House of Cards

Chapter 14

Taehyung had never been to Singapore before. He had been to a few foreign countries as a child and young teen, never for more than a few days because that had been all that his parents had been able to afford. A short trip to Japan aged seven, to Sapporo for the annual snow festival, a weekend in Thailand to visit family living there every few years and once even a trip to New Zealand that he had greatly loved. He had fond memories of those trips because they had still been enjoyable regardless of the short amount of time. A treat that had been more than enough for his childish attention span. But he had never been to Singapore. He knew the country's main attraction was business and that was very much the reason that his family had never chosen it as a holiday destination. There was no doubt in his mind that that was what he and Jungkook were travelling there for tonight. Business, very important business at that. Jungkook wasn't very specific about what was going on during the flight, rather he just kept telling him that he had urgent business contracts to alter for his father and himself. Taehyung had some knowledge on Haedogje Pa assets in Singapore and with that knowledge he figured this out to mean The Gold Monkey casino of course. There was nothing else of enough importance to warrant this kind of reaction that he could recall. The joint-owned casino that belonged to Jeon and Kim was the most important thing and the fact that Kim Jinwoo currently had a large stake in it meant something. But a large stake and technical ownership aside the casino was Haedogje Pa and that meant that it belonged to Jungkook more than him by right of heirdom. Nursing a glass of whiskey and seated in the aisle seat to not be near the window, Taehyung finally decided to settle with his initial hunch of what this trip was for.

Jungkook was serving up an immediate termination of Jinwoo's power and influence in the country by altering the contract. Jinwoo had done fucked up it would seem and he was going to find himself minus a very important asset within twelve or so hours time. The kind of asset that must have brought billions of won into the empire every year alone and would most certainly fatten up a wallet with interest and investments. Taehyung couldn't think of a worse thing to lose in terms of monopoly because the casino was one of the most prolific that he was aware of. Yet because of Jinwoo's fuck up he was going to lose it and it was going to presumably go straight to Jungkook instead.

Taehyung knew that he could be wrong but it was one of the first things that came to mind. If he were seated at his department desk back in Yongsan-gu and not thousands of feet in the air in a private plane then it would have been the first thought to come to mind. Everything else seemed to be rather minor in comparison, the kind of business matters that could be settled via a conference call and autopen signings of PDF documents instead. All he truly knew was that this was very important and a contract termination was most certainly not the thing to be sorted out over webcams and computer screens.

"Jungkook?"

At his voice Jungkook turned his attention away from the window to look at him. Already outside the sky and clouds were starting to lighten but Taehyung wouldn't dare look out of it to see anything more. It was way too high for him, he didn't want to see the sea below them and suddenly find he couldn't breathe very well. If he had to guess he would guess that it was edging closer to dawn now, now that they had been in the air for nearly four hours. He felt rather tired and yet the younger man looked as alert as always. Was that the result of pure adrenaline or maybe something like a secretive snort of cocaine before leaving the apartment block? Jungkook raised an eyebrow at him languidly, telling him to continue talking and so Taehyung placed the glass on table in front of them and shifted his his seat to fix his jacket and look more professional.

"I collected the documents from Seokjin like requested and uh, and analysed 'em," he explained. "But I needed some assistance." At this he saw Jungkook studying him intently, no doubt wondering what the hell he was talking about. "I didn't know that the files would be encrypted but Jimin showed me how to read 'em properly."