Super Junior {various pairings ; High Technology (11/?)}
Title: High Technology (11/?)
Fandom: Super Junior (AU, !cyberpunk)
Pairing: Siwon/Sungmin, Hankyung/Heechul, Kyuhyun/Zhou Mi, Kangin/Eeteuk, Kibum/Donghae, Yehsung/Ryeowook, other pairings implied.
Word count: 3,486
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The micro-chips let the government keep tabs on your every move; the video cameras let the government know when they need to start paying attention. Get rid of the chip in the back of your brain and you can slip under the radar, and do whatever the hell you like. It's not like they're the bad guys, but it's not like they're the good guys, either.
A/N: o look. I'm sorry for the delay, writing is a bit of a funny thing for me right now. Finding it hard to be inspired/in the mood, but I'm trying my best. There might be delays in the future, sorry :( I have to go reply to comments as well, sobs. I procrastinate good you guys.
High Technology (11/?)
Yehsung slapped Jonghyun cleanly across the cheek once and barked out "What's his blood type?"
"B," Jonghyun said with a tearful gasp, choking a little, and then Yehsung pulled Key into his arms and made him way quickly, yet calmly, to the entrance to the stairs down to the surgery. Jonghyun made to follow him, but Sungmin grabbed hold of his arm and pulled him back. Even when Jonghyun struggled, Sungmin didn't let go. It was bad enough that Jonghyun was here, seeing their house with his chipped brain, but to let Jonghyun down to a room as important as the surgery, where they removed the chips, that would be unthinkable without running it past Kyuhyun first.
"Jonghyun." Sungmin didn't want to slap him again, but he would do it if Jonghyun didn't stop struggling. "Jonghyun, you need to let Yehsung do what he needs to do, and you need to come with me so you can tell us exactly what's happened."
Jonghyun was covered in blood and not all of it seemed like Key's. There were a couple of nasty gashes on his forehead and his bicep which were only just beginning to clot over. Sungmin pushed him into a chair and then got a washcloth. He wiped at Jonghyun's face and Jonghyun grabbed his wrist. "Will he be okay?" he rapsed. "I brought him here because I thought he'd be okay."
"Yehsung is working on him," Sungmin said, a little unnerved. "He'll be doing the best he can. Calm down, you're going to have a panic attack."
"Are you hurt anywhere else?" Siwon asked, leaning over Jonghyun and looking at the wound on his forehead. It was jagged around the edges, like he'd fallen into something, and kind of dirty. It could wait; Yehsung had more important things to bother with. "Jonghyun?"
"No," Jonghyun said. His eyes were trained on the door now, as if he thought he could escape once Siwon and Sungmin looked away. "I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt at all."
"You are, Jonghyun, you've hurt your arm."
"It doesn't hurt."
Siwon looked helplessly at Sungmin, who looked pretty helpless himself. He shrugged, and sat down, turning a seat so that it faced Jonghyun. "Who did it?" he started by asking. Siwon was suddenly terrified of the answer, and began to hope that Jonghyun would prove too hysterical to answer. For a minute it seemed like that was the case, until Sungmin reached across, shook Jonghyun by the shoulder and repeated his question.
"Heechul." Jonghyun was shaking, his teeth chattering; it gave him a slight stutter. "Heechul-hyung did it."
"Dear god," Siwon said, then bit his tongue, reminding himself that those kind of habits, that kind of language, could lead nowhere good. He saw how Sungmin glanced at him, slightly nervous and apprehensive, but Siwon just said, "How do you know it was him, Jonghyun?"
"Saw his face. Didn't have a hood on, even though he was outside. We were trying to get away from the market, we'd heard about people being killed and we kind of figured that we'd be next. Didn't want to be in our usual place, you know? Doesn't matter, since he found us anyway. He just appeared out of nowhere and started shooting. We -- I, I grabbed Key's hand and we started running and he chased us, still shooting. I thought, it was lucky nothing had hit us!"
He sunk his head into his hands, shoulders shaking with sobs, and Sungmin lay a comforting hand on his back. "I guess we know who has been killing all the others now, don't we," he said to Siwon.
"I didn't think..." Siwon trailed off. None of them would have thought that Heechul would be capable of this. Sure, he was always willing to kill the people who had hurt him, but what had any of their informants possibly done to piss him off? Heechul had always been fond of Jonghyun, and at least tolerated Key for Jonghyun's sake; why would he therefore try to kill either of them? And why, why would he try to kill Eunhyuk, because that surely had been his aim in beating him to the extent he had. He angrily rubbed at his hair. "I think I'm going crazy," he said. Sungmin tried to smile comfortingly at him, but Siwon could see the fear in his eyes; he wasn't the only one who was slowly losing his grasp on what was reality.
