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viridiansworld · 4 months

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Chapter 4: Reminiscent

Collateral Damage Masterlist

Pairing: Changbin x Original Character [Rory] x Lee Know

Includes: Underground Crime Member Changbin, vigilante original AFAB main character, antihero district attorney Lee Minho

Word Count: 4.3k

Warnings: 18+ only, NSFW, mentions of criminal behavior, mentions of past trauma (which include physical and mental abuse), angst, mentions of death and murder

"The coast is clear." Yeji came through on my ear piece. Her drone could be heard swooping through the alley way after it had scanned the building and the street for the past hour.

"Thank god." I grumbled as I climbed out of the dumpster I was hiding in, like I was some sort of raccoon that had been scavenging for garbage.

"You should probably take a shower as soon as possible." Yeji poked fun. She wasn't wrong but damnit I didn't need to be kicked while I was down.

"Ha. Ha. You're so funny Yej." I laid the sarcasm on as thick as possible. "Maybe one of these days we'll switch roles and you can be out here in the dumpster while I'm cozy in my jammies behind the computer."

Her end of the line was quiet for a minute.

"Okay...fair point."

"That's what I thought." I chuckled as I adjusted my skimpy black dress. I had a few scrapes on my leg from climbing in and out of the dumpster. Other than that my body seemed fine but as I suspected, my shoes were ruined from the unspeakable things I had stepped on. All in all I still looked pretty damn good though.

I pulled out my phone from my clutch to check the time.

4:00 am.

"I can't believe we got everything downloaded in time." I sighed, finally processing the fact that the job was a success.

"Me either ." Yej sounded exhausted on her end.

My job tonight had been to gather data. A wealthy business man that had tangled with the wrong people had information on his phone that was needed and I was the one tasked with collecting it. After several vodka shots, dancing, and many disgusting groping sessions later I had managed to connect my phone to this idiots. Yeji transferred the data in time but the assholes friends sharing the VIP section with us noticed I was doing more than just grinding on their boss. I had to duck out of there quicker than expected and the fact we still got the data was nothing short of a miracle. I had bolted out the back of the club and ran for 4 blocks. In heels. Like an absolute insane person. Yeji had eyes in the sky and monitored me the whole time. She suggested I hunker down somewhere because more men had been called in by their boss.

That was how I found myself diving into a dumpster for cover. It wasn't ideal. The squealching garbage below my high heels had been the first sign that these shoes were having their last run. I laid low, nesting in the disgusting bags for an hour. Yeji's drones were circling the area the whole time and she stayed in my ear constantly with updates.

Yeji had said the boss man had fled while his men searched blocks for me. Even after calling in backup they thankfully hadn't found any sign or trace of me. Yeji confirmed they had all reconvened at the club before leaving the area.

Yeji gave me the all clear after she scanned the bars cameras and the street cameras for any sign of the enemy. The perks of having an amazing hacker as your backup was that she could tap into anything at any time.

"One of these days our luck is going to run out." Yeji's anxiety still laced her voice.

"Is that a hint of care in your voice Yej?" I laughed, "Don't go soft on me now!" I walked to the end of the alley. Deciding the best route to get myself home. Of course I overestimated that this would be an easy and quick job. I came here in an Uber, thinking there was no need for my bike tonight. Regardless of overestimating I still handled myself. I've always handled myself.

But Yeji was right. One day our luck could run out, although that was the best thing about having nothing to lose. It won't matter if it runs out. At that thought my traitorous stomach did a little flip and images of Changbins warm brown eyes danced through my mind. It was hard as hell to get the memories of his lips on mine out of my head. Every day for the last week I had found myself day dreaming about that man's lips or hands roaming my body. God he was good with his hands. I pushed the thoughts away. No need to torture myself more. I hadn't even texted the poor guy like he wanted me to. Hopefully he took the hint and figured out I wasn't interested. It was just some fun to be had. A shame I didn't get to see how good he was in bed.

