Rin poured himself another drink, the sharp clink of glass against glass echoing faintly through the quiet cabin. The alcohol warmed his throat, dulled his nerves, but did nothing to fix the headache that came with trying to figure Kai out. He leaned back against the cushioned seat, eyes narrowing slightly as he watched the Russian stretch out like a cat who owned the place.
Just how the hell did his parents raise him... for him to end up like this? So devoid of basic empathy it's almost clinical.
He talks about death the way people talk about the weather. Casual. Detached. Smirking like it's some game. Like people aren't people to him — just disposable roles in a play he's directing.
Rin threw back the rest of his drink and grimaced slightly.
"This is lacking lemon," he muttered under his breath.
Kai perked up immediately, that damn smirk slinking back onto his face like it had never left. "Oh? Is that how you like it?" he said in a mock-gentle tone. "Had I known, I would've gotten you that lemon… and the woman exactly how you like." He winked.
Rin sighed and rolled his eyes. "Let's forget about me," he said, slumping forward with his elbows on his knees. "Let's talk about you for a change."
Kai raised an eyebrow, taking another sip of his drink. "About me?"
"Yeah, the usual stuff," Rin said, tone even but sharp. "Your family, your interests, you know — the kind of basic human things people with souls usually have."
Kai chuckled under his breath like he'd just heard a child ask where babies come from. "Hm… sure. If you're curious. I've got lots of siblings," he said, almost bored. "Never needed to worry about my overbearing parents because they had too many of us to micromanage. When I'm bored, I just look for someone to entertain me."
Then he leaned forward slightly, that dangerous smile returning to his face.
"And for the record, I have zero interest in pathetically spying on someone jerking off in the bathroom."
Rin's eyes twitched, and he pressed two fingers to his temple with a deep sigh.
Of course he had to bring that up again. God, he's like a snake — always finding a crack to slither through.
He'll dance around any question, dodge any emotional confrontation, and somehow flip it right back at you. Classic manipulator behavior.
"Oh, please, shut your trap," Rin muttered flatly. "Do your parents even know you live like this?"
Kai leaned back, arms spread over the backrest like he was lounging on a throne. His tone dipped into teasing mockery. "Live like what, baby?"
"Killing everyone who gets in your way."
That made Kai chuckle darkly, the sound smooth and unbothered.
"I think we have a misunderstanding here," he said. "I don't go after people who've done no wrong. Like I said before — I only attack in self-defense."
Rin's gaze narrowed, his voice sharper now. "Let's get this straight — what you do is beyond self-defense. You don't defend, Kai. You annihilate."
Kai exhaled slowly, almost theatrically, as if Rin were the one being dramatic.
"No," he replied coolly, "I say it's fair game if they actually hurt me… or plan to. Had I been any weaker, I'd be the one dead instead of them."
His tone was calm — too calm. Like he was laying down facts, not opinions. Justifying murder like he was explaining basic algebra. It chilled Rin more than he liked to admit.
He really believes that.
In his head, every corpse is just a checkmate. Every confrontation is a survival scenario. And he's the only one allowed to win.
This isn't self-defense. This is survival of the most manipulative.
Rin leaned on the table, resting his chin against his palm. His fingers tapped rhythmically against the side of his face — not out of boredom, but because it was the only thing keeping him from snapping.
It's a waste of time trying to argue with him. Logic doesn't work on people like this. There's no guilt to leverage, no conscience to appeal to. Just ice behind those eyes and that ever-smug mouth.
Even nagging someone requires a baseline level of affection. You yell at people you care about. With him? It's like arguing with a wall that occasionally flirts with you.
"Whatever," Rin muttered, draining what was left in his glass. "You're impossible."
"Why are you even taking part in this?" Rin finally asked, tone calm but loaded. "Really."
Kai didn't even blink. "I told you already."
"Right," Rin said, his voice dry. "The blueprints. So you can develop a one-of-a-kind weapon, revolutionize warfare, and earn yourself a fat stack of blood money."
He looked directly at Kai, his dark eyes narrowing just slightly. "But the more I think about it, the less it makes sense."
Kai tilted his head, vaguely amused.
"You already seem well off," Rin continued, gesturing at Kai lazily — from the tailored boots to the designer belt to the scent of cologne that probably cost more than Rin's entire monthly paycheck. "You're not some desperate rogue agent. You live like a trust fund brat with no impulse control."
Kai let out a breath of a chuckle. "Well, it never hurts to make more money."
Rin's lips twitched — not into a smile, but something colder. Sharper.
