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Hongjoong was sitting at the bar, deep in thought and shallow in beer. He swirled the last drop of amber liquid around in his glass pensively, resting his thumb on the lip of the green bottle. The bar was quiet enough for a Tuesday afternoon, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something cosmic was about to happen.
“Another one, boss?” Jongho approached his leader with an even-tempered respect.
Hongjoong simply waved his hand towards the other man in dismissal. He handled his alcohol well, that much was obvious, but that didn’t mean he needed to sink his entire fortune in it. Little did he know, he would only have a couple moments more of peace and quiet before Jongho interrupted it again.
“Hey boss, the Manager is here with someone to meet you? Did… you have an appointment?” His voice was uncertain, protective of his leader’s solitude.
Hongjoong turned around slowly. His bleached hair was partially slicked back, but his bangs fell into his face on his left side. He looked up through his nose at the guests standing behind Jongho. There was the Manager: tall and broad as ever, and in a perfectly-tailored suit. The man was definitely handsome in a father-figure sort of way, but he hardly ever smiled.
Next to him was a man definitely taller than both Hongjoong and Jongho, but not as tall as the Manager beside him. He wore an oversized suit with a leather jacket and straight, thin black tie. His hair was also bleached, but longer and slightly curled. He was slim and fairy-like, with sharp, angular cheekbones and elegant makeup.
“Hongjoong, this is Park Seonghwa. He’s visiting from Sacheon. He’s a uh-,” the manager stalled, trying to remember the man’s stated occupation.
Seonghwa raised his hand, shyly, “Um, I’m a designer, sir.”
“Yes, he’s a designer from Sacheon,” the Manager continued, “He’s been connected with you to learn about gang fashion in the north, in Anyang.”
Seonghwa looked nervously at the “boss” before him. He's not at all what I imagined, he thought to himself. The man was shorter than him by at least two inches, and it didn’t help that Seonghwa regularly wore heels. His hair was so bleached that it was almost transparent, and his style was rich. He wore rimless glasses with chunky metal arms in some design that Seonghwa himself wasn’t familiar with. The man’s suit was perfectly tailored and partially covered with a designer bomber jacket. He wore every kind of jewelry imaginable: earrings, rings, chains, a brooch, and his nails were even painted.
“Ah, I see,” Hongjoong didn’t look outwardly impressed.
Jongho stood in between the two parties, looking back and forth with a small degree of anxiety, trying to mask his nerves with that emotionless demeanor.
“He’ll be in your care for the foreseeable future. His designs are celebrated,” the manager added with a serious, knowing eye, “so do take care of him.”
Hongjoong and Jongho picked up on the subtext immediately: this was a man who was well known. If harm came to him, or if he went missing, people would find out about it. And quickly. The pair shared a knowing look.
The Manager stuck around the bar, playing billiards with some of the local muscle while Hongjoong returned to the bar to order another drink for both him and Seonghwa. He led them to a smaller table in a quieter corner that Jongho had secured for them before he seemingly disappeared.
“So, you’re a gang leader?” the new arrival asked, wide eyed and innocent. His voice was soft, and his demeanor was gentle, but not timid.
“I guess you could say so,” Hongjoong took a deep sip of his second beer, “But really I feel more like a babysitter.” When he smiled, it felt to Seonghwa like the entire world stopped. Had the sun dropped from the sky to sit in this very room? Did his heart beat accelerate from being in a basement bar with a gang, or from the beauty of this leader’s expression?
“How many of you are there?” he asked, trying to keep the conversation moving along with this intriguing stranger.
“Myself, you met Jongho, and there are five more.” As he said this, Seonghwa looked around the room and saw a couple other well-dressed men eyeing their table. There was an even taller man playing billiards with the Manager who met his eye as he scanned the room, curiously. This made the young designer gulp and quickly avert his gaze back to Hongjoong.
“And what does your gang do?” he continued.
“We defend ourselves, mostly. But we are mostly known for pirating. Commandeering shipments or databases.”
“I see,” Seonghwa did not understand at all, but it wasn’t in his nature to ask incessant questions, and he wasn’t sure if knowing more information would be a liability anyways.
Suddenly, the door to the basement bar burst open.
The sounds of machine guns opening fire and striking humans and infrastructure alike drowned out any conversation or billiards games. Hongjoong yanked Seonghwa down to the ground by the collar of his leather jacket, and crouched over him protectively.
