Young Writers Society

The room was dark as it always was. The Swan smiled to himself watching the latest news report on his phone. Jung Hoseok was finally found. It had taken two years, but there was barely anything left of him by that point. He chuckled at the thought. He was listening to the report when he heard a knock at his office door.

“Who is it?” he asked in a voice dark enough to make the bravest of men tremor.

“Jeon Jungkook, sir,” was the reply. The Swan grimaced at the interruption. He hated guests, hated people. Sadly, he had to work with them in person from time to time. He put on his mask and prepared himself. “Come in.”

The door slowly opened and Jeon Jungkook walked into the room, head down towards the floor. No one was ever allowed to look directly at The Swan, he took it as disrespect. No one would ever be his equal. “What is it that you want? I have too much to do in a day for you to not get to the point,” he demanded.

“I’m sorry, sir, I was just coming to deliver the total for the month and these files of the newest recruits you wanted,” he meekly replied, holding a folder up toward The Swan. The Swan snatched the folder from Jungkook’s hand and opened it. He flipped through the pages and smiled at the beautiful men and women that greeted him on the pages.

“Good. They’ll do very nicely. Are they being broken in?”

“Yes, sir.”

The Swan smiled and came out from behind his desk up to Jungkook. Even with the man next to him, Jungkook didn’t dare to look up, he knew better. “You’re not going soft on them now, are you? I cannot have disobedient products, or else they’ll never get through…” The Swan gently pushed a long lock of hair from Jungkook’s face behind his ear.

“We treat them all the same, just as you taught us,” Jungkook assured, a slight tremble in his voice. The Swan was pleased.

“Very good, Jungkook. Keep it up.”

“Thank you, sir,” Jungkook said, a smile slipping onto his face before he could help it. He returned his face into an expressionless one as soon as he could but he wasn’t quick enough, The Swan had noticed.

The Swan swung back and backhanded Jungkook across the face, knocking him to the ground.

“I paid you a simple compliment to be generous, don’t mistake it for a slip in my authority. The only one who gets to smile here is me, understand?” The Swan spat down at the shaking man.

“Y-y-yes s-sir…” Jungkook stammered, staying still on the floor. He knew better than to get up without being told to do so.

“Get out, now,” The Swan said cooly, returning to his chair behind his desk. Jungkook silently went to stand when The Swan cleared his throat. “Crawl.”

Jungkook stayed on his knees and crawled out of the room as told. The Swan laughed at the pathetic man’s obedience and returned to his phone when he was out. His words ruled. Soon there would be a day that everyone in Korea would tremble and crawl at The Swan’s demand. He just had to wait.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Seokjin offered the small bag of chips over to his partner while keeping an eye on the lit club a few feet down the street. “How could you be snacking at a time like this?” Yoongi asked incredulously, shoving the bag away. Seokjin shrugged.

“You never know when it can be the last time you can enjoy something as simple as chips these days, especially us. You know how much danger we can be in if we’re caught, right?” Seokjin defended before shoving a handful of chips into his mouth. Yoongi shook his head.

“How can you hear anything over the bag and the excessive crunching you do, hm?” he grimaced, eyeing down the greasy bag with disgust before returning his gaze back at the club.

“Look, we can’t hear anything from here anyway. We just have to keep an eye out for Jeon Jungkook without drawing attention, okay? Eating chips is normal, if anything it will help,” Seokjin reasoned. Yoongi rolled his eyes and squinted his eyes at the club entrance.

“Is that him?” he asked in a half-whisper leaning into the dashboard. Seokjin quickly put the bag down and leaned forward to get his camera angled, it was time to be serious. “I think so, let me zoom in.”

Seokjin carefully positioned his camera, zooming into the entrance. It was in fact, a confident-looking Jeon Jungkook making his way out of the entrance of the club. Seokjin laid his finger down on the trigger, snapping photo after photo. “Is that a cut on his face?” Seokjin quietly asked his partner. Yoongi squinted harder.

“Yeah, look pretty new, can’t be more than a day old. How do you think he got it?” Yoongi mused. Seokjin shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, Yoongi. He’s in a league with some pretty rough people, anyone could have wanted to take a swing at him, I know I almost did the last time I saw him,” He replied, an annoyance in his voice from the memory.

A few days ago while staking out Jeon Jungkook, they had physically gone into the club with him to get a closer look. They were supposed to just get a look at who Jungkook had spent his time with while in the club and stay invisible. The task had proven more difficult when Jungkook got a few drinks into him. They had observed that he already had a cocky attitude that bathed his being, but just add alcohol and he became a raging asshole. Seokjin had been sitting a few stools down at the bar and Jungkook had stumbled into him, spilling his drink all over Seokjin in the process. When Seokjin jumped up from reaction, Jungkook had lost his temper, grabbing him by the collar and threatening him.