My phone started buzzing in my hand, to my relief it was a distraction from my idiotic brain. Looking down I saw the caller id, "unknown". I knew exactly who this would be.

"Yej, he's calling, I'll talk to you later, ok?"

"Tell him I'll have this data over to him by tomorrow afternoon."

My in ear went silent so I took it out and dropped it in my clutch.

"Hey." I answered the call.

"Success?" The curious voice on the other end asked.

"Success. There were hiccups but... It worked out. Yej said she'll have it to you by tomorrow afternoon."

"Good. One more question." The line was quiet for a moment.

"Alright, ask away?"

"Need a ride?" A black Porsche pulled up in front of the curb. The passenger side window to the sleek car rolled down but I knew who was going to be on the other side already.

"Minho." I said with a little snarkiness in my voice, ending the call since he was now sitting in front of me. I walked up to the window running my finger along the sleek body. "I'm not so sure you want this street trash in your car." I leaned into the open window, his car smelling of leather and his cologne. A very rich earthy scent with a touch of sweetness. The mans side profile was sharp, he always looked like perfection. Like someone off of a movie or TV show. His hair was longer than the last time I saw him, styled immaculately just like the rest of him. Normally he's in a full suit but his jacket was off, discarded in the back seat. His sleeves to his dress shirt were rolled up revealing his forearms. He had a smug smile plastered too his face.

"Yej told me you were hiding out in a dumpster. You can take the girl out of the trash but you can't take the trash out of the girl I guess." His eyebrow quirked at me.

Damnit Yej, I shook my head. He must have been messaging her when the job took longer than he anticipated. I hated for Minho to know anything outside of the bare minimum. As long as the job was done, nothing else mattered. Yeji knew that. An oversized bath towel hit me, slapping me out of my thoughts.

"Lay that in the seat and I'll give you a ride." I groaned from emberassment but still pulled the car door open. Once the towel was placed across the seat and floorboard I quickly kicked my heels off and left them on the curb in front of the bar. "I'll save you the trauma of having those awful shoes in here." I climbed into the passenger seat and for the first time in hours relaxed my tense body.

"Not very often that you come to me instead of me coming to you." Technically he shouldn't be seen with me ever. I'm supposed to be unaffiliated with him. No linkable connections keeps the operation safe. Picking me up from a job? Absolutely unheard of.

"Yeji notified me." His voice was calm and easy, meanwhile I let my mouth run with my thoughts on Yeji ratting in me.

"She could've kept her mouth shut. We did the job, we got what we needed! Just like always." I huffed and crossed my arms, my bull headed attitude always led the charge. I hated Minho knowing when things went wrong. I didn't run and tell the boss about her coms system failing at the museum! Although outing that would have also outed the whole Changbin incident and I didn't need that... but still!

"Don't be mad at Yeji. You know she's the eyes in the sky for a reason. These people weren't planning on playing patty cake once they caught you Rory."

"And I didn't get caught did I?! I've fought plenty of men before! I would have been fine! I don't need her or you t-"

"Shut your mouth for once Rory!" His commanding tone silencing the car. My anger raging inside me but knowing I was wasting my breath arguing with him. We were stopped at a red light. His fingers gripped the steering wheel so tight I could see the veins popping across the back of his hands.

"Fine. It's shut." I taunted back. Resolving myself to sulking like a scolded child. Our usual dynamic these days.

Sometimes a little sprinkle of the nice witty Minho I once knew pops out. We were always total opposites but we did get along pretty well at one point. Maybe it was his job that changed things. Being the District Attorney for New York City wasn't easy I'm sure. He was calculated and business like. He was well put together and ran the whole city the way he needed to. That's where me and Yeji and his other little soldiers came in. We made sure he could secure the convictions he needed. We made the evidence appear when he needed it, we made the witness magically appear if they werent coming forward. He got what he wanted, and then some. His Gucci wallet wasn't the only thing in his pocket. The mayor, the chief of police, and many more powerful players were all in there as well.