“ Shit,” he whispered before pulling out his own gun and returning the fire.
Seonghwa was too stunned to move until another hand grasped him around the arm and yanked him backwards, dragging him along the floor until they were safely behind the bar’s counter. With a quick glance, he could see it was Jongho. He had a broken bottle in one hand, and a mean look in his eye.
“What’s happening?” Seonghwa asked, desperately. He knew that meeting up with a gangster would be dangerous, but he had expected to have a little more time before the danger started.
“This is Chris’s gang,” Jongho replied, giving no further explanation.
The pair would occasionally peek up over the bar counter to watch the fight on the other side. The lack of concern that Jongho showed for his boss was frankly bewildering to Seonghwa. Such lack of concern could only come from extreme confidence and having witnessed many of these fights before.
There were five of “Chris’s gang” (whatever that meant) gang members opening fire on the rest of the bar. Hongjoong’s gun had run out of ammunition, and he was now using his smashed beer bottle to fight off the attackers. He didn’t look afraid; he merely looked frustrated at his table talk getting interrupted by such an inane attack.
As more and more of Chris’s gang fell, Jongho slowly moved him and Seonghwa along the bar crouching down to stay hidden, to make it closer to the fire escape staircase at the end of the adjacent hallway. They had to make a run for it, but easily closed that gap and ran. There were footsteps following behind them, but Seonghwa didn’t dare look behind at their pursuer.
Once they burst outside, Jognho abruptly stopped, shoved Seonghwa to the ground as he was about to run past, jumped in front of the fallen man, and shot their pursuer three times. Clean kill.
“Did you just save my life?” Seonghwa asked in disbelief, still half-laying on the gravel surface of what appeared to be a parking lot.
“Can’t give the boss a bad name by letting you die on his watch,” Jongho shrugged as he kicked the dead gang member for good measure, making sure he was really dead. “Let’s go to the hideout, you’ll be safer there than sitting on the street.” The man didn’t heed any of Seonghwa’s objections about leaving Hongjoong and the Manager behind, and off they went.
** ** **
It had been a month of this, and Seonghwa still wasn’t used to it all.
The hideout was a nice apartment, not by his standards, but he supposed it would be for a pirating gang. He met the other members over time, each of them having a unique personality that fit easily into the mosaic of the group. San was even quieter than himself, but kind and gentle. Yeosang was similar, but he was slightly more mischievous, and the worst cook he had ever met. Wooyoung scared him because of his unpredictable and loud nature, whereas Yunho scared him because he was physically formidable and sardonic. Mingi made him nervous at first, what with his height and large muscles, but Seonghwa very quickly learned he was a dork born into a hot body.
To everyone’s surprise, though no one was brave enough to say so out loud, Hongjoong had moved another twin bed into his room for Seonghwa’s stay, and that’s where both of them had slept since. All of the other rooms had already been doubled up: Yeosang with Wooyoung, San with Jongho, and Mingi with Yunho. But before now, the captain had never deigned to share his room with anyone else.
Out of all of the gang members, Seonghwa gravitated the most towards Hongjoong and San, and this proximity to the former made him feel surprisingly comfortable. San would often bring legos to build together with Seonghwa, especially when the leader was away on a mission for longer than a day. The other man was slower at it and less concentrated than he was, but Seonghwa appreciated his company and the gesture nonetheless.
At night, Hongjoong slept poorly, sometimes awakening into a fit of fear or panic. On this night, he bolted up right in bed and screamed, with tears pouring down his face. Seonghwa startled awake at this, but the other man didn’t notice as he was already on his way to the bathroom.
Hongjoong splashed his face with cold water. This was reality. The dreams weren’t real, and they couldn’t hurt him here. He had his own gang now, and Chris couldn’t take anything from him ever again.
He looked at his face in the mirror and jumped at seeing the reflection of Seonghwa’s figure behind him. He was imposing with his beautiful figure, pale hair, and black pajama set. He looked like he could either be a prisoner or an angel, and Hongjoong wasn’t sure which.
“No sleep?” Seonghwa’s expression was placid, but his tone was somber.
“I never really sleep,” Hongjoong tried to shrug and play off this statement, but the other man was not taking this as lightly.
They walked back to the bedroom, each sitting on their respective twin beds and facing each other in the darkness. The apartment was quiet, with all of the other members presumably asleep.