Siwon retrieved Kyuhyun from his bed, and while he complained about it once more, he stopped when Siwon tersely told him why. Zhou Mi stirred when Kyuhyun got out of the bed but otherwise didn't wake up, and Kyuhyun glanced back at him, pressing his lips into a white line. Sungmin had made a cup of very hot coffee for Jonghyun and Siwon handed him a new t-shirt. It was one of his own, so it was far too big for the smaller Jonghyun, but it was at least better than the blood soaked one lying in the hallway.
Jonghyun relayed his tale once more for Kyuhyun, though the addition of clean clothing and a warm drink ensured that he was able to get further through it than he had been able to earlier; he told Kyuhyun about hiding down an alley for a minute or so, until Key had pulled on Jonghyun's arm and showed him the bullet wound in his side. "He'd already lost so much blood running like that, I don't even know when it happened. It was like one minute he was fine, the next he was collapsed in my--" He broke off again, shuddering as he lay his head back on his arms in the table.
"Do you know why he tried to kill you?" Kyuhyun asked, shaking Jonghyun just a little. "Anything you've done that might annoy him?" Jonghyun, unable to talk, just shook his head wildly. Kyuhyun sat back, rubbing his temples. "Jonghyun, you know, right? You can't stay here."
"What? But Key--"
"While Key is here, you can stay. As soon as he...leaves, you too will have to leave." Kyuhyun narrowed his eyes at him. "While I don't usually mind that most of our people know where we are, actually coming here is dangerous for us. You could bring the Institution directly on us."
"Take my chip out."
Jonghyun's eyes had a wet sheen to them, but they were clear, and his voice was firm and steady. He looked very much like someone who would not take no for an answer. Sungmin looked at Kyuhyun and found him just watching Jonghyun coolly. They were sizing each other up. Kyuhyun eventually said, "No."
"Why not? Haven't I proven that I--"
"That's not why. I'm not doing it anymore."
Jonghyun could only gape at him, so it was Sungmin who asked the question. "Why not?"
"It causes more harm than anything else," Kyuhyun said shortly, with an air of that being that. "If you need me, I'll be in the operations room. Send Hankyung to me if and when he comes back."
SEVEN YEARS EARLIER
Donghae was the one who first found Sungmin. Looking at them now, it would have been impossible to believe that Donghae had once been able to lift Sungmin into his arms and carry him without even breaking a sweat. Hard to reconcile the Sungmin now with the skin-and-bones he'd been back then, stick limbs deposited in a bundle onto the bed in the surgery. No one said anything about it; they were all too used to Donghae bringing home street rats to look after, and so they'd all just waited a while for the saline drip that Yehsung put into his arm to begin working.
Sungmin's experience on waking up had been slightly different. Someone's face was pushed into his own and he was saying, very loudly, "Do you think he'd have starved to death?"
Sungmin would have yelped if he had been able to find the energy. Instead, he just blinked slowly, and someone out of earshot said, "Probably, give or take a couple of days. Now get away from him, you'll give him a heart attack if he wakes up like that."
"He's already awake," said the boy cheerfully, stepping away. The bright light that had been lighting up the back of his head like a halo suddenly flared into Sungmin's eyes, semi-blinding him for a minute, so he missed when the next man stepped forward and into the light. He began shining a light into Sungmin's eyes, tracking his movements.
"Could you tell me your name?" he asked, voice kind. Sungmin didn't answer immediately. "Your name? Age?"
"Sungmin," Sungmin said eventually. His mouth was dry, voice hoarse. "I'm nineteen."
There was a very long pause, as the man who'd replaced the first one looked over his shoulder and lay his torch down on the table next to the bed that Sungmin was lying on. "How long have you been on the streets, Sungmin?" he asked, voice a lot quieter now.
"I ran away from home," Sungmin whispered.
"Yes," said the man. "But when?"
"Two nights ago. I think."
"And where did you live?"
Sungmin gave his address in the nicer part of the city and watched as the man's eyebrows rose once more. For the first time, Sungmin realised that he actually wasn't in a hospital. They'd know all this stuff in a hospital, would have been able to find him on the database. He tried to struggle upright but he was too hungry, too exhausted. "Sungmin, my name is Yehsung. There is no need to worry, you're in a safe place. Now what I want you to do is tell me how, if you're from such good family, why we found you slumped in the street looking like you hadn't eaten in months."
There had been a long explanation that Sungmin hadn't been comfortable giving out that day, but which had come out in dribs and drabs over the next few weeks. Eeteuk and Heechul had understood, a little, what it was like to be expected to take over from your father, to have every single decision of your life made for you: no way of deciding where you went to school, what you studied, who your friends were, or even who the people you fell in love with. In lieu of actively making decisions, Sungmin had made the passive decision of simply not eating. He controlled every single pound he put on or, as was usually the case, lost. That kind of control was addictive, and it was hard to give up even after his chip had been removed and he'd been given his life back.
