The Floating World [4]
Zitao’s heart is racing in his chest; he’s staring at a series of coordinates on the computer screen and wondering if he’s really done it. He pulls up a digital map and types in the last available coordinates, and after a few clicks the crosshairs land on a remote area on the side of the mountain just outside of the city. As sure as day, just a few coordinates away is the river that runs down the mountain and into the city, and Zitao reckons that that’s where Lu Han had disposed of the chip.
At the exact moment Zitao thinks to go and get Wu Fan, the door opens. He spins around in his chair to see Wu Fan striding toward him, hands in his pockets, lips pursed.
“Have you made any progress?” Wu Fan asks.
Zitao smiles. “I think I’ve solved the mystery.”
Wu Fan’s eyes widen as the door slams shut behind him. “How so?”
“After I got the motherboard on the tracker dry, I put the chip into an adapter, then put that into the computer,” Zitao said, gesturing to the computer behind him. “Almost immediately, the computer started searching the chip for data. I had to jump through a few hoops but before I knew it, the exact location that the chip last registered was in front of me.”
“So, where are they?” Wu Fan asks.
Zitao furrows his brow. “They? I thought we were trying to locate one person.”
“So did I,” Wu Fan says, “until I got word from Yoona that an Operative has gone missing. I dispatched her to Operative Village to investigate, and she called and said he was nowhere to be found and it seemed like one of his friends was trying to cover up his tracks.”
“So... I’m not done, am I,” Zitao says, mildly disappointed.
“No, you are, at least from this standpoint,” Wu Fan replies. “The two of them are together, headed for Goyang. That’s the only viable city on the other side of that mountain and if they get there before we get them, they’ll have successfully defected. We need to gather up the militant Intelligentsia and get to the bottom of the other side of the mountain and catch them before it’s too late.”
Somehow, Zitao’s holding out for Wu Fan to sweep him up into his arms and kiss him deeply for a job well done, but he can see the Leader in Wu Fan’s eyes and knows to expect anything but. Without another word, Wu Fan turns and leaves, and Zitao can almost see Wu Fan’s victorious speech spiraling around his head in his wake.
Zitao prints off the coordinates and the map, then shuts the system down and tries to hurry home to get some sleep before Wu Fan calls for the debriefing. He feels as if he hasn’t slept in days, and he can’t imagine being so exhausted in the middle of a heated battle to capture not just one, but two runaways.
As hard as he tries, he can’t remember what happened in the space of time between when he held Lu Han’s hand and when he turned towards him and kissed him again, or when they both surpassed that barrier of being too coy to place their hands in places other than cheeks and necks and waists. Sehun’s eyes are barely closed as he tries to cope with the feeling of Lu Han gently clawing at his stomach beneath his shirt and kissing his neck. The rain has picked up again, and the smatters of raindrops against the windshield combined with the moonlight shooting through them paints the two in a serene type of pattern.
Lu Han pulls away and looks into Sehun’s eyes. They remain silent and Lu Han smiles, only to have the smile removed from his face as Sehun pushes him onto his back and straddles his hips.
Sehun only searches Lu Han’s face with his eyes, unsure of what he was planning to do next. Lu Han’s hands move from underneath Sehun’s shirt to his thighs, and he, too, seems unsure, if not a bit uneasy.
“Can we...” Sehun says in a near-whisper, even though there’s no one there to hear him.
“Are you sure you want to?” Lu Han asks. Sehun starts to doubt himself. “You don’t think we’re moving too quickly?”
Sehun doesn’t know how to answer. If it were any other time, Sehun wouldn’t have ventured so far, so quickly; but considering the circumstances, he wasn’t sure if he’d have this chance again. He’d probably have a chance with someone else, but with Lu Han... it seemed unlikely. If he was going to be honest, he was afraid of the rest of the journey to Goyang. Anything and everything could go wrong, and in the midst of all that, he can picture himself regretting the fact that he let go of one good thing in favor of taking things slowly.
