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Mafia AU

The Crimson Requiem

The docks at Pier 14 were a labyrinth of rusted shipping containers and the oily, black expanse of the Han River. Rain fell in thin, freezing needles, slicking the concrete and blurring the red and blue lights of the distant city skyline. It was supposed to be a standard exchange—hardware for hard currency—but the air had tasted like a trap from the moment they stepped out of the armored SUV.

The first shot didn't ring out; it hissed, silenced by a suppressor.

Minho let out a sharp, truncated gasp that sounded more like a cough. He stumbled, his hand flying to his left side. When he pulled his palm away, the moonlight caught the dark, glistening smear of blood soaking through his tactical vest.

"Minho!" Jisung’s voice was a jagged tear in the night.

He didn't think. He never had to when it came to the two of them. Jisung lunged forward, his powerful frame colliding with Minho to drive him behind a stack of industrial crates. Bullets began to chew into the metal above their heads, sparks flying like angry fireflies.

"I'm okay," Minho wheezed, though his face was rapidly draining of color. He slumped against the cold steel, his breathing shallow and hitched. "It’s just... it’s deep, Sung. It’s deep."

Jisung’s hands were shaking—a sensation he hadn't felt in years. He didn't feel pain, but the sight of Minho’s blood made a cold, hollow ache expand in his chest. "Stay low. Don't move. I’m calling Seungmin."

A block away, perched atop a crane, Seungmin had already seen the flash of the muzzle. He had already squeezed the trigger of his sniper rifle, taking the head off the man who had dared to touch Minho. But the warehouse was crawling with shadows. It wasn't just the Russians; it was a setup, a coordinated strike by a rival faction.

"I’m coming down," Seungmin’s voice crackled over the comms, tight and strained. "Jisung, get him to the extraction point behind the cannery. I’ll meet you there."

Seungmin abandoned his post, sliding down the ladder with a desperation that ignored safety. He hit the ground running, his rifle slung over his shoulder, his sidearm drawn. He was half a block from the crates when a shadow stepped out from behind a trailer.

The crack of the pistol was loud, echoing off the water.

Seungmin’s head snapped back. He didn't fall, not at first. He spun, firing three rounds into the chest of his attacker, watching the man fall. But when Seungmin turned back toward the crates, he was clutching his throat.

The bullet had grazed the side of his neck, tearing through the soft tissue and nicking the artery. Blood began to pump between his fingers, hot and relentless, staining his tactical collar a deep, bruised purple. He couldn't scream; he could barely breathe. Every inhalation was a wet, gurgling struggle.

Somehow, driven by a primal need to be near the only two people who mattered, Seungmin staggered forward. He rounded the corner of the crates, his boots dragging in the grit, and collapsed into the small, sheltered alcove where Jisung was trying to staunch Minho’s bleeding.

Jisung looked up, and for the first time in his life, the man who couldn't feel pain felt the world shatter.

"Minnie?" Jisung’s voice broke, a high, thin sound of pure agony.

Seungmin fell into his lap, his eyes wide and glassy, his hands soaked in the life-force leaking from his throat. Minho, clutching his side, reached out with a trembling hand to grab Seungmin’s jacket, pulling him closer.

They were a tableau of carnage. Blood pooled on the concrete, mixing with the rainwater to create a pale pink river that flowed toward the edge of the pier.

Jisung felt something snap inside his mind. It wasn't a clean break; it was a fracturing, a thousand shards of his psyche grinding together. He looked at Minho’s pale face, then at the crimson pulsing from Seungmin’s neck. He reached up, his fingers digging into his own hair, pulling so hard that clumps of dark strands came away in his grip.

Tears, hot and stinging, began to stream down his face, carving tracks through the grime and the gunpowder. "No," he whispered, the word turning into a sob. "No, no, no. Not you. Not both of you."

He looked at his hands—the hands that had killed hundreds, the hands that had touched his lovers with such desperate hunger just hours before. They were covered in their blood.

"I'll be right back," Jisung said, his voice cracking, sounding like a child lost in the dark. He leaned down, pressing a frantic, bloody kiss to Minho’s forehead and then to Seungmin’s cold cheek. "I’ll be right back. I’m going to make them stop. I’m going to make it all stop."

Jisung stood up. He didn't pick up his guns. He picked up his knives.

When he stepped out from behind the crates, he wasn't Han Jisung anymore. He was a hollowed-out vessel of pure, psychotic rage. He didn't take cover. He walked into the center of the pier, his head tilted at an unnatural angle, his eyes wide and unblinking.

The mercenaries opened fire.

Jisung didn't flinch. A bullet tore through his thigh; he kept walking. Another caught him in the ribs, spinning him around; he merely laughed, a dry, rattling sound that chilled the blood of everyone who heard it. He was a ghost, a dead man walking, fueled by a fracture in his soul that had finally let the darkness take full control.

He reached the first line of gunmen. It wasn't a fight; it was a slaughter. Jisung moved with a speed that was blurred, his knives singing through the air. He didn't go for quick kills. He went for the parts that hurt. He opened bellies, he severed tendons, he carved into faces with a manic, giggling intensity.