They'd all tried to help, in their way, and if Heechul had been a little too harsh, and Kangin a little too flippant, and Eeteuk a little too smothering, Sungmin had eventually come to realise that they were just trying to help. To begin with, he'd thought they were trying to take his control away from him again, and Sungmin had hated that, lashed out against that. It wasn't until Heechul bluntly told him that "Yehsung said you'll die going on like this. If you do, can I have your clothes?" that Sungmin realised that he needed to sort himself out.
The recovery took a couple of years. Once his energy began to creep back to normal levels, he was able to take up the martial arts training that he'd forgotten about in the face of his disorder. It wasn't until Siwon arrived, young and angry and confused, that Sungmin really began to get better. In Siwon, he found a kindred spirit, another person whose life had been controlled from birth until the moment he ran away. Trying to help the younger boy stopped Sungmin from paying that much attention to what he was putting in his mouth. Food was in no short supply after Ryeowook realised that cooking helped him escape from his own past.
Maybe the thing that had kept them all together this long was that they were all running from their pasts.
CURRENT TIME
Yehsung's clothes were covered in blood for the second time in three days, and the thing about blood was that it was remarkably difficult to get out of fabrics, especially when cleaning products were hard to get hold of. He pulled his shirt off and threw it into the corner of the room, the usual place that he considered the "laundry basket". No doubt Ryeowook would remove it later, to do with it as he saw fit. Yehsung wouldn't be surprised if he never saw it again. Ryeowook would probably burn it. For now though, Yehsung needed to sleep.
Flopping face down onto the bed, he was asleep within moments, three nights of little rest finally catching up to him. When he woke later, when the sun was decidedly lower in the sky, Ryeowook was lying on the bed next to him, awake and just staring at him. "Have something on my face?" Yehsung slurred, brain still mostly out of it. Ryeowook shook his head, wriggling to let Yehsung wind an arm under his shoulders.
"You were talking in your sleep," Ryeowook said. "I was trying to work out what it was."
"Probably nothing." With his free arm, Yehsung stretched as best as he could. "What time is it?"
"Seven."
Yehsung stifled a yawn and then sat up. "I guess I'd better get back to my patient, then."
Ryeowook suddenly hugged him from behind. "Do you think Heechul really has betrayed us?" he asked, in a small voice. Yehsung reached around and patted his cheek.
"Who knows?" he said. "All I know is that I have to look after whoever comes here, and you need to make sure that everyone is fed. Why worry about the workings of Heechul's mind, or anyone's mind? We just need to do what we need to do."
He could sense that Ryeowook wasn't happy with that, but Ryeowook was the type of person to get involved in things that didn't affect him simply because they were likely to affect someone else. As far as Yehsung was concerned, he was tasked with keeping people alive and that was all he needed to do. If Heechul wanted to go running around shooting people, then so be it. The only reason Yehsung would get involved to make him stop was if his own workload seemed to be getting a bit too much.
And if Heechul tried to shoot Ryeowook. Then Yehsung would get involved.
He thought about it as he checked Key's vital signs down in the surgery. Ryeowook's dream, where Heechul was coming after them, played on his mind. He knew it was just a dream, Ryeowook's subconscious playing on his fears, mixing his old nightmares of being chased with the new unknown information that they had been given on Heechul. Kyuhyun, who had been looking after Key while Yehsung had caught some rest, sat quietly in a chair, chewing on the skin on his thumb. He had a thoughtful look on his face, one which Yehsung didn't want to interrupt.
Key was fine for now, though not exactly out of the woods. He'd lost a lot of blood and Yehsung hadn't had many reserves of it; hard to store. They'd just have to see how he managed through the night. In any case, Yehsung didn't want Jonghyun down here, and he got the feeling that Kyuhyun had already seen that he wouldn't. The thing was -- Yehsung bit his lip, knowing that he couldn't have been the only one to come to this conclusion, but the thing was, if he was right then Ryeowook was in danger, and that was the only thing Yehsung would get involved for.
"You realise, right?" he said, voice pitched low, but it still seemed loud in the dimly lit room. "It's almost as though it's a straight line leading directly to us."
"But he started with one of us," Kyuhyun said. The ease with which he picked up on what Yehsung was trying to say suggested that he'd been thinking along the same lines. "Why didn't he just continue with us?"
"Maybe he got scared."
"Heechul doesn't get scared." Kyuhyun yawned, and stretched, looking tense and stiff. "You think he's gone crazy?"
"I'm not a psychiatrist, Kyuhyun."
"Come on, Yehsung. You'd know the warning signs better than us."