To be frank, he didn’t think they had enough time to take things slowly.
So Sehun doesn’t answer. Instead, he leans forward and kisses Lu Han again, letting his hands trail down the older man’s body. Sehun bites his lip and shudders as Lu Han’s hands glide toward the button his pants, nimble fingers pulling the tarnished brass through the hole that secures it. One hand slips into Sehun’s pants and makes him sigh in surprise and enjoyment before Lu Han beckons his lips back to his.
Lu Han’s free hand cradles the small of Sehun’s back and he flips the two of them over and then leans back on his knees between Sehun’s legs. Lu Han looks like a shadow, his back to the illuminated windshield and the front of him plunged into darkness. It makes Sehun a little nervous, until Lu Han grazes the exposed centimeters of Sehun’s stomach with his soft, inviting fingertips before hooking them into the waistband of Sehun’s jeans and slowly working them down off of his hips.
Sehun gets over the initial embarrassment of being totally bare in front of Lu Han once Lu Han is in the same state as he is, trying to make Sehun as comfortable as he can with their limited resources. When Lu Han attempts to enter him, Sehun stops him; it hurts too much, but he doesn’t want to call it off. Lu Han pulls Sehun to a sitting position and then into his lap, and he whispers for him to relax, to take it slowly and if he still can’t bear it, they can stop and try again some other time.
Sehun thinks about how optimistic Lu Han is as he lets Lu Han guide his hips downward, how Lu Han seems to be including Sehun into his future plans when Sehun had been doing the complete opposite.
Lu Han asks him if it still hurts and Sehun shakes his head no, wrapping his arms around Lu Han’s neck and letting him to the work. Every movement has Sehun’s nerves firing, and as he gets acclimated to Lu Han’s rhythm, quiet grunts and pants and moans accompany the low roll of thunder in the distance.
Lu Han brings his hands to Sehun’s waist as the younger pulls back slightly so that they can kiss. Without noticing it, Sehun’s the one in control, now; he grips Lu Han by the sides of his face while he grinds his hips down and kisses him passionately, breaking away only to pant into Lu Han’s open, searching mouth before Lu Han pulls him back in for more.
When Sehun applies pressure to Lu Han’s shoulders with the heels of his hands, he lies back and stares up at Sehun, draped only in raindrops and moonlight, eyes shut and chest heaving and hips rising and falling on top of him. Lu Han digs his fingernails into Sehun’s thighs and drags them up toward his hips, where he takes hold once again and immobilizes Sehun.
Breathless, Sehun looks questioningly at Lu Han, whose face is mildly flushed but heartbreakingly gentle. “Do you want to stop?” he asks.
Lu Han smiles and shakes his head. “No... I want to kiss you again,” he replies.
Sehun smiles shyly and leans down to kiss him, slowly working his hips as best he could with Lu Han’s strong hands holding him in place.
Not too long after, Sehun’s gasping and grasping for stability as his muscles tense and his vision flashes white, and Lu Han is holding him tight and kissing him along his collarbone. He breathes hot and fast into Lu Han’s neck, and Lu Han soon rolls the two of them onto their sides where they fall asleep, the rain falling lightly.
Sehun awakes the next morning to his body trembling, skin tight with goosebumps. He becomes aware of the fact that he’s half-covered by his opened sleeping bag, and the rest is exposed to the cool breeze that wafts through the opened back door. The moment he’s fully awake, he realizes that he’s still naked, and he frantically scrambles to a sitting position that he can keep his decency.
Lu Han walks by the door at that very moment, glances in and smiles at Sehun. “Good morning,” he says. He raises an eyebrow when he notices Sehun’s covering himself up. “Are you cold?”
“I’m naked,” Sehun mumbles and Lu Han snorts.
