In The Heart of Darkness

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Namjoon sat in his car outside of a shiny new office building in downtown Seoul. His palms, resting on his thighs, were sweaty and he could feel the heat and moisture from them seeping through his pant legs. His mouth was ironically dry and his tongue felt thick. He had been summoned by Lee and he knew it would not be a picnic lunch waiting for him.

Namjoon had been a troubled kid, always in and out of juvenile courts, never in one school for very long, and always at odds with the police officers assigned to his cases. He was closed off to everyone, except his little sister. She could get Namjoon to do anything she wanted, whenever she wanted.

He loved her.

She was the light of life to him. His heart and the only human he shared any love with. He protected her with everything he had and he never let their parents discipline her or even tell her no. She deserved the world, according to him.

But all that changed the day he met a crime boss from Busan.

Coming out from his latest scuffle with the authorities, Namjoon was feeling annoyed. He had been arrested for stalking an officer he deemed dirty and he loudly proclaimed to the court that the man was, in his words, "in bed with the mafia."

While he may have been right, with plenty of evidence to back it up, the police corps didn't take kindly to one of their own being accused of unsavory behavior. Namjoon was brought in on multiple false charges, including the actual true one of stalking, and then left at the mercy of the court; the same court he had been in his entire young life, and it was all out of mercy.

He had been sentenced to twenty-five years in prison, but he didn't care though. The only thing he truly worried about was who would take care of his little sister with him gone. Plenty of people wanted him dead and out of the picture for the stuff he made public about their lives. He wasn't just a stalker, he was a professional information gatherer. Every scrap of dirty info he could get on someone, he did, keeping it in files for such time as it would be needed by news organizations to push forward their own agendas. Public officials, government employees, officers of the law... no one was exempt from Namjoon's blackmail power.

But his luck had run out.

As an officer was pulling him down the hall, a man in a black business suit approached them. He spoke softly in the officer's ear and Namjoon distinctly remembered the officer's face going pale. The man in the suit stepped back, a smug smile on his face as he cocked an eyebrow at Namjoon, who returned it with a flat, indifferent look before following the officer once again down the hall.

A few hours later, the man in the suit was meeting with Namjoon in a small interrogation room, a paper in front of him with a signature line. Namjoon was asked to sign it, committing to work for Lee in exchange for his freedom.

Namjoon didn't care. He wanted out of prison so he could care for his sister. So what if he had to float some information to a crime boss once in a while. He would be free. That was all that mattered. Without any hesitation, he signed his name, not even caring how the man had gotten to him in the first place.

Lee introduced himself and shook Namjoon's hand with a dark smile. Namjoon frowned in response, but pushed any doubt he had aside. The officer removed his cuffs and Namjoon walked out the back door, following Lee, and basking in his freedom.

"Let's get a drink, shall we?" Lee offered, Namjoon happily accepting. Lee took him to a Japanese restaurant and in a back room, reserved for special VIP guests, Lee got his young new employee horrendously drunk. Mixed in those drinks was a concoction of drugs which created a very easily influenced, hallucinogenic young man.