Yehsung sighed, shrugged and glanced at Eunhyuk, asleep in the bed next to Key. "He showed no signs of madness before," he said. "His erratic behaviour that had been obvious even when I arrived here was practically gone. He still had some bouts of paranoia, he still showed a few symptoms of major depression, but no. I wouldn't have said that he was losing his mind. To be honest, he seemed to be gaining it."
"So the question is, what's happened?"
"Do you still think that he's sold us out to the Institution?"
"God, Yehsung, I have no idea what to believe. To be honest, Heechul would the last one I would have accused of working with them, but then I would never have thought that Heechul would go on a killing spree like this."
Yehsung was silent for a long time, before he said, "I'm going to go tell Jonghyun that Key...well, that he's stable for now."
"He's got a cut on his arm," Kyuhyun said, chewing on his thumb again. "You need to take a look at it."
Yehsung climbed the stairs out of the surgery grumbling about how he had to do every thing around there and that they could do with getting another person with a medical degree because soon he would die of being over-worked. He was still muttering when he walked into the kitchen and put a first aid kit down on the table. Siwon had disappeared, to be replaced by Henry, who had been doing a good job of distracting Jonghyun. Sungmin didn't appear to be up to the task; he looked pale and drawn, and Yehsung made a note to talk to him later. Once Jonghyun saw Yehsung, the spell was broken.
"How is he? Is he awake? Can I see him?"
"He's stable for now," Yehsung said. He opened the box and pulled out some anti-sceptic and bandages. He took Jonghyun's arm and pulled it towards him, looking at the cut carefully. "He's not awake, and no, you cannot see him."
Jonghyun tried to pull his arm back but Yehsung held it tight. "Why? Why can't I see him?"
"I, and Kyuhyun agrees with me, don't want you seeing more of the house than this room, and possibly one of the bedrooms. There is no way you're getting down into the surgery." Then, before Jonghyun could interrupt, Yehsung asked Sungmin, "Where's Siwon?"
"He's gone looking for Hankyung," Sungmin said quietly. "Kyuhyun wants him for some reason."
"Ah," Yehsung said. "Eating alright?" he added casually.
"Yes," Sungmin said, voice a lot more forceful that it had been. Yehsung saw Henry glance at him, a little surprised. It was possible he didn't know what Sungmin's past had been. That wasn't surprising. He hadn't been there that long, certainly not long enough to know what each of them were bringing to the table, what each of them carried on their backs as baggage. After all, no one other than Kyuhyun really knew why Henry was here. You just had to trust, even if the person you were trusted turned around and battered you over the head with a metal pipe.
"Tomorrow I'm going to move Eunhyuk from the surgery," Yehsung said, finishing wrapping the bandages around Jonghyun's arm. "It'll need to be done delicately, so would you be able to give me a hand, Sungmin?"
"Yeah," Sungmin said, voice back to the previous softness.
"What's wrong with Eunhyuk-hyung?" Jonghyun asked. His skin was clammy, and he was stuttering, just a little. Yehsung hoped that some sleep would help with the shock, but for now he began searching in some cupboards; he knew that Ryeowook had some hot chocolate hidden in some cranny somewhere that he probably wouldn't mind sharing with Jonghyun. Yehsung left Sungmin to answer.
"He was attacked."
"By Heechul?"
"Yes," Sungmin said after a pause. "We think so."
"Then why aren't you trying to find him?"
"What do you think we're trying to do?" Yehsung asked heavily. "He's completely off the radar, Jonghyun. We know he's responsible for the deaths of, we don't even know, at least ten people? But we can't find him. It's like he's invisible."
"He shot Key, and he beat up Eunhyuk-hyung, and he's killed more." Jonghyun's face was alight with both fear and anger. "What kind of a monster is he?"
"We don't know," Yehsung sad with a sigh. "We just don't know."
They all looked to the door as the front door slammed shut out in the hallway. After the events of the past couple of days, even Henry reached for his gun. There was the sounds of footsteps, then the kitchen door swung open. Donghae stumbled in, hair thick with something; he shook his head and ashes fell to the floor. There was a burn on his face, pink and shiny. "Jesus Christ, what happened?" Yehsung asked, rising to his feet.
"The market is on fire," Donghae said tersely. "Lit up, burning, kaput.
"The fuck are you--"
"The market has been set alight," Donghae repeated. "I was down there, with Siwon, I saw it go up."
"Siwon?" The panic spread across Sungmin's face as he rose to his feet. Donghae waved him back down.
"We thought Yehsung would be in the surgery. He's gone down there."
"Is he hurt?" Yehsung and Sungmin asked at the same time.