"You would be dead right now." He ground out, "Be grateful Yeji gave a shit to do extra work to keep you safe and to call me." A heavy silence filled the car as we sat there. The light turned green so he accelerated as we turned left.

'You would be dead right now' the words echoing through my mind in the silence of the car. Why did he care?

"This job is the only reason I'm living, right? Not that big of a deal if I died." He knew damn well what I meant by my words. He inhaled sharply like he was about to say something but he purses his lips and stayed silent.

Before all this I was a girl caught up in a world that she didn't choose for herself. Just like everyone else in the world, we don't get to choose the cards we're dealt. Your parents are supposed to love and protect you. Mine? I think they had the definitions of those words confused because they did the opposite. They loved each other at some point but once drugs came in the picture, the love for each other ended, and there was none to spare for me either. The love of the drugs was all that consumed them.

Drugs do a lot of things to people. It changed my dad from a kind person to a mean and bitter person. A man who would have never laid a hand on a person, to a man who threw punches at my mother for fun to see how big of a bruise he could leave. She became a shell of who she once was. That's all I really remember. The beginning of my life being so bright and beautiful, and then a never ending darkness.

The darkness was too much for my mom at some point. I was 10 when I came home from school and she was gone. Only a note remained saying she couldn't live in hell anymore. The irony that she couldn't live in it but could leave her daughter to live in it was never lost on me. My mother was the focus for most of the abuse because she was what my father chose to fixate on. Without her though, the fixation moved to me. He was a disgrace of a human, let alone a father.

When he wasnt on a bender he would push product, our only source of income. He was careful to always deal it out so he never paid for his own supply and whatever was left went to bills, alcohol and the bare minimum of groceries- if he remembered to buy them.

The years after my mom left weren't easy and my dad got sloppier and sloppier. He was using his own supply and not selling anything. If you don't sell, you don't make the money back, and if you don't make the money back...well, then your dealer had your name at the top of their list.

I had just turned 14 the day they came to collect the debt. I was hiding in my room upstairs, I always knew to hide when the men in the black suits showed up. I can still remember hiding in my closet as the sound of fighting downstairs escalated. A loud crash shook the house and my dad screamed. I don't know what words were shared amongst my father and those men, all I knew was soon the sound of footsteps came up the stairs and my closet door was ripped open. I fought but it was no use. I was grabbed and tossed over the giant man's shoulder and drug from my childhood home never to return again.

"Do you ever regret it?" Minho asked, rousing me from my memories.

"Hm?" I turned to look at him. His sharp features visible in the fractured street light that beamed through the windows. "Regret what?"

"Meeting me?" He glanced my way briefly before looking back to the road. I couldn't help but chuckle before turning to stare out the passenger side window.

"No Minho...not for one second." And it was the truth. "But I could ask you the same thing."

"I'm happy that he..." he faultered, his eyebrows creasing as he continued. "That Jason..." His voice was tight around the words. Saying this name was hard for him. It was hard for me to. "...brought us together." He finished.

The moment between us was bittersweet. I wanted to say more but I didn't know what to say. So instead of speaking I let the silence fill the car and take control. The silence always filled the spaces that me and Minho didn't know how to navigate.

After some time weaving through traffic we hit a road block. We were in the South part of the city fighting to get to the East but now we knew why the traffic was so bad. Police lights lit up the distance as we got closer.

"Sorry you have to deal with me for longer." I quipped as we waiting in the slow moving traffic.

He paused, opening his mouth but closing it. The potential words that were about to be uttered now lost on his lips. His strong jawed and cold demeanor almost seemed to waver but it was all in my head, I'm sure.

Finally he cleared his throat and swallowed whatever hesitance he had felt. "It's fine." The short sentence allowing the awkward silence to consume the vehicle again.