“Well, get dressed. As you can see, the rain has stopped so we can start to make our way down,” he says. He walks away and Sehun hurries to shut the door so that he can put his clothes back on, to which he hears Lu Han laugh out loud.
After Sehun helps Lu Han clean up the back of the van and put everything back into its place, they get settled up front and Lu Han starts up the engine. When it roars to life, butterflies ignite in the pit of Sehun’s stomach; this was it. They were finally on the homestretch, on their way to new lives and freedom. He almost wishes the van could sprout wings and fly so that they can get there sooner.
From the frontmost van, Wu Fan presses a button and send feedback blasting through the speakers of the vans and buses behind him. “We’re approaching the westerly base of the mountain,” he says firmly. “To review: your guns are not to be used to kill. They are to be used to immobilize... remember what you learned in the mandatory Long-Range Shooting courses you all took part in. Aim away from the head, the chest, and main arteries and your targets stand a higher chance of surviving your bullet. Also, your guns are to only be used if your targets do not cooperate with my demands. If they run, you will chase, and you will shoot to immobilize, not to kill. Failure to follow these simple rules will result in consequences including but not limited to disciplinary action, confiscation of arms, and demotion to a lower social class. That is all.”
He releases the button and sits back in his seat as the van bumps along the road, arms crossed. Seated to his left is Zitao, whose face is fraught with anxiety that shows itself in his hands, clenched tightly around the steering wheel. Wu Fan observes this and reaches over to Zitao’s right thigh and gives it a reassuring squeeze.
“You’ve done well,” Wu Fan says in a tone Zitao’s more familiar with. “Just think, we couldn’t have gotten so far without you. You have nothing to worry about.”
Wu Fan’s hand leaves his leg but his apprehensiveness remains. Part of him was happy that this was all coming to an end, but the other part of him wanted to stop the motorcade and turn to Wu Fan and convince him to just let Lu Han and Sehun go. As strong-willed and bold as Wu Fan was, he had managed to turn into another mindless follower of an Honorable Leader that any smart citizen of the New World would know didn’t really exist. Zitao truly felt there was a strong divide between the rational thinkers and the cult followers but everyone had decided to ignore it and continue living.
They lead the buses and vans into a heavily wooded area across the way from the mountain, where they hide their vehicles and walk back to the road to assemble. Weapons in hand, they simply wait for the first sign of the runaways attempting to emerge from the mountain.
Sehun, having dozed off as Lu Han slowly navigated the van down the side of the mountain, wakes with a start as the low hum of the engine that had lulled him to sleep stops suddenly. He was excited at first, thinking that he’d slept the entire journey and now they were in Goyang, and then he glances out of the window and sees nothing but trees.
“Why did you stop?” he mumbles sleepily.
Lu Han sighs. “Looks like we ran out of gas quicker than I predicted we would. I knew it wouldn’t take us all the way to Goyang, but I hoped it would last until we reached the bottom.”
Sehun’s eyes open wide. “Well, what are we going to do? We can’t just stay here!”
“I know that... we’ll have to walk the rest of the way down. Take as little as possible and let’s get going.” Lu Han throws open his door and walks to the back of the van, while Sehun sits in wide-eyed disbelief. “Come on.”
Sehun feels tears well up in his eyes as he forces himself out of his seat and toward the back of the van, where he angrily tears open his duffel bag and shoves his father’s watch and the ring he found the previous night into his pocket. He feels Lu Han eyeing him and refuses to look up.
“It’s not my fault that the engine takes so much gas to go down the mountain, so don’t take your frustrations out on me,” Lu Han snaps.
“I’m not. I’m taking them out on my bag,” Sehun shoots back. He wipes away a teardrop and Lu Han slams the back door shut. The van lurches dangerously and Sehun panics, pushing the door back open to escape in the event that the van goes rolling with him inside of it.