It took Yoongi a lot of reassuring of pleading to get Jungkook to lay off, but before letting go, he took a good look at both of the men. Yoongi had noticed Jungkook’s eyes linger at his belt when he had realized he had his badge casing slightly exposed. He covered it quickly but the damage had been done. Jungkook had let go quickly and left the bar. He knew they were onto him, they couldn’t let him see them following him again.

“He’s getting into his car, wait a few seconds after he pulls out and follows him a block behind, we have no room to fuck up,” Yoongi instructed. Seokjin reached for the bag of chips and Yoongi yanked it away, tossing it out the window. “You’re ridiculous! Do shit like that again and it will be the last thing you eat because I’ll kill you,” He growled.

Seokjin chuckled and put the black sedan in gear, pulling out after Jungkook. He’d been partnered with Yoongi long enough to ignore his threats. He was a tough guy on the outside but he knew he would never hurt anyone unless he had to.

He thought back to a few years ago when they had gotten within the same building as The Swan. Park Pilwoo, the lead detective at the time, had gotten The Swan just about cornered when the building went up in flames. Still to this day he didn’t know what caused the fire, but he knew everyone rushed to get out before getting trapped, this included The Swan and his men. Yoongi had cornered one of the men and tried to get him to surrender but he had fired at Yoongi instead. With no other choice, he fired back and had ended up killing the man. This was his first kill on the job and it haunted him. It was one of the hardest nights on the job, the death and injuries to the members of the task force and The Swan vanishing like smoke. They hoped he had died in the fire that had destroyed everything, but found he was still alive due to The Swan sending one of his men to leave him paralyzed for the rest of his life. It would be almost a year later when Hoseok would vanish.

Hoseok was family to Yoongi and Seokjin. They were the three musketeers of the crew, they did everything on the job together. It was Hoseok’s bright smile and personality that kept their job that dealt with the darkest parts of the city at least dimly lit. They missed him every day and were still recovering from the hard truth of him being dead. They were in denial these past two years but they couldn’t be anymore when his remains were finally found. They only got a day to deal with the grief before they had to be back on the beat. Evil didn’t let people mourn.

Hoseok’s official death had sparked a new light in the whole force’s purpose to hunt The Swan. The biggest lead they had was Jeon Jungkook. They had been watching him for a few weeks and had found that he was one of The Swan’s best men in the collection of people for the human trafficking ring. There were at least two abductions a week in the cities that surrounded them, always a young and attractive man or woman. The Swan was particular with his choices, and the only connection they could link to these missing people was Jeon Jungkook.

Hundreds of people abducted, tortured into submission and sold every year since The Swan had come into the picture, yet he was untraceable. How could this man be a ghost while dealing with so many people? They knew that he kept a low profile and contact with very few people, but they had to follow what little leads they could to begin to hope to capture him. Jeon Jungkook was their only hope to avenge the sun that The Swan had extinguished.

Yoongi had the camera poised on the dash and took pictures of Jungkook’s car while Seokjin lightly cruised a block behind. They drove in silence for a while, concentrating on the taillights of Jungkook’s small red sports coupe.

After a long stretch of straight streets, Jungkook began to turn right. A block down he turned again and then did the same a block after that. He turned again and Seokjin continued to follow him. He completed the fourth right when Yoongi shouted.

“Fuck! Stop, leave him alone, go somewhere, he’s figured out that we’re following him!” Yoongi panicked, putting the camera down and shaking Seokjin’s shoulder. Seokjin’s eyes widened when he realized that he had taken them in a circle, the telltale way to tell if you were being followed- no one would go in a complete circle for no reason. “Shit,” he muttered.

Their hearts raced as they turned away onto another street. They drove a few minutes peacefully and finally, their hearts began to return to a normal pace. “That was close, we have to be more care-” Seokjin started when they began to hear gunshots. A few rang out when the sedan’s back window shattered. “Go go go go!!” Yoongi shrieked.

Seokjin raced forward as the car behind them sped close. Suddenly without warning, Seokjin threw the steering wheel around. “Video out the window, now!” he screamed. Yoongi scrambled for the camera and held it to the window and pressed record. They sped around the other car that had screeched to a stop behind them and took a sharp right. Seokji sped down the streets, turning frequently for almost an hour. They were starting to run low on gas when he finally pulled over. They had no idea where they were, but they had to sit back and catch their breaths

They both looked in the mirrors for a few minutes and saw that they remained the only vehicle on the street. “We almost died…” Seokjin finally said to break the silence.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Yoongi snapped, still catching his breath. He reached for his phone to call the captain but there was no signal. Yoongi groaned and laid back in his seat, eyes closed to concentrate on calming his heart that had almost beat out of his chest. “At least we got some footage of the shoot-” he started until he heard a crinkling and opened his eyes. Seokjin was mid-bite and Yoongi smacked the bag out of his hands. “Are you fucking kidding me!?”

“I eat when I’m anxious…”