We used to be able to talk. We used to be able to laugh. If Jason were here what would he have to say? He would probably start by asking us to get pizza and beer. His simple and most favorite luxury in life. Then he'd probably tell both of us that we're being idiots. He'd be pissed to see our friendship reduced to awkward car talk. This was the worst pep talk in the history of pep talks but I made up my mind to lighten the mood.

"This is why I prefer a bike ya know? I can zoom in-between traffic. Nothing slows me down. Your bougie car though? It can go fast, sure, but not in these streets." I say matter of factly.

"Yeah? And what about that time you got road rash when you were zooming in-between traffic to get away from that one guy?" He chuckled at the memory. "Your whole back was hamburger! Gosh what was that guys name?"

"Dominic." I groaned, letting my head fall against the headrest. "Of course you remember that. Fuck that hurt and that guy was such an asshole!"

Minho's chuckle turned into a full laugh, "You had just started working for me." He glanced in my direction with what looked like a warm smile as he recalled the memory "Thought I had made a mistake in picking you for the job."

"Hey, hey, hey! I still did the job! Hamburger back and all! And Dominic got a cozy 6 x 8 jail cell and 3 roommates." I crossed my arms and smuggly nestled into the car seat. Minho couldn't help himself but use that opportunity to dive into talking about work. I'd be lying if I wasn't interested though. We used to talk a lot about the city and the things he was doing or trying to do.

"We finally caught all of them you know? The whole outfit, they're all going away for a very very long time." This had been a years long saga for us. Me helping put evidence of the bad guys at the scenes of crimes so Minho could easily bag them.

"Seriously!?" I was ecstatic to hear those fuckers were off the streets. The web of human trafficking was impossibly massive, but taking out a few strands of the disgusting web out was still important.

"Yeah, it couldn't have been done without you. You found that laptop in his apartment back then that was full of those contacts and leads. We're still utilizing that information. Without it, we would'nt be this far in the case."

It had been 4 years since I got Dominic locked up, so this had been a long time coming. Catching him had been one of my first gigs underneath Minho and I'd take getting road rash any day since it meant we saved so many lives. Minho rambled on about the sting operation the department had done. There was plenty of time to kill while we waited in traffic and I held onto every word.

This version of Minho, the hard working law abiding District Attorney who wanted to catch criminals, was always interesting to see. Because unlike the public, I knew of his other side...or sides, plural. The cold harsh liar who was nothing more than a criminal himself. The man who could torture the humanity out of anyone. His ruthless tactics were honestly an art form. He has a long reach , lots of people doing his dirty work, executing his plans as he sees fit, but he's not afraid to get dirty himself. All of us underneath him are a part of his game. Tied to him by whatever circumstances made our paths cross.

"Holy shit, thats a bad wreck!" I said as we finally made our way to the heart of the accident that was slowing us down. Emergency vehicles were everywhere and cops were directing traffic as best they could.

"Just pray none of these idiots recognize my car and wanna talk." Minho huffed, sinking into his seat like it could hide him from plain view.

A car had been t-boned, it was flipped on its side and it was smoking like it had previously been burning. The char marks surrounding it indicated as much. Another night, another reckless Levanter City driver. There were several human sized masses covered in white sheets laying on the sidewalk as we passed by.

My breathe hitched when the wind blew one of the covers off and recognition hit me. The man laying dead on the asphalt was the man from the club. The man that just hours before I was duping to steal information off his phone. Now, he was nothing but a lifeless cold body.

"Did- did you-?" I turned to Minho.

"I did what I had to." His voice edged with malice making a chill ran down my spine.

"Well...good riddance to bad rubbish. He was a sloppy kisser and groped my ass way to much." I sighed leaning back into my seat. I averted my gaze from the wreckage and looked at Minho. "Your city is safe again." I feigned a joyous tone and waved my hands in the air like jazz hands. He sent a scowl my direction before he turned back to focus on the road.