“It wasn’t always like this,” he started carefully. “I was just a kid when I had to kill someone for the first time, but it was 7 years ago that Chris took everything from us.”
Seonghwa couldn’t move past the first admission. What had Hongjoong gone through? Why was this what his life had become?
“We had just formed our gang- we were under a different name back then,” he smiled in reminiscence, “but we had created a promising empire for ourselves. Then Chris stole everything from us. Everything we had created and worked for was gone overnight. He tried to make amends but that didn’t change the fact that we would have to rebuild.”
Seonghwa moved from his bed to sit on the ground in front of the leader’s feet, as if to catch his falling tears with his open hands.
“You shouldn’t be here with us,” Hongjoong continued, “You are kind and gentle and you’ve never done the things we have done, and I don’t want you to. I don’t know how many men I’ve killed. I don’t even know how much blood is on my hands.”
At this, Seonghwa wrapped his own hands around Hongjoong’s and held them together tightly.
“You’ve been really hurt in life,” he spoke up from his spot on the floor, “but that doesn’t make you a bad person. Even with the men you may have killed, you saved me. Back when we first met and you probably didn’t know anything about me, you saved my life in the bar.”
Hongjoong’s head jerked up in surprise, his eyes full of pain, meeting Seonghwa’s earnest expression in complete disbelief.
But he continued: “Even though Chris has turned against you, even if the world turns against you, I would like to be by your side. I will always be by your side.”
They shared a silent moment, staring at each other. How could this designer, who had been living with the group for only a month, feel such commitment to a gangster like him?
“Does that mean I’ll have to keep buying you and San legos forever, then?” Hongjoong laughed as he wiped the tears from his face.
“You’re lucky to have so many lego sculptures in your apartment!” Seonghwa smiled, “They’re the aesthetic touch you desperately needed. I am a designer after all.”
They laughed together, artist and killer, until Hongjoong lowered his weary head into Seonghwa’s lap. The other man lifted his arms in surprise, but gently placed them on the leader’s back to affirm that this action was not only okay, but wholly welcomed.
“Promise me,” he said, his voice muffled to only a whisper, speaking into his roommate’s pajamaed lap, “that you’ll stay by my side. It doesn’t have to be forever. Even if it's just for now. That you’ll be there.”
Hongjoong shook with silent sobs. Seonghwa held him like this until they both fell into an empty, dreamless sleep.
** ** **
The small table in the living room of the apartment was set beautifully with bowls of food for all of the men. Most of them took their bowls, groaned loudly or rolled their eyes, and moved off back into their rooms or to throw it away in favor of whatever else they could find in the kitchen. This is because Yeosang had made dinner tonight.
Officially, Yeosang had been banned from making meals for the group. Wooyoung, having seen this recourse, also tried to get banned from this duty so he could avoid the work, but his efforts were both obviously performative and fruitless.
Though he was sweet, quiet, and generally amenable, Yeosang was also easily excitable and expressed this through his acts of service for others. He had noticed this morning that Hongjoong looked well-rested for once, and so he felt compelled to celebrate this achievement through treating everyone to his cooking.
But everyone knew, except for Yeosang himself, that his cooking was disgusting.
Before them all were bowls of bibimbap that had been lovingly slathered with nutella. The man smiled broadly as each member took their bowls, completely oblivious to the meaning behind their groans and frowns.
“I told them not to let you cook,” Wooyoung groaned loudly as he threw his hands up in the air.
Used to the dramatics of his oldest friend, this only made Yeosang smile wider. Seonghwa couldn’t help but catch the contagion of the other man’s smile. His mischief was quieter and more unexpected than the others’ which made it that much more enjoyable.
Hongjoong frowned but picked at his food wordlessly nonetheless. As a leader, it was his job to make sure his members felt seen, cared for, and appreciated, and this was one way he could provide for Yeosang.
“What are you planning for today? Will you be around?” Seonghwa asked the leader with light anticipation. He wondered after the man’s safety as much as he wondered after his own company.
Hongjoong looked at him sideways with a soft smile, “That’s for me to worry about, not you.”
Seonghwa’s eyebrows furrowed slightly, pulling in towards the center of his face, “You never tell me anything when it's important. I know it's for my own safety, but I’ve been staying with you for a month. Have I not gained your trust yet?”
“It’s not like that,” the leader responded quickly but he wasn’t being harsh. “Anyways, how did you like your food?”