"Money's useless when you're dead," he said flatly. "Unless you're trying to make yourself immortal, or you're just that crazy about it — enough to sell out your own damn country."
Kai exhaled slowly, setting his glass down with a faint clink. The smirk didn't leave his face. "I had no idea you were this interested in me."
"It's because I've never met anyone like you before," Rin said honestly, scratching the back of his neck as if the thought itched at him.
That's the damn problem, isn't it?
Usually, I can read people. Doesn't take much — body language, eye contact, tone, history. You stack the pieces and you get the picture. But him? It's like trying to read a book that keeps rewriting itself while you're still on page one.
"I usually at least get the gist of someone after a few interactions," Rin muttered. "But you? I can't figure you out at all."
Kai's only response was that maddening little smile. The one that always hovered between "I'm amused" and "I'm playing a long game you're too slow to catch."
Rin narrowed his eyes. "Why would a crazy son of a bitch who has everything take on such a huge risk?" He lifted his glass halfway to his lips. "Oops. Didn't mean to let that slip out."
Kai snorted softly, completely unbothered. "Because it seems fun."
He leaned forward now, elbows on his knees, eyes glittering in the low light like a predator seeing something worth chasing. "I tend to jump face-first into anything that piques my interest. Doesn't even have to make sense. I just… get bored easily. It's sad, really. Not a lot of things manage to keep me entertained anymore."
There it is again.
That dead look in his eyes masked with charm. The tone of someone who's been broken in ways no one fixed, so he decided breaking others might be the next best thing.
He doesn't value his life because he doesn't see it as something fragile or meaningful. It's just another hand to play. Another thrill to chase.
Rin felt the hair on the back of his neck rise suddenly, and his nose twitched.
"Are you seriously releasing your pheromones right now?" he asked, scowling.
Kai leaned back innocently, giving him a faux-helpless shrug. "Not my fault. They just… slip out."
Rin groaned, waving his hand in front of his face like he was swatting a mosquito. "Well, put a damn lid on it. It's like breathing in warm syrup and cigarette smoke."
Kai chuckled. "You really are sensitive, aren't you?"
"I just don't want to be gassed out by some cocky bastard trying to turn every conversation into foreplay."
Kai raised a brow. "If I really wanted to seduce you, darling, you'd already be on your back by now."
Rin rolled his eyes so hard it practically gave him whiplash.
The audacity of this man. As if everything is up for conquest. As if people aren't complicated, messy, grieving creatures — just puzzle pieces to take apart for fun.
He thinks he can make me bend. Thinks he can get under my skin. And the worst part?
He is. And I hate that he knows it.
He downed the rest of his drink in one gulp.
"Just... stay in your lane, Kai."
Kai smiled.
"Maybe I like veering off-road."
Rin's gaze drifted lazily toward Kai's hair. It had been bothering him all night — not in a bad way, just... it didn't make sense. Under the soft flickering glow of the train's cabin light, Kai's hair shimmered like strands of weathered platinum, a muted fusion of ashen blonde and silver-gray. It looked too perfect. Not dyed. Not fake. But also… not natural. Not on someone with skin that porcelain-smooth and a face that looked sculpted by centuries of noble blood and bad decisions.
He narrowed his eyes.
"Your hair…" Rin said, his voice cutting through the quiet like a scalpel. "Is that fake? Some kind of dye? Because no offense, but the only people I've seen with that hair color are either anime characters or on their third divorce and screaming at a Walmart cashier."
Kai's lips twitched, clearly amused. "It's my natural color."
Rin blinked slowly. "Bullshit."
"Nope." Kai leaned forward casually, pouring himself more of the spiced alcohol. "Real hair. Real me."
"Right, and I suppose you're going to tell me you're actually twenty-four next," Rin muttered, reaching for the bottle himself.
"I am," Kai said without hesitation, clinking his glass against Rin's. "Twenty-four years old."
Rin choked on his drink.
He coughed once, then sat bolt upright, his expression frozen in stunned disbelief. "You're what?"
"Born in 2001." Kai added with a smirk, sipping elegantly like he hadn't just dropped a bomb. "I was born in June"
Rin stared at him like he'd just declared himself the reincarnation of Julius Caesar.
What the hell kind of timeline are we living in? There's no way this smug, cryptic bastard with the emotional availability of a dead eel and the charisma of a Bond villain is only twenty-four.
This guy has the energy of someone who's haunted several people, not been haunted.
People that pretty shouldn't be allowed to lie that easily.
