that God sent the real harbinger of death to execute him for his wrongdoings.

It passed and he became more scared of himself than the man. Though he prided himself in his strict self-discipline, he felt old urges bursting out from the inner recesses of his mind as they slowly overtook him. He didn't know if he wanted to be pinned down by the man or slam him against the wall, if he wanted to fuck or get fucked by him. What Namjoon wanted was to be touched, licked, bit. He wanted scars and marks as much as he wanted to leave scars and marks on this mysterious man. He wanted to pleasure him. He wanted to be pleasured by him.

This guy was fucking handsome. It wasn't helping at all.

"This feels like jail," was the first thing the other said. "An upgraded, high class jail."

It's soundproof too, he thought. No one will hear us scream.

He ignored his lustful thoughts and questioned the sudden visit.

"Well, for starters, I know you're Kim Namjoon," the man said.

Namjoon's eyes flashed and in a split second he had the revolver trained at the man's forehead.

He hadn't heard that name out loud in years.

"Where did you get that information?" He interrogated coldly, voice steely.

"Relax," the other said and Namjoon gave him an expression that was anything but.

"Who are you and what is your business with me?"

He just sighed tiredly.

"I was getting there," he said in a measured tone that annoyed the hell out of Namjoon. "You're Kim Namjoon, son of Kim Jaeyeon and Kim Yoona-"

"What's your point?" Namjoon interrupted impatiently.

He paused and shrugged.

"I'm Min Yoongi and I know who killed your father."

Namjoon lowered the gun slightly.

Yoongi connected that this was the modus operandi of a reclusive assassin group somewhere in the Scandinavian region. He proved as much with pictures and made him swear to never tell anyone of their existence. Then somehow, he said, he managed to track the man who hired them. He provided no details which made Namjoon skeptical.

"If you don't believe me, then I'll let it go," he said with a shrug, "but if you want to know where the man is, I'll need something return."

Namjoon thought about it. It sounded shady and this suspicious man literally came out of nowhere—how could he even trust him?

And yet, there wasn't much else he could do.

He had reached a dead-end. Anyone his father had a problem with were already dealt with but none of them admitted to being responsible for his death. What's more, the family was starting to break; members ditched because they were afraid of being purged and connections were cutting them off one by one.

Namjoon's only guarantee for anything was that his mom had sent this man.

"What is it that you want?" He asked, after a silent moment of reflection.

The business was slowly dying but he still had a measurable amount of money stored in his Swiss account. This man must want that.

"Control over your mafia group," he said bluntly.

"What?" Namjoon questioned in disbelief.

Did he know what he was asking for?

"I realize that it would compromise your reputation," he said calmly, treading carefully, "which is why I'll do it from the sidelines."

He continued by explaining that nobody will know he even exists. Namjoon will still have his position and all changes will be made through him.

"I have no quarrel with your family," Yoongi said in earnest, "but we both know that it is slowly descending into ruin. I simply want to change that."

He thought of it some more.

His family was going nowhere at the rate he was going and he didn't know what to do. He was lost and couldn't concentrate on anything that didn't deal with his need to avenge his father. Now, here was someone who could provide the answers to both problems.

"Take me to my father's killer."

An eight-hour ride in a private jet and a rented Maserati later, he was in the Ritz-Carlton of Paris, pointing his gun at a man he thought he knew, uttering a word he never thought he'd say again.

"Father," he whispered, stomach turning.

The once fearless, tough strongman he looked up to had become a whimpering glutton, his meaty hands raised in defeat and head tilted down at the floor.

"D-don't hurt me," he begged. "Son."

He begged.

Namjoon wrinkled his nose in disgust. Where was the pride and self-respect he once held on to so tightly? The man he knew would rather die with his middle fingers up than be under anyone's mercy. And yet here he was, in hiding. Abandoning him and his mother and the rest of his clan in exchange for overindulgence.

He left out of convenience.

Yoongi, who had disappeared somewhere in the shadows to leave them in privacy returned by his side.

His father glanced up at Yoongi and froze, eyes widened and skin turning pallid as if he had seen a ghost.

"Please!" He begged again and fell to his knees, lowering his head and rubbing his hands together in prostration.