"Bit singed around the edges?" Donghae was going for casual but it just came across as unsure. "We were trying to get people out and the fire kind of crept up on us." Sungmin jumped up and raced from the room to find out how bad Siwon's burns were. Yehsung decided to deal with Donghae as he could see him.
Jonghyun was looking horror struck. "But -- that's where we lived! That's where we all lived, what about Onew, and Minho, and fuck, Taemin? What's happened with Taemin? Key will--" Then he remembered that Key was hooked up to a machine monitering his heart beat and groaned. Donghae seemed to notice him for the first.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, confused. "We got the others out, but we were looking for you and Key when we got burnt."
Yehsung sighed as Jonghyun began to tell Donghae exactly how he had come to be in the house, soaking bandages in cold water. It was proving to be a very long week.
Fandom: Super Junior (AU, !cyberpunk)
Pairing: Siwon/Sungmin, Hankyung/Heechul, Kyuhyun/Zhou Mi, Kangin/Eeteuk, Kibum/Donghae, Yehsung/Ryeowook, other pairings implied.
Word count: 3,486
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The micro-chips let the government keep tabs on your every move; the video cameras let the government know when they need to start paying attention. Get rid of the chip in the back of your brain and you can slip under the radar, and do whatever the hell you like. It's not like they're the bad guys, but it's not like they're the good guys, either.
A/N: o look. I'm sorry for the delay, writing is a bit of a funny thing for me right now. Finding it hard to be inspired/in the mood, but I'm trying my best. There might be delays in the future, sorry :( I have to go reply to comments as well, sobs. I procrastinate good you guys.
High Technology (11/?)
Yehsung slapped Jonghyun cleanly across the cheek once and barked out "What's his blood type?"
"B," Jonghyun said with a tearful gasp, choking a little, and then Yehsung pulled Key into his arms and made him way quickly, yet calmly, to the entrance to the stairs down to the surgery. Jonghyun made to follow him, but Sungmin grabbed hold of his arm and pulled him back. Even when Jonghyun struggled, Sungmin didn't let go. It was bad enough that Jonghyun was here, seeing their house with his chipped brain, but to let Jonghyun down to a room as important as the surgery, where they removed the chips, that would be unthinkable without running it past Kyuhyun first.
"Jonghyun." Sungmin didn't want to slap him again, but he would do it if Jonghyun didn't stop struggling. "Jonghyun, you need to let Yehsung do what he needs to do, and you need to come with me so you can tell us exactly what's happened."
Jonghyun was covered in blood and not all of it seemed like Key's. There were a couple of nasty gashes on his forehead and his bicep which were only just beginning to clot over. Sungmin pushed him into a chair and then got a washcloth. He wiped at Jonghyun's face and Jonghyun grabbed his wrist. "Will he be okay?" he rapsed. "I brought him here because I thought he'd be okay."
"Yehsung is working on him," Sungmin said, a little unnerved. "He'll be doing the best he can. Calm down, you're going to have a panic attack."
"Are you hurt anywhere else?" Siwon asked, leaning over Jonghyun and looking at the wound on his forehead. It was jagged around the edges, like he'd fallen into something, and kind of dirty. It could wait; Yehsung had more important things to bother with. "Jonghyun?"
"No," Jonghyun said. His eyes were trained on the door now, as if he thought he could escape once Siwon and Sungmin looked away. "I'm not hurt. I'm not hurt at all."
"You are, Jonghyun, you've hurt your arm."
"It doesn't hurt."
Siwon looked helplessly at Sungmin, who looked pretty helpless himself. He shrugged, and sat down, turning a seat so that it faced Jonghyun. "Who did it?" he started by asking. Siwon was suddenly terrified of the answer, and began to hope that Jonghyun would prove too hysterical to answer. For a minute it seemed like that was the case, until Sungmin reached across, shook Jonghyun by the shoulder and repeated his question.
"Heechul." Jonghyun was shaking, his teeth chattering; it gave him a slight stutter. "Heechul-hyung did it."
"Dear god," Siwon said, then bit his tongue, reminding himself that those kind of habits, that kind of language, could lead nowhere good. He saw how Sungmin glanced at him, slightly nervous and apprehensive, but Siwon just said, "How do you know it was him, Jonghyun?"
"Saw his face. Didn't have a hood on, even though he was outside. We were trying to get away from the market, we'd heard about people being killed and we kind of figured that we'd be next. Didn't want to be in our usual place, you know? Doesn't matter, since he found us anyway. He just appeared out of nowhere and started shooting. We -- I, I grabbed Key's hand and we started running and he chased us, still shooting. I thought, it was lucky nothing had hit us!"
He sunk his head into his hands, shoulders shaking with sobs, and Sungmin lay a comforting hand on his back. "I guess we know who has been killing all the others now, don't we," he said to Siwon.