Lu Han’s already several paces ahead of him, and Sehun speeds his stride to catch up with him. They hike down the mountain in silence, Lu Han focusing on ways to get to Goyang and Sehun feeling remorseful for the way he acted. He should just be grateful, he thinks, grateful that he’s not alone in this journey. He should be grateful because he probably wouldn’t have survived so long had he not come across Lu Han when he did.
Joonmyun is still boiling with anger. He couldn’t believe his ears when Wu Fan stood in front of all of the Intelligentsia and announced that not one but two citizens had fled the city -- one, an Operative named Oh Sehun, the one Yoona had discovered was missing, and the other, their very own Lu Han.
He hadn’t put much thought into Lu Han’s whereabouts; in all honesty, he’d forgotten all about him since they hadn’t been speaking at the time he disappeared and Joonmyun cared more about his work than anything else. But he would have never considered Lu Han would do what he did, steal a government vehicle and use it to shuttle himself and his companion to freedom. The gall of him, Joonmyun keeps repeating in his mind. He had such gall to do such a thing.
He is pacing about twenty feet of the area they’ve cordoned off, trying to hold back every urge to go into the mountains and find them on his own. He couldn’t care less about the Operative but he was picturing himself smashing the butt of his rifle into Lu Han’s face until he was unconscious and his hands were shaking. He didn’t know how much long he could wait, if he could keep his ears honed in for the sound of a vehicle or the crunch of sticks and leaves underfoot.
Joonmyun stops in his tracks and lets out a frustrated yell, which makes every member of the battalion look at him in confusion. He clenches his fists and breathes deeply, trying to convince himself that it would be better for him to continue to wait than it would be if he went against Wu Fan’s rules.
Lu Han stops and puts his arm out in front of Sehun, effectively stopping him as well. “Did you hear that?”
Sehun feels his heart drop; he’d been hoping it was just his imagination. “Yeah...”
“Someone’s nearby,” Lu Han says, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Keep your eyes and ears open.”
Lu Han starts off again and Sehun grabs his hand. Lu Han looks back at him and Sehun looks past him and they continue walking hand-in-hand.
“Have you lost your mind?” Wu Fan says through gritted teeth almost immediately after Joonmyun’s outburst.
“Have you lost yours?” Wu Fan blanches at him. “Why do we owe those two pieces of shit the luxury of having a chance to get away? Why are we waiting for them when they should be waiting for us!”
“They can’t get away; we’ve blocked off the fastest route to where they’re headed and if they’re smart, they won’t try and take a longer way. They have to come this way and they won’t if they hear you throwing a tantrum down here! They’ll stay there and wait until we retreat and then make a run for it. Do you want to be responsible for that, Joonmyun?”
The two stare each other down. Joonmyun clenches and unclenches his jaw in sheer irritation. “I’m not waiting any longer. I’m going to find them; the rest of you can sit here like bumps on a log while I do a job that could be finished in mere moments,” he says. He reaches back and pulls the rifle out of the holster strapped to his shoulders. “If anyone cares to join me,” he announces, eyes still frozen on Wu Fan’s, “you’d best get to your feet now. I’m not wasting another moment.”
He storms off into the woods, running high on adrenaline. He can hear Wu Fan hissing his name but he ignores him and starts his ascent up the mountain.
Soon, he hears footsteps behind him; he looks back and finds at least five other Intelligentsia following him. He turns his vision back to the trail in front of him and, armed with an extra dose of confidence, grips his rifle tighter.
Sehun’s never felt his heart beat as hard and fast as it is now. He can’t get that scream out of his head; he’d spent so many days with no one else but Lu Han that it frightened him to hear the voice of anyone else. He didn’t know that people were so close by... perhaps they weren’t, and Sehun’s assuming they were was his way of comforting himself, trying to condition himself to disbelieve that they were no longer alone.
He couldn’t figure out who would be nearby, though, if it weren’t citizens of an outside district that they didn’t know about. Lu Han had disabled the tracking chip long before they’d even moved off, but knowing -- or, rather, not knowing -- how advanced the Intelligentsia were, they’d probably found a way to find them. He could only hope that that wasn’t the case.
