Vice

Chapter 1

There was really only one was to put this. Kim Seokjin was dying. Simple as that, no more no less. Seokjin had always been dying, he knew. Had been dying since the day he was born.

The chronic illness had always been present in him, slowly killing him day by day. Doctors and hospital rooms were a constant fixture in his life since infancy. Experts had told him that he would be lucky to reach his fifteenth birthday, but here he was. A twenty-six-year-old living on borrowed time. Sometimes he wondered where that time was borrowed from.

Since he was stuck at home for the majority of his early and teenage years, Seokjin had gotten very good at using technology. His parents had given him his first laptop when he turned twelve, and soon after his initial, hesitant strokes of the keyboard, he was well on his way to becoming a coding genius.

At the young age of seventeen, he was solely responsible for the security breach in one of South Korea's largest and most profitable banks, a crime that he could never actually be accused of, both because his code left absolutely no trace of who created it, and because he hadn't actually stolen any money. He was just bored.

Despite lacking a formal conviction, Seokjin's formidable reputation began drawing in a large network of online contacts. He regularly took on entertaining and high paying consultant jobs, having plenty of free time since he earned his high school degree two years early. As soon as he turned eighteen, Seokjin gave up on his useless doctors, moved out of his parents' house, and steadily began to burn through the contents of his enormous bank accounts. His days on this hell planet were already numbered and Seokjin didn't plan to waste a single one.

Striding purposefully out of his large walk-in closet, Seokjin fastened the clasp of his new silver Rolex around his slim wrist, briefly glancing at the watch's inscription - 'We have all the time in the world.' - before going to stand in front of his floor-length mirror.

He was a narrow, thin person. Tall, with a pleasingly sharp jawline and pretty pink lips. There wasn't much to be done about his rather frail appearance, Seokjin had tried building his body on several occasions but his sickness always leached the strength out of him immediately, so he never gained any actual muscle.

The hacker reached up and adjusted a stray strand of white-blonde hair before buckling his Gucci belt. He was never one to turn down luxury, it's not like he could take his money with him.

"I'm heading out, babe," Seokjin called, glancing into the game room at his longtime boyfriend, who was currently immersed in the digital mass-murder of an unidentifiable alien species.

"What? Where are you going? It's like 10 pm," Taehyung replied distractedly, pausing his video game and spinning his large desk chair around.

Seokjin gave his boyfriend a smile of pure fondness. He and Taehyung had met online, naturally, on a gaming forum three years ago, and had moved in together after only six months. Their relationship, wild and passionate at its beginning, had now settled into comfortable domesticity. Nothing brought the hacker more joy than a flash of Taehyung's straight teeth, the way his hand grazed the small of Seokjin's back every time he got close...

"I have that weird meeting, remember? The one Jaehwan set up for me, the one he gave me absolutely no information about other than a time and an address," Seokjin said, leaning wearily against the door frame and resting a hand on his hip.

"Oh shit, that's tonight? I still don't like this, Jinnie, you could be walking into anything!" Taehyung exclaimed, worry clear in his voice as he abandoned his giant headphones on his desk and pushed himself up.

Seokjin watched in mild amusement as his boyfriend quickly crossed the room - baggy sweats slung low on his hips so that the tiniest sliver of flat stomach was visible - and came to stand in front of him.