"I didn't think..." Siwon trailed off. None of them would have thought that Heechul would be capable of this. Sure, he was always willing to kill the people who had hurt him, but what had any of their informants possibly done to piss him off? Heechul had always been fond of Jonghyun, and at least tolerated Key for Jonghyun's sake; why would he therefore try to kill either of them? And why, why would he try to kill Eunhyuk, because that surely had been his aim in beating him to the extent he had. He angrily rubbed at his hair. "I think I'm going crazy," he said. Sungmin tried to smile comfortingly at him, but Siwon could see the fear in his eyes; he wasn't the only one who was slowly losing his grasp on what was reality.
Siwon retrieved Kyuhyun from his bed, and while he complained about it once more, he stopped when Siwon tersely told him why. Zhou Mi stirred when Kyuhyun got out of the bed but otherwise didn't wake up, and Kyuhyun glanced back at him, pressing his lips into a white line. Sungmin had made a cup of very hot coffee for Jonghyun and Siwon handed him a new t-shirt. It was one of his own, so it was far too big for the smaller Jonghyun, but it was at least better than the blood soaked one lying in the hallway.
Jonghyun relayed his tale once more for Kyuhyun, though the addition of clean clothing and a warm drink ensured that he was able to get further through it than he had been able to earlier; he told Kyuhyun about hiding down an alley for a minute or so, until Key had pulled on Jonghyun's arm and showed him the bullet wound in his side. "He'd already lost so much blood running like that, I don't even know when it happened. It was like one minute he was fine, the next he was collapsed in my--" He broke off again, shuddering as he lay his head back on his arms in the table.
"Do you know why he tried to kill you?" Kyuhyun asked, shaking Jonghyun just a little. "Anything you've done that might annoy him?" Jonghyun, unable to talk, just shook his head wildly. Kyuhyun sat back, rubbing his temples. "Jonghyun, you know, right? You can't stay here."
"What? But Key--"
"While Key is here, you can stay. As soon as he...leaves, you too will have to leave." Kyuhyun narrowed his eyes at him. "While I don't usually mind that most of our people know where we are, actually coming here is dangerous for us. You could bring the Institution directly on us."
"Take my chip out."
Jonghyun's eyes had a wet sheen to them, but they were clear, and his voice was firm and steady. He looked very much like someone who would not take no for an answer. Sungmin looked at Kyuhyun and found him just watching Jonghyun coolly. They were sizing each other up. Kyuhyun eventually said, "No."
"Why not? Haven't I proven that I--"
"That's not why. I'm not doing it anymore."
Jonghyun could only gape at him, so it was Sungmin who asked the question. "Why not?"
"It causes more harm than anything else," Kyuhyun said shortly, with an air of that being that. "If you need me, I'll be in the operations room. Send Hankyung to me if and when he comes back."
SEVEN YEARS EARLIER
Donghae was the one who first found Sungmin. Looking at them now, it would have been impossible to believe that Donghae had once been able to lift Sungmin into his arms and carry him without even breaking a sweat. Hard to reconcile the Sungmin now with the skin-and-bones he'd been back then, stick limbs deposited in a bundle onto the bed in the surgery. No one said anything about it; they were all too used to Donghae bringing home street rats to look after, and so they'd all just waited a while for the saline drip that Yehsung put into his arm to begin working.
Sungmin's experience on waking up had been slightly different. Someone's face was pushed into his own and he was saying, very loudly, "Do you think he'd have starved to death?"
Sungmin would have yelped if he had been able to find the energy. Instead, he just blinked slowly, and someone out of earshot said, "Probably, give or take a couple of days. Now get away from him, you'll give him a heart attack if he wakes up like that."
"He's already awake," said the boy cheerfully, stepping away. The bright light that had been lighting up the back of his head like a halo suddenly flared into Sungmin's eyes, semi-blinding him for a minute, so he missed when the next man stepped forward and into the light. He began shining a light into Sungmin's eyes, tracking his movements.
"Could you tell me your name?" he asked, voice kind. Sungmin didn't answer immediately. "Your name? Age?"
"Sungmin," Sungmin said eventually. His mouth was dry, voice hoarse. "I'm nineteen."
There was a very long pause, as the man who'd replaced the first one looked over his shoulder and lay his torch down on the table next to the bed that Sungmin was lying on. "How long have you been on the streets, Sungmin?" he asked, voice a lot quieter now.
"I ran away from home," Sungmin whispered.
"Yes," said the man. "But when?"
"Two nights ago. I think."
"And where did you live?"