"No. No way," Rin said, putting a hand over his mouth like he might gag on the absurdity. "You aren't twenty-four. Hell nah. You're at least thirty-five and living off dark secrets and red wine."
Kai burst out laughing, head tilting back slightly. "Aw, you think I'm mature."
"I think you're a walking contradiction," Rin snapped. "You look like you wandered out of a cursed fashion magazine, you talk like a philosophy major who failed intro to empathy, and you carry yourself like you've already outlived several lifetimes. Don't blame me for not believing your ass.
Kai simply raised his glass. "Guess I'm just well-preserved."
Preserved in what? Arrogance and delusion? Rin thought.
This guy doesn't walk into a room, he materializes like a rumor. He's chaos in the shape of a man.
And now he expects me to believe he's a 2001 baby like some random TikTok user? What the actual fuck.
"Unbelievable," Rin muttered, rubbing his temples.
"Don't worry, darling," Kai said with a wink. "I'm legal."
"That's not comforting," Rin said, downing his glass. "That's terrifying."
Kai leaned in slightly, resting his chin on the back of his hand, eyes glittering with the kind of smugness that only came from people who knew they were hard to resist.
"Why does it bother you so much?" he asked, voice low and smooth. "Are you disappointed I'm not some ancient being you can blame all your intrigue on?"
"I'm disappointed I can't write you off as someone too old to flirt with me like this," Rin grumbled.
Kai laughed again, low and satisfied, like he'd just won something Rin didn't even know he was playing for.
Time passed like a warm blur inside the train cabin — the muted clacking of steel on rail becoming more rhythmic than threatening, almost like a lullaby for fugitives.
The Medovukha bottle was nearly empty now, a third one already cracked open on the small table between them. The air was thick with the cloying scent of honeyed alcohol, faint cigar smoke, and the low hum of unspoken things.
Rin, still somehow managing to sit with a straight back despite the alcohol working through his system, eyed Kai with a narrowing squint.
"You can actually hold your liquor?" Rin asked, voice slightly slurred but laced with challenge.
Kai shrugged lazily, glass twirling in his fingers like a magician spinning a coin. "I'm not sure," he said, eyes half-lidded, expression maddeningly relaxed. "I've never gotten drunk. So I don't really know my limit. But this much?" He raised his glass like it weighed nothing. "It's nothing."
Rin blinked at him.
He says that with the confidence of a man who has absolutely no idea what the hell he's talking about. Either that, or he's built different.
Still... I won't be the one to try and shatter that smug little illusion tonight. The last thing I want is to end up passed out and drooling in front of him.
But I swear, I'll see him drunk before the night ends.
He smirked and took another swig, eyes locked with Kai's like a silent dare. Kai responded with a slow, knowing smile — a smile that said you're already losing, sweetheart.
They kept drinking.
And then something shifted. Like a curtain being drawn back.
Rin had just finished telling a story from when he was thirteen — a moment that should've been forgotten in the vaults of childhood humiliation, but now spilled out like confetti. He was visiting his grandparents in the countryside, some sleepy rural town where the internet didn't exist and the animals had personality disorders. And there had been this one rooster — an absolute demon in feathers.
"I swear to God, it chased me through three rice paddies," Rin wheezed, now doubled over. "And not just chased — I mean sprinted, like it had a personal vendetta."
Kai was howling. Literally howling.
He slapped the table, spilling some of the drink, laughing so hard he had to clutch his stomach. "Oh my god — what did you do to it?!"
"I don't even know! I think I stepped near its food by accident or something, but bro, that cock had bloodlust."
Kai couldn't breathe. He looked like he was dying.
Rin, usually composed and stiff as an iron rod, was leaning backward on the booth seat, laughing so hard his eyes were glassy. His laugh was deep, chesty, rare — the kind of laughter that pulled from somewhere buried beneath decades of stress and emotional constipation.
Shit. I haven't laughed like this in forever.
What is this? Drunkness? Lightheadedness? Actual joy?
God, I must look ridiculous right now.
And then it was Kai's turn to share.
With the same gleam in his eye, he launched into some absolutely unhinged story about a summer when he was eight and ended up getting into a turf war with the local mafia's cat — not the mafia members, but their actual cat.
"I swear," Kai said through giggles, "it stalked me for days. Like full-on horror movie pacing. Every corner I turned — there it was. Just sitting there. Unblinking. Watching. I couldn't sleep. I started throwing sausages out the window as offerings."