"Shoot him," Yoongi whispered lowly in his ear, warm breath tickling the back of his neck, "he's not the man you knew."

It wasn't the right moment but fuck, Namjoon still found it hot.

He finds that Mafia-style executions popularized in overrated movies are overdone, with its depictions of the gun's booming sound echoing through the air and the dramatic saying of last words.

But the loud bang of the more sensational revolver would draw too much attention; Namjoon had brought a silencer. There were no last words either.

Just pathetic begging.

Before he could think of anything else he pulled the trigger just as he'd done countless times before, unflinching as blood sprayed on his face.

He felt no pity for the dead man on the floor, the slaughtered pig. His father died at the funeral. This was a hollow shell.

Everything became still and he slumped, looking down. He was exhausted.

"Let's get you cleaned up," Yoongi said quietly and led him out the window to scale the side of the hotel and back into their penthouse suite.

He directed the chilled man into the luxurious bathroom, where he started running a hot bath.

"Strip," he commanded, and Namjoon did so, still in a trance from the recent events.

His father was a coward.

Everything was a lie, he thought, the cold spreading through his body even as the warm water surrounded him, it was all a lie.

The advice, the warnings, the training. Everything his father taught him was a lie because in the end, that great man died and rotted into nothing.

There's nobody in this world, he thought. We'll always be alone.

Then, Yoongi touched him.

Namjoon took a shaky breath as feeling slowly returned to him, his numbed nerves bursting into life.

The elder ran a hand across his flushed cheek, blood making a red smear as the other leaned into his touch, looking into his eyes.

"It's all over now," he said, deep voice invading his thoughts and intense stare softening to a tender gaze. He was kneeling by the tub and dipped his long fingers in the water, bringing them up to wash the stain off his face. "Namjoon."

He shivered with pleasure at the sound of his name rolling off the man's tongue. It felt like a baptism, as if he was coming back as a new person, granted a new chance at life. As if he was granted permission to be Namjoon once more.

Water seemed to trickle into the cold, empty vessel, purifying the blood and death that filled it.

"Go ahead," Yoongi whispered, his index finger caressing the skin under Namjoon's eyes, "you can let go."

At first he was confused, and reached up to meet the man's finger with his own when he felt something drip.

He was...crying.

There wasn't any distraught wailing, no yelling. Just tears. Silently rolling out his eyes and disturbing the calm surface of the filled tub as he hugged his knees. And Yoongi.

Oh, Yoongi.

He took one look at the man who never took his eyes off of him and started bawling, fighting for breath as he leaned into his soothing warmth.

Namjoon wept for a while. He wept for his grieving mother, his dead father, his dead identity. He wept for the collapse of the family his ancestors struggled to build. He wept for everything that had gone wrong. He wept for everything that will go wrong.

By the time his tears stopped the scalding bath had become lukewarm.

"Better now?" The elder asked, concerned.

Namjoon nodded, words not returning to him just yet.

Yoongi's hand trailed from his cheek down to his jawline, the rough pads of his fingers slightly scratching at his delicate skin. Namjoon gasped softly as it slowly went lower, skimming his collarbone and lightly caressing his nipple.

Namjoon feared the man would hear how hard his heart was beating.

Just before he reached the younger's nether regions, he let go, the other turning pink. Under the water he shifted uncomfortably as the once soft and caring atmosphere became heated and heavy with unspoken desires. His unspoken desires. He looked down, unable to meet the older one's eyes.

Beside him he felt Yoongi stir and stand up. Pouting a little at his absence, he brought his head up and looked at the man, still clad in his black turtleneck and dark jeans, messing with something on the hotel counter.

"What..?" He asked, and the elder shushed him, back still turned.

Namjoon stayed still and tried to calm his nerves.

"Here," he said and crouched back to Namjoon's side as he handed the blushing man toiletries. "Freshen up."

He nodded gratefully.

Yoongi lingered a few seconds more and met Namjoon's eyes, the latter of which staring in awe as the tender look in them hardened into obscurity.

He exited the bathroom without another word.

The man left behind covered his head with his hands, feeling more vulnerable then ever.

Come back, he thought.