A mercenary lunged at him with a combat knife. Jisung didn't parry. He let the blade sink into his shoulder, using the proximity to plunge his own knife into the man’s throat, twisting it until the spine snapped.

Blood sprayed across Jisung’s face, masking the scar on his cheek. He looked like a demon birthed from the very docks.

One of the last remaining Russians, a massive man with a jagged scar of his own, swung a heavy machete. The blade caught Jisung across the face, slicing through his right eye. Jisung didn't even scream. He simply used his thumb to gouge out the man’s eyes in return, his fingers sinking into the sockets with a sickening squelch.

He was littered with holes. His black tactical gear was shredded, soaked through with a dozen different wounds. He was losing blood at a rate that should have stopped his heart minutes ago. But he kept moving. He kept killing until there was no one left to kill.

The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the lapping of the water against the pilings. Jisung stood in the center of the pier, surrounded by a mountain of corpses, his lone eye fixed on the crates where he had left his world.

He began to stagger. His left leg wouldn't fully support his weight, dragging behind him as he limped toward the alcove. He left a thick, dark trail on the concrete, a map of his impending end.

He reached the crates and collapsed. He didn't fall; he simply lost the strength to stand, his knees hitting the grit with a dull thud. He crawled the last few feet, his breath coming in wet, rattling gasps.

Minho was still conscious, though his eyes were dimming. He had managed to drag himself upright against the metal, his hand still firmly clamped over Seungmin’s neck in a desperate, futile attempt to keep the younger man alive. Seungmin lay with his head in the crook of Minho’s arm, his breathing a faint, whistling sound.

"Sungie," Minho whispered, his voice barely audible over the rain.

Jisung collapsed in front of them, his head falling into Minho’s lap. He was a ruin. His right eye was a gory mess, his chest was a sieve of bullet wounds, and his hands were shredded.

Minho reached out with his free hand, his fingers trembling as he stroked Jisung’s hair, staining the blonde strands red. With a strength born of pure devotion, Minho shifted, pulling Jisung’s heavy, broken body between himself and Seungmin.

Seungmin, sensing the shift, let his head roll from Minho’s arm onto Jisung’s lap. He looked up, his eyes meeting Jisung’s lone, dark orb. There was no fear in Seungmin’s gaze, only a profound, heartbreaking peace. He reached out, his fingers brushing against Jisung’s hand.

Minho leaned his head against Jisung’s other shoulder, his weight pressing into the younger man. They were a huddle of dying heat in a cold, indifferent world.

"We... we did it," Jisung wheezed, his voice a ghost of its former rasp. A bubble of blood popped on his lips. "They’re gone. All of them."

"I know," Minho murmured, his eyes drifting shut for a second before he forced them open. "You did well, Jisungie. You saved us."

Jisung felt the cold spreading from his limbs to his core. For the first time in his life, he felt a sensation he thought was pain, but it wasn't in his body. It was the feeling of the tether finally snapping.

He reached out, his mangled fingers finding Minho’s hand on one side and Seungmin’s on the other. He squeezed them with the last of his strength, anchoring himself to the only reality he had ever truly known.

"Don't go... without me," Jisung whispered.

"Never," Minho replied, his voice a mere breath.

Jisung was the first to go. The light in his single eye didn't flicker; it simply went out, his head lolling back against Minho’s chest. His heart, which had beat with such violent intensity for his lovers, gave one final, stuttering throb and stilled. He died as he had lived—broken, scarred, and shielding the only things he loved.

Seungmin felt the change in Jisung’s body. He let out a soft, gurgling sigh, his own grip on Jisung’s hand tightening for a fleeting second. The blood from his neck had finally stopped pulsing, slowing to a sluggish trickle. He looked up at the dark sky, at the rain falling like tears from heaven, and his eyes stayed wide, fixed on the infinite blackness above. His breath hitched once, twice, and then the whistling stopped.

Minho felt them both leave. He felt the weight of them become heavy, the heat of their bodies beginning to dissipate into the freezing night air. He looked down at Jisung’s scarred face, now peaceful in death, and at Seungmin’s pale, beautiful features.

He didn't cry. He didn't have the strength left for tears. He simply leaned his head back against the cold metal of the crate, his fingers interlaced with theirs. He felt the cold of the pier seeping into his bones, the darkness at the edge of his vision closing in.

He took one last, deep breath, tasting the salt of the sea and the iron of their blood.

"Wait for me," Minho whispered into the void.

His eyes remained open, reflecting the distant, uncaring lights of the city. He didn't blink as the life faded from them, leaving behind a glassy, eternal stare.

The rain continued to fall, washing the blood from their intertwined hands, but it couldn't separate them. They sat there, three ghosts in a world of shadows, their bodies forming a singular, unbreakable knot of devotion.

When the sun finally rose over the Han River, the light hit the pier, illuminating the carnage. It found the three men in the alcove, still holding onto each other, their eyes open as if watching for the dawn of a world where they wouldn't have to be monsters.

They were gone, but they were together. And in the silence of the morning, that was the only mercy they had ever needed.