Seonghwa crinkled his face in teasing annoyance, which accomplished nothing but making the receiver of his antics laugh. He noticed that Hongjoong’s laugh was melodic but soft. It wasn’t the laugh of Wooyoung, which was loud and pitchy. Neither was it Mingi’s laugh, which forced his mouth open and folded his body over for lack of air. The leader’s expression softened with each laugh, as if Seonghwa’s humor was the sun breaching the clouds, allowing him to feel unexpected warmth.
“I might throw up later,” Seongwha answered honestly.
“Don’t do that! You can’t afford to lose the calories!”
“What are you saying?” Seongwha questioned.
“You’re too skinny if you ever want to beat me,” Hongjoong leaned back in his chair, crossing his leg over the other. He appeared exactly like a lounging tom cat.
“Beat you? What?” Seonghwa gasped in surprise.
“If you can beat me in a fight, then you’ll have my full respect. From the leader to the eldest.”
“I could never beat you in a fight! Where is this coming from?”
Hongjoong rolled his eyes playfully, “Until you can beat me in a fight, you’ll be my Princess then.”
“Whaaaa?” Seonghwa stood up, gasping in shock.
Laughs from the adjoining room spilled in through the doorway at the pair’s exchange. The apartment was full of laughter and bellies rumbling and souring at the strange meal, but what was important was that they were together, and they were, in this moment, carefree from the woes of the world outside them.
** ** **
Seonghwa needed to conduct more research on certain designers and vintage fashions. To his complete lack of surprise, the gang didn’t have any such books in their apartment. A trip to the library was necessitated, but leaving the apartment together was a sensitive matter.
Seonghwa couldn’t leave by himself. Chris’s gang had obviously seen him in the bar, and knew he was affiliated with Hongjoong’s gang of pirates. Anyone could confuse him for a pirate himself, and if they did, he wouldn’t have the skills to defend himself. But if stepped out with Hongjoong, then he would publicly be escorted by a gang leader, which put him in a different kind of danger.
The compromise was that Hongjoong, Seonghwa, Jongho, and Wooyoung would go to the library together. The presence of Jongho made the designer feel at ease and allowed excitement for the day to come.
They took public transportation until they were close enough to the library to walk the rest of the way. It was early spring, and all of the magnolia trees were in full bloom, a canopy of silky white petals above their heads as they walked together.
It was still cold enough that each of them needed a coat and scarf for the journey, which Seonghwa thought really made them look like gang members. Fashionable gang members, at least.
They approached and entered the library as a unit. It was hard for the designer to contain his enthusiasm at such a grand building, not to mention what aids of his research would be waiting for him inside.
Hongjoong led them into the building with a confidence so cool that it was almost abrasive. Wooyoung and Seonghwa walked side by side with Jongho following in the rear of the group, his gaze scanning their surroundings from side to side. The group landed at one of the long, central library tables that was less inhabited than the others, leaving the group wholly alone on its left end.
Jongho and Seonghwa pursued the countless rows of books while the other two stayed put at the table, happy to lounge. They did not make quick work of their search. The designer was bewitched: never had he seen a building this large before, let alone been let loose to wander inside one in search of his true passion.
They returned to their group’s spot at the table, Jongho’s face beaded with sweat under the weight of all of the books he was carrying for the other man. This made Hongjoong’s brow quirk up, a smile slowly creeping from his lips to his eyes. Wooyoung had to cover his mouth to prevent one of his famous whooping laughs from escaping to dispatch the large room’s silence.
They sat together in silence for a couple hours as Seonghwa conducted his research. He scribbled furiously into his notebook as he turned the pages. Hongjoong looked over the designer’s shoulder, intent on his work, but often couldn’t make heads or tails of the transcriptions so he gave up. Jongho sat placidly, keeping a constant scan of their surroundings to promote the group’s safety.
Wooyoung was the only liability. He had the cautiousness and patience of a young child, and was bored to tears sitting at the library.
“I’m going to go get a gamja hotdog,” he said in a dramatically loud stage whisper to everyone else. His volume garnered annoyed looks from the other library dwellers. He ignored their disdain and rolled his eyes as he got up to leave the building. There was a gamja hotdog stand in front of the library steps, so he wouldn’t be leaving the group by any great distance or measure of time.
