HIT

20: goodbye

Jimin was not sure how to catalog the feeling in his stomach when he kissed Taehyung and Yoongi goodbye the next day. It could be something between extreme relief and extreme nausea. His brain was only slowly catching up with the fact that this was the end. Not the end to the case, but the end to his, in all honesty, abysmal undercover work. After knowing the Hawk personally for about three weeks (that had quite honestly felt like an eternity), he was not dead, had not lost a finger or worse, and had 32 gigabytes of names, faces, and companies who were part of the hitman organization. He had no idea how to explain this to Chief Kim, but he had two hours of driving to figure that out and was sure that Ms. Kim could help him out in case he was struggling.

When he entered the car and drove off the lawn, he had made up his mind that he would contact her first. Go to his apartment and call her to meet with him because he had evidence and then tell her what had happened and discuss how to proceed with the rest. She would understand him, or at least he hoped so, and maybe he could convince her to spare the Hawk and Taehyung as informants. He was almost certain about his old friend, but the hitman would be a hard pushing of boundaries, especially with Jimin having slept with him. He would most likely be accused of having Stockholm Syndrome and being unable to tell good from bad.

But that was bullshit. He knew that the Hawk was a criminal, he knew that killing was wrong, and he did not have a spark of love for him in his heart. But he was doing this for Taehyung, who wanted Yoongi to get out as well. And Yoongi was not the Hawk, he was not bad. Maybe if there was no reason to kill, he would never do it again. After all, he did not kill for pleasure, and Jimin could testify for that. He had neither seen the man roused after he had killed the triad men nor after the hit on the Busan lawyer. It was quite the opposite, detachment and cold rationality seemed to guide his hand when he was ending a life. Sure, that was scary, too, but it meant that there was no emotional attachment he could fall victim to after some time of not killing. He was not a serial killer by the book.

And if his prediction was wrong, Taehyung would be there to stop Yoongi from doing something stupid. His old friend was good, morally straight, and he had the hitman under control. He had proven that again and again during the time Jimin had been with him. So for Taehyung's sake he would fight for the Hawk's pardon too.

A horn barked at Jimin and he noticed that the traffic light had turned green. Quickly he shifted gears and drove. He should stop thinking about important things while driving or he would kill himself before he was back in Seoul. He could take an hour or two just to collect his thoughts and think things through when he was at his flat, then he would call Ms. Kim.

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When he parked in front of his undercover apartment two and a half hours later, a strange feeling took over his body. He felt like he had woken up from a dream. In his dream he had had no control, but now that he was awake, every decision was his. He could decide what to say and what to do. He could call the cops on the house in Daegu, he could keep the evidence of the network to himself, he could tell them that he had seduced the Hawk into turning his back on the organization. It was a heady feeling to possess that power.

But he was not going to drag Taehyung through shit and spit on their friendship, so he had to clear his head and decide on a reasonable story to tell his division. What should he tell them and what should he keep a secret? Should he say that he had slept with the two men who were now supposed to be his informants, or just the interaction with the Hawk? Or none? Could he claim that nothing had happened between them? But how could he explain then that he had been dragged into the Hawk's business? Should he tell the truth? He had slept with him for the job and the triads had broken in? They could verify that by sending forensics to the old apartment. Blood was not an easy thing to wipe away.