Rin lost it. He was wheezing, practically folded in half, his laugh getting higher in pitch the more he tried to stifle it.
This guy is a menace. A walking crime scene of a man. And yet here he is, talking about cat vendettas like it's a fairy tale.
Why am I laughing? Why am I actually enjoying this?
Their laughter didn't stop for minutes. It came in waves — starting again every time one of them caught the other's eye. At one point, Rin clutched the edge of the table like it was the only thing keeping him from flying off the planet.
Kai wiped a tear from the corner of his eye, still giggling. "You... you're actually kinda fun when you let loose, Rin."
"I am always fun," Rin shot back, pointing a wobbling finger at him.
"Sure. Just in a repressed, emotionally unavailable sort of way."
"Screw you."
"You wish."
They both burst out laughing again, their snark colliding in the air like two sharp-edged comets.
Rin slumped back into the seat, cheeks flushed a deep red, hair slightly damp with sweat. He blinked slowly, fighting the lull of unconsciousness like a soldier dragging himself to the battlefield one last time.
"Director Kim would flip out if he saw me like this," he muttered, barely coherent. His voice was thick, slurred, the words sticking together like syrup. He poured himself another drink with shaky hands — half the liquor missed the glass. Then, he glanced upward.
That's when he saw Kai.
Folded arms. Eyes shut. His head tilted to the side, jaw slack in the illusion of rest.
Rin squinted.
"Haha… drunk already?" Rin chuckled, swaying. "What a baby…"
He lifted the glass and was just about to take another sip when—
THUD.
His body crumpled forward, collapsing like a marionette with its strings suddenly cut. His forehead hit the table with a hollow sound, followed by the slow slide of the glass tipping over, spilling the drink into a sticky amber puddle.
Then silence.
Total, eerie silence.
Until…
Kai's eyelids fluttered open.
Slowly. Deliberately. Like something mechanical winding back to life.
No haze, no confusion. Just crystal-clear awareness.
His gaze sharpened as it landed on Rin, now completely passed out, his cheek pressed to the wood, breath soft and rhythmic. Still. Defenseless.
Kai sat upright, the easy smirk slowly returning to his lips as he exhaled — not out of relief or amusement, but calculation. He stretched his fingers once, casually, like a pianist limbering up.
There we go, Kai thought, eyes narrowing with lazy satisfaction. I was starting to think he'd never shut up.
It's always the self-righteous ones who crash the hardest.
And damn, he held on longer than I expected… guess he's not entirely bluff and bark after all.
Still not smart enough, though.
He reached for the cigar cutter on the table. Click. The blade snapped open with a crisp, metallic bite. He took his time slicing the end of the cigar, brushing away the bits of tobacco with care, as though in no rush at all. As if this were a casual evening.
Then, his eyes flicked toward Rin again.
A slow grin began to curl on his lips. Not playful. Not cruel. Just… deliberate.
He leaned in.
One hand slipped over Rin's limp wrist, carefully dragging it toward him across the table. The other reached for the cigar cutter. It gleamed faintly under the dim lights, still open — the blades waiting like fangs.
Kai took Rin's index finger between his own, turning it gently as if examining it. His touch was eerily gentle. Too gentle. Like a predator playing with its prey.
You really thought you could drink with me, huh?
You, with your military past, your trauma, your tragic little eyes.
So easy to read… like a bad book with all its pages dog-eared and worn.
All that posturing, all that discipline — just a mask.
And underneath it all? Just another lost boy playing soldier.
He watched Rin's face closely — looking for the slightest twitch of awareness.
Nothing.
Just slow, steady breathing. Unconscious.
Kai's thumb ran over the tip of Rin's finger. His own expression had gone calm, almost clinical.
You're lucky I like you, he thought. Or maybe unlucky.
Because if I didn't, I would've taken something already — a finger, a photo, a secret or even your life.
But I think I'll keep you around a bit longer.
You make things interesting.
With a final flick of his hand, he closed the cigar cutter — click — and set it gently on the table.
He let go of Rin's hand.
Pulled back.
Lit the cigar.
The tip flared, the smoke curling upward like a whisper from hell.
Kai leaned back in his seat again, legs casually crossed, cigar between his fingers, gaze still on Rin — unmoving, unblinking.
So much potential… it's adorable that he thinks he's the one analyzing me.
He doesn't realize I already figured him out days ago.
I just let him talk. People reveal everything when they think they're winning.
He exhaled slowly, smoke drifting toward the ceiling.
Now let's see what you dream about, Rin.