Sungmin gave his address in the nicer part of the city and watched as the man's eyebrows rose once more. For the first time, Sungmin realised that he actually wasn't in a hospital. They'd know all this stuff in a hospital, would have been able to find him on the database. He tried to struggle upright but he was too hungry, too exhausted. "Sungmin, my name is Yehsung. There is no need to worry, you're in a safe place. Now what I want you to do is tell me how, if you're from such good family, why we found you slumped in the street looking like you hadn't eaten in months."
There had been a long explanation that Sungmin hadn't been comfortable giving out that day, but which had come out in dribs and drabs over the next few weeks. Eeteuk and Heechul had understood, a little, what it was like to be expected to take over from your father, to have every single decision of your life made for you: no way of deciding where you went to school, what you studied, who your friends were, or even who the people you fell in love with. In lieu of actively making decisions, Sungmin had made the passive decision of simply not eating. He controlled every single pound he put on or, as was usually the case, lost. That kind of control was addictive, and it was hard to give up even after his chip had been removed and he'd been given his life back.
They'd all tried to help, in their way, and if Heechul had been a little too harsh, and Kangin a little too flippant, and Eeteuk a little too smothering, Sungmin had eventually come to realise that they were just trying to help. To begin with, he'd thought they were trying to take his control away from him again, and Sungmin had hated that, lashed out against that. It wasn't until Heechul bluntly told him that "Yehsung said you'll die going on like this. If you do, can I have your clothes?" that Sungmin realised that he needed to sort himself out.
The recovery took a couple of years. Once his energy began to creep back to normal levels, he was able to take up the martial arts training that he'd forgotten about in the face of his disorder. It wasn't until Siwon arrived, young and angry and confused, that Sungmin really began to get better. In Siwon, he found a kindred spirit, another person whose life had been controlled from birth until the moment he ran away. Trying to help the younger boy stopped Sungmin from paying that much attention to what he was putting in his mouth. Food was in no short supply after Ryeowook realised that cooking helped him escape from his own past.
Maybe the thing that had kept them all together this long was that they were all running from their pasts.
CURRENT TIME
Yehsung's clothes were covered in blood for the second time in three days, and the thing about blood was that it was remarkably difficult to get out of fabrics, especially when cleaning products were hard to get hold of. He pulled his shirt off and threw it into the corner of the room, the usual place that he considered the "laundry basket". No doubt Ryeowook would remove it later, to do with it as he saw fit. Yehsung wouldn't be surprised if he never saw it again. Ryeowook would probably burn it. For now though, Yehsung needed to sleep.
Flopping face down onto the bed, he was asleep within moments, three nights of little rest finally catching up to him. When he woke later, when the sun was decidedly lower in the sky, Ryeowook was lying on the bed next to him, awake and just staring at him. "Have something on my face?" Yehsung slurred, brain still mostly out of it. Ryeowook shook his head, wriggling to let Yehsung wind an arm under his shoulders.
"You were talking in your sleep," Ryeowook said. "I was trying to work out what it was."
"Probably nothing." With his free arm, Yehsung stretched as best as he could. "What time is it?"
"Seven."
Yehsung stifled a yawn and then sat up. "I guess I'd better get back to my patient, then."
Ryeowook suddenly hugged him from behind. "Do you think Heechul really has betrayed us?" he asked, in a small voice. Yehsung reached around and patted his cheek.
"Who knows?" he said. "All I know is that I have to look after whoever comes here, and you need to make sure that everyone is fed. Why worry about the workings of Heechul's mind, or anyone's mind? We just need to do what we need to do."
He could sense that Ryeowook wasn't happy with that, but Ryeowook was the type of person to get involved in things that didn't affect him simply because they were likely to affect someone else. As far as Yehsung was concerned, he was tasked with keeping people alive and that was all he needed to do. If Heechul wanted to go running around shooting people, then so be it. The only reason Yehsung would get involved to make him stop was if his own workload seemed to be getting a bit too much.
And if Heechul tried to shoot Ryeowook. Then Yehsung would get involved.
He thought about it as he checked Key's vital signs down in the surgery. Ryeowook's dream, where Heechul was coming after them, played on his mind. He knew it was just a dream, Ryeowook's subconscious playing on his fears, mixing his old nightmares of being chased with the new unknown information that they had been given on Heechul. Kyuhyun, who had been looking after Key while Yehsung had caught some rest, sat quietly in a chair, chewing on the skin on his thumb. He had a thoughtful look on his face, one which Yehsung didn't want to interrupt.
Key was fine for now, though not exactly out of the woods. He'd lost a lot of blood and Yehsung hadn't had many reserves of it; hard to store. They'd just have to see how he managed through the night. In any case, Yehsung didn't want Jonghyun down here, and he got the feeling that Kyuhyun had already seen that he wouldn't. The thing was -- Yehsung bit his lip, knowing that he couldn't have been the only one to come to this conclusion, but the thing was, if he was right then Ryeowook was in danger, and that was the only thing Yehsung would get involved for.