Without preamble or prudence, Seonghwa slammed his tome closed and followed the other man outside. Hongjoong and Jongho exchanged a look of “what should we do?” before Jongho hurried after them, leaving the leader alone. Typically, the leader was who needed guarding, but he could handle himself in a fight and the other man knew that well.
Hongjoong sat back in his chair sourly. He had half a mind to kick his feet up on the table and topple the tome to the floor, but then he remembered where he was and what they were doing. Just because he was feeling left out didn’t mean he was empowered to make a scene- ruining both their cover and their day.
After several minutes when none of them returned, he gathered the designer’s notebook and returned the books to one of the library carts. It was a lot of books, and he hated to admit that they were quite heavy, so he had to make several trips of it.
Outside, Jongho and Seonghwa had a corndog each, whereas Wooyoung was balancing three sticks between his fingers. The pair were laughing at this, which only encouraged the comic.
“Is one of those for me?” Hongjoong asked in earnest, reaching out his hand for what he presumed to be his lunch.
“Do you not love me?!” Wooyoung scorned, snatching away his hand with its three gamja hotdogs.
This made the other two double down in their laughter, bringing a smug smile to Wooyoung’s stuffed mouth.
Hongjoong and the gamja hotdog king fought back and forth about disrespect before a light rain began to fall from the clouded city sky. The leader queued for his own corndog while Wooyoung relayed his plan to the others:
“I’m going to give Yeosang this potato gamja hotdog, and then when he reaches for it, I’m going to yank it away and shove the whole thing in my mouth!”
Seonghwa couldn’t help but laugh at the group’s antics as they walked back to the station to return back to the apartment. How could he ever dream of returning home when this family was slowly becoming just that?
** ** **
The entire apartment was filled with vegetables.
In every decorative bowl, there were fresh vegetables. Garlands were strung in each doorway with felt cut outs of vegetables. Large posters hung on the walls of different vegetables and veggie arrangements. Liquor was taken out of the glass cabinet in the dining area and replaced with bottles of salad dressing. And to top it all off, each member of the group wore a giant vegetable costume.
Yeosang was in a sweet potato suit, clashing slightly with his bright red hair. San was a leaf of spinach, Wooyoung a cucumber, and Mingi a radish. Jongho, who had been forced to participate under duress, was a bundle of spring onions. Yunho was a head of cabbage, leaving Seonghwa to be the Korean chili pepper.
This was all to celebrate Halloween, now that it had become fall. And what would be better on Halloween than to scare Hongjoong?
This surprise became an unexpected challenge for the seven men when they slowly realized that none of them could come up with anything that Hongjoong was afraid of. Sure, sometimes he was shy or introverted, but looking back, there was really no challenge that he hadn’t faced head-on with valiance and bravery. They grew in their secret frustration until one day Yunho remembered that the leader was extremely cautious to not waste calories. And what did he find more wasteful than vegetables?
Thus the plan was born, and on this Halloween night while their leader was out meeting with an arms dealer, the rest of the group (plus Seonghwa, but could he even be separated from the group at this point?) aesthetically destroyed the apartment.
When Hongjoong arrived, the apartment was shrouded in darkness. This was unexpected since all of the other members should be home, and it wasn’t nearly the time he would expect them all to be asleep yet. That was when he saw it, out of the corner of his eye. He adjusted his glasses so he could see better. What was that giant shadow standing in the corner of the room? And… wait. What was that other shadow across the couch? With one hand, he flipped on the lights as he drew his gun with the other.
“Boo- oh fuck!” Yunho shouted at seeing the raised gun.
Each vegetable jumped out to surprise their victim and then immediately covered their heads and ducked in response to the firearm. All eight men were rendered completely speechless.
Hongjoong’s mouth formed a perfect, small “o” in stunned disbelief. After Seonghwa raised his head, mouth spread far open in a comical grimace, a laugh finally escaped the leader’s lips. Once the laughter started, it was near-impossible for it to stop. Wooyoung’s laughter was so loud and boisterous that the others couldn’t help but imitate it, which had everyone laughing again even harder. Mingi had doubled down on the ground, silently heaving like a twerking radish. Jongho was the most stoic of the group, but even he had a smile quirking up the corners of his mouth.
From Hongjoong’s perspective, his gang had been reduced into a vegetable soup. There they were, all in this room together, joined in the happiness, or broth, that they shared.
Eight really does make one soup, or team, afterall.