He lets Lu Han lead him downhill, which allows him to dart his eyes around in paranoid search for anyone sneaking up on them out of the thick of the trees. He holds on tighter to Lu Han’s hand, praying that they’re close to the bottom so that he can worry less. Everything is a bit scarier when there’s nothing but trees for as far as the eye can see.
And then he sees them.
Joonmyun is too far away to make out any key features, but the mere fact that there are two people walking through the woodsy mountain is enough of a dead giveaway. They’re a good half-mile away from him, heading toward the bottom of the mountain where they’re sure to get caught if Joonmyun doesn’t get to them first.
Joonmyun aims his gun high above their heads and pulls the trigger. The sound of the bullet ejecting from the barrel snaps through the air and just as instantly the two of them crouch in fright.
“Fuck,” Lu Han whispers. “Fuck!”
“Maybe it was a hunter,” Sehun offers, even though he knows he’s completely wrong.
“It’s a hunter, alright,” Lu Han replies, his voice quivering. “Keep low.”
If Sehun wasn’t on the verge of breakdown before, he is now. A gun just went off in their direction, confirming the fact that they were definitely not alone and whoever it was was not a local. He couldn’t even see the bottom of the mountain so he knew they still had some way to go and that only made him want to give up and give in to the person who was following them.
“After The End,” Lu Han whispers, “We were forced into firearms training. When we completed it, we all received one weapon, a rifle, that we were only supposed to use in times of discipline. I know the sound of that rifle like I know the back of my hand. They’re on to us.”
If Sehun had the energy to burst into tears, he would have done so the moment those words left Lu Han’s mouth.
“Fucking lunatic,” Wu Fan says, staring at the mountain, angry yet stunned by the sound of a bullet piercing the air. “He’s going to ruin all of this for us. We need to move in.”
Zitao jumps to his feet as the rest readily move toward the mountain, their steps light so they don’t send the runaways sprinting back up the mountain. “Wu Fan,” Zitao says quietly.
Wu Fan glances at him as he loads his rifle. “Get your gun. We have a score to settle.”
“I’m not going up there,” Zitao proclaims, and Wu Fan gawks at him. “I’ve done enough, I think. I don’t want to take part in this.”
“You say that as if you have a choice,” Wu Fan says, as if Zitao isn’t his romantic equal and is nothing but his inferior. “Get your gun. Get it now.”
Zitao stands his ground. “No. I won’t.”
Wu Fan looks to see that the rest have gone into the woods before he storms over to Zitao and drapes him up by the collar of his shirt. “Zitao, listen to me. All you have to do is follow; if you don’t want to chase after them or shoot them, fine. There’s more than enough of us to cover that.”
“So what do you need me for?” Zitao asks calmly.
“What do I always need you for?” Wu Fan counters, his voice becoming more gentle.
The Zitao of yesterday would have bent over backward for Wu Fan when he spoke to him like that, but the Zitao of today was unswayed. “I don’t know. As far as I’m concerned, I’m nothing but your lackey by day and your plaything by night.”
Wu Fan releases him with a shove and glares. “Is that how you feel?” Zitao says nothing. “That’s fine. I have more important things to attend to, so if you want to stay down here and angst, by all means, do so. You’re right; you’re unnecessary. You would have brought nothing to the team, anyway.”
Zitao breathes out deeply as Wu Fan turns on his heel and marches away. As he steps back, the keys to the van that are attached to his belt loop jingle and give Zitao the best idea he’s had in a long while.
If he could, he would run into the woods, grab Lu Han and Sehun, and take them with him. But he can’t.
He’d rather go alone, anyway.
Lu Han and Sehun run with bent legs, trying to remain as low as they possibly can. It’s their only hope for survival at this point; hiding was an option until they take into account that this is the Intelligentsia that they’re messing with and they’d be found in no time.