"I didn't do that for the city. I did it for you. Now that I know he touched you like that... I'm even more glad he's dead." Those veins in his hands had returned, popping across the backs of his knuckles as he gripped the steering wheel. The sleeves to his dress shirt were rolled up and I could now see veins across his forearm. And was that another vein in his neck?

"You do realize 75% of my job is seducing pea brain idiots like that? He wasn't the first and he won't be the last." I watch his face intently. He's so hard to read. Always has been. We usually don't go into too many details when it comes to how I execute the jobs he gives me.

"I try not to think about it too much." His voice low and gruff.

"I've been through worse Minho." His jaw clenches at my words. His sharp features were always so mesmerizing, even when he was angry or frustrated. I had been leaning on the center console as I watched him but decided to nestle into my seat. Our conversation had tapered off anyway so I let the silence return. The damned usual silence that haunted us at every turn.

Minho had been a saving grace for me, in a time when I had needed protection. It's not like he did it all out of the goodness of his heart, since part of our deal was a contract that entails me working for him, but none the less, he was an important piece of my life.

At times he could feel like a friend since he knew my whole story, and honestly, we were friends in our own messed up way. Trauma bonds and all that...

My mind began to swirl with thoughts of the past but a stopped myself. Thinking about the past still made me sick to my stomach. Recalling anything more was self torture so I tamped down the thoughts and switched back to the present.

Tonight's mission could have obviously went wrong and I should be grateful Yeji had my back. I should also be grateful Minho came for me...and he killed for me.

"Thank you...for the backup." I spoke. Iwould definitely be kidnapped or dead right now if not for Minho. I felt his eyes on me as we slowed down at a stop light.

"I'm...I know I'm not the definition of a caring person...but I do care about you." I met his gaze, the stop light casting him in a red aura.

"Been a long time since you showed your heart Minho. Better put it back up for safe keeping." The mirth in his eyes seemed to dance for a moment, a corner of his mouth upturning. The stop light changed to green and he turned to put his eyes back on the road. I admired his side profile for a moment more. God what is it like to be a perfect human with no flaws I thought.

"They say if you take a picture it will last longer." He mumbled.

"But a picture just doesn't do it justice ya know? Your ugly mug is truly unbelievable." Never would I ever let him know that I think he's possibly one of the most beautiful humans I've ever seen.

"The sass out of your mouth is what's unbelievable. Yeji tells me sometimes the insane shit you say."

"First, Yej is a snitch and that's just a pure betrayal." I cross my arms pretending to be upset. "And second, Yej has heard all my greatest hits." I lean back into my seat smirking. I did curse like sailor & tend to get mouthy when anyone got curt with me.

"Oh how Yeji must loooove to be subjected to these colorful Rory catchphrases."

"Not everyone can beeee saur gifted." I say while a big yawn stretches my words. The exhaustion of everything creeping up on me all of a sudden.

"Close your eyes for a bit. We still got a ways to go." Minho extended a finger to the dash and pressed the heated seat button. Soon I felt the warmth engulfing me and I was a goner, my heavy eyelids falling shut. The car was silent except for the sounds of the tires on the road that was like a white noise lullaby. We stop at a stop light and Minho shuffles in his seat but I don't stir to see what he's doing. I'm too cozy. Soon I feel him draping something across me.

His jacket from the back seat.

He adjusts it so it's covering me as much as possible. Minho's smell envelopes me. His earthy relaxing smell. It should be illegal for any person to smell this good. The light must turn green because he stops adjusting the jacket to focus on driving.

His gesture is reminiscent to a time many years earlier with Minho. Memories of that time flood my mind making my heart constrict. Happier memories. Hopeful memories. And for a brief moment, I fall into the sweet spot in my mind where I was happy. Truly happy. So I stay there, long enough for the warm embrace of sleep to take me and the memories to fill my dreams.

Lee Minho brain rot is real 😵‍💫

here's some inspo pics I had saved when I was writing this 🤭