Bird of Paradise • taekook

Seventeen

The wooden floor creaks under Taehyung's feet, scent of burning candles mixed into the salty breeze. A few occupied tables dote the porch, with the double doors behind wide open, extending the outdoor space into a spacious interior lobby. Right at the end, away from all the other tables, he spots Hoseok, with that pair of golden rimmed reading glasses he particularly dislikes himself, head tilted as he reads over a file in his hand. Taehyung has always found it odd, Hoseok's preference for paper over digital files. Taehyung adjusts his expressions and strides over.

Hoseok looks up, and beams at him, "Well that was pretty fast."

Taehyung grabs a seat in silence.

"Said your goodbyes?" Hoseok arches his brow, "You were here for a while, I'm sure there was a lot to settle."

In front of them, beyond the sidewalk and the main beach that extends endlessly into the rolling waves, the sky is draped in dark navy, sucking up all the lights.

Hoseok removes his glasses casually, "You can always come back to visit, no? Seems like you really enjoyed your time here, something special about this town."

"Nothing special," Taehyung interjects, "Just another vacation."

Hoseok hums, and after a pause, clinks his glass tumbler with two fingers, "Want a drink? They make a surprisingly good Old-Fashioned here."

Taehyung shakes his head stiffly, and stares into the haze by the watery horizon.

"Well, I for one am very glad you're back." Hoseok stretches out his neck, and Taehyung spots a glimpse of a tattoo under the collar of his green tee - thin black outline of a budding lily flower. It's small, the only tattoo Taehyung has ever spotted on Hoseok over the years.

"Let me guess, lots of mayhem to be caused, wars don't fight themselves." Taehyung retorts coldly, and has second thoughts on a drink.

A cackle, Hoseok's fingers trace the edge of the tumbler, "Now you make me sound old. Old and predictable, ugh." He glances around, "Maybe I should be the one vacating here instead, sun tan, have a drink with the locals, sharpen up my golf game for my next round with senator Chung."

"Somehow I don't think you would blend in here."

Hoseok shrugs, "Why? You think everyone would get defensive like your friends back there? Someone as astude as you should know better, that most people find military presence comforting, what's better than feeling their patriotism protected and nurtured? What could possibly be wrong with being safe in your own homeland?"

"Or as you always put it, 'for everything you love, there's a price'."

Hoseok grins, open mouth with teeth glinting, "There, now you sound more like it. All this-" he waves his hand around, "-this lounging, the nice porch at the quaint little local hotel, people watching and mai tai sipping, it's all at the price of soldiers and agents working to defend our interest on a global scale. Peace is not free, quite far from it."

"Save your cliche lines for the schmoozing." Taehyung retorts coldly.

"Ohhh, feisty." Hoseok squints and leans in closer, "That's the Taehyung I know. You were so different back there, so...meek. Trying hard to blend in."

A person can have more than one side to them, Taehyung thinks but changes the subject instead, "So what's been keeping you busy?"

"Well-" the light in Hoseok's gaze swirls and brightens, "-you remember Nyetna, right? Your baby?"

Taehyung flinches at the word. You'd have to be a coder living under a rock to not know the infamous Nyetna, a ransomware used in 2017 to attack Ukrainian ministries, banks, metro systems and state-owned enterprises. Even the radiation monitoring system at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant fell to its terror. The total damage was estimated to be 10 billion dollars, but the real terror is that Nyetna doesn't have a deactivation code. Its pesky codes are still hidden in the millions of devices it has infected, dormant until the day someone jolts it awake with the right commands.