Lu Han stops suddenly and Sehun lurches to a halt behind him. “Don’t move,” he murmurs. “Get down on your stomach. When I tell you to run... run.”
Sehun does as he’s told, albeit with quivering hands and a nervous heart. He nearly screams when Lu Han stands up perfectly straight, showing all sorts of confidence even though Sehun is sure he’s falling to pieces on the inside.
“Is it me you’re looking for?” Lu Han says loudly, his voice echoing off of the trees and stones. “It has to be me. There’s no one else out here but me.”
“My god, what are you doing?” Sehun says inaudibly, his face buried into his hands. He’s trying his damnedest to keep the morbid vision of Lu Han getting shot and falling dead beside him out of his mind but by the way Lu Han is acting, it seems like it might come true at any moment.
There are a few moments of silence, save for the sound of approaching footsteps, and then Sehun hears Lu Han utter a quiet “Run.” He leaps to his feet and takes off sprinting in what he hopes is the most safe direction, and Lu Han soon follows behind him.
“Don’t stop running,” Lu Han pants behind him. “There’s dozens of them, maybe hundreds, and if you so much as slow down we’re done for.”
No pressure, Sehun thinks, and he wills the muscles and tendons and ligaments in his legs to keep moving, no matter what.
“There’s no use in running!” shouts a voice familiar to only Lu Han’s ears. “You know better, Lu Han!”
“Just keep moving,” Lu Han says to Sehun, trying to remain as calm as he can be.
“I refuse to chase him,” Joonmyun says to himself, and he quickly aims his gun and confirms his shot through the viewfinder. He pulls the trigger and waits to see Lu Han fall, blood gushing from his shoulder.
Lu Han flinches and closes his eyes as the rifle fires behind him, and he’s anticipating the pain of a bullet burying itself deep within his body. He knows how long it takes to the bullet to get to where he is, so he’s surprised when the seconds pass and he’s still unscathed. His eyes open when he trips over something -- and when he looks, to his dismay, that something is Sehun.
“Sehun, get up!” Lu Han says frantically. He doesn’t want to admit it but he can hear Sehun gasping for breath and knows the bullet missed him and hit Sehun instead. There’s blood pooling from the left side of his back, a hole blown right through his jacket, his shirt, into his body. “We have to keep moving. Get up, please.”
Another shot is fired, but from a different direction, as Lu Han slips his hands underneath Sehun and tries to lift him, and before he can register where the shot is coming from, his body is jolted. He expects pain, but feels none; instead, he’s thrown backward and Sehun rolls over lifelessly on top of him. His eyes a wide open, his breathing is practically stopped, and bright red blood is gushing from a brand-new bullet hole that’s torn straight through his neck.
Lu Han can almost feel the pearls Sehun’s blood pulsing against his own skin as it cries a river into the worn fabric of of his shirt. It’s unpleasantly hot and sticky, and he shuts his eyes against the sensation. He wraps his arms around Sehun’s middle, almost as though he’s trying to keep the last bits of breath in the boy’s body--re-inflate him, zip him back up, and wait for him to work again.
But Sehun is not like the machines of the Intelligentsia, and he will not simply get back up. Not anymore, Lu Han thinks, as he rolls them over so Sehun is under him. There is a shock of blood across his pallid cheek, and he’s so far gone. In that last moment, though--that last moment before what’s left of the light in his eyes dies, Sehun looks straight into Lu Han’s eyes. If his pain is a storm, then this is the moment when he’s reached the eye of the hurricane; a lucid, quiet calm, and Lu Han can tell that Sehun knows exactly who he is. Lu Han sees his blood-smeared lips move once, trying to say something, but then they’re still.
Covered in Sehun’s blood, he gives up. The Intelligentsia gather around him, guns raised, as Lu Han weeps with his dead friend in his arms.
He gives up.
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