"You realise, right?" he said, voice pitched low, but it still seemed loud in the dimly lit room. "It's almost as though it's a straight line leading directly to us."
"But he started with one of us," Kyuhyun said. The ease with which he picked up on what Yehsung was trying to say suggested that he'd been thinking along the same lines. "Why didn't he just continue with us?"
"Maybe he got scared."
"Heechul doesn't get scared." Kyuhyun yawned, and stretched, looking tense and stiff. "You think he's gone crazy?"
"I'm not a psychiatrist, Kyuhyun."
"Come on, Yehsung. You'd know the warning signs better than us."
Yehsung sighed, shrugged and glanced at Eunhyuk, asleep in the bed next to Key. "He showed no signs of madness before," he said. "His erratic behaviour that had been obvious even when I arrived here was practically gone. He still had some bouts of paranoia, he still showed a few symptoms of major depression, but no. I wouldn't have said that he was losing his mind. To be honest, he seemed to be gaining it."
"So the question is, what's happened?"
"Do you still think that he's sold us out to the Institution?"
"God, Yehsung, I have no idea what to believe. To be honest, Heechul would the last one I would have accused of working with them, but then I would never have thought that Heechul would go on a killing spree like this."
Yehsung was silent for a long time, before he said, "I'm going to go tell Jonghyun that Key...well, that he's stable for now."
"He's got a cut on his arm," Kyuhyun said, chewing on his thumb again. "You need to take a look at it."
Yehsung climbed the stairs out of the surgery grumbling about how he had to do every thing around there and that they could do with getting another person with a medical degree because soon he would die of being over-worked. He was still muttering when he walked into the kitchen and put a first aid kit down on the table. Siwon had disappeared, to be replaced by Henry, who had been doing a good job of distracting Jonghyun. Sungmin didn't appear to be up to the task; he looked pale and drawn, and Yehsung made a note to talk to him later. Once Jonghyun saw Yehsung, the spell was broken.
"How is he? Is he awake? Can I see him?"
"He's stable for now," Yehsung said. He opened the box and pulled out some anti-sceptic and bandages. He took Jonghyun's arm and pulled it towards him, looking at the cut carefully. "He's not awake, and no, you cannot see him."
Jonghyun tried to pull his arm back but Yehsung held it tight. "Why? Why can't I see him?"
"I, and Kyuhyun agrees with me, don't want you seeing more of the house than this room, and possibly one of the bedrooms. There is no way you're getting down into the surgery." Then, before Jonghyun could interrupt, Yehsung asked Sungmin, "Where's Siwon?"
"He's gone looking for Hankyung," Sungmin said quietly. "Kyuhyun wants him for some reason."
"Ah," Yehsung said. "Eating alright?" he added casually.
"Yes," Sungmin said, voice a lot more forceful that it had been. Yehsung saw Henry glance at him, a little surprised. It was possible he didn't know what Sungmin's past had been. That wasn't surprising. He hadn't been there that long, certainly not long enough to know what each of them were bringing to the table, what each of them carried on their backs as baggage. After all, no one other than Kyuhyun really knew why Henry was here. You just had to trust, even if the person you were trusted turned around and battered you over the head with a metal pipe.
"Tomorrow I'm going to move Eunhyuk from the surgery," Yehsung said, finishing wrapping the bandages around Jonghyun's arm. "It'll need to be done delicately, so would you be able to give me a hand, Sungmin?"
"Yeah," Sungmin said, voice back to the previous softness.
"What's wrong with Eunhyuk-hyung?" Jonghyun asked. His skin was clammy, and he was stuttering, just a little. Yehsung hoped that some sleep would help with the shock, but for now he began searching in some cupboards; he knew that Ryeowook had some hot chocolate hidden in some cranny somewhere that he probably wouldn't mind sharing with Jonghyun. Yehsung left Sungmin to answer.
"He was attacked."
"By Heechul?"
"Yes," Sungmin said after a pause. "We think so."
"Then why aren't you trying to find him?"
"What do you think we're trying to do?" Yehsung asked heavily. "He's completely off the radar, Jonghyun. We know he's responsible for the deaths of, we don't even know, at least ten people? But we can't find him. It's like he's invisible."
"He shot Key, and he beat up Eunhyuk-hyung, and he's killed more." Jonghyun's face was alight with both fear and anger. "What kind of a monster is he?"
"We don't know," Yehsung sad with a sigh. "We just don't know."
They all looked to the door as the front door slammed shut out in the hallway. After the events of the past couple of days, even Henry reached for his gun. There was the sounds of footsteps, then the kitchen door swung open. Donghae stumbled in, hair thick with something; he shook his head and ashes fell to the floor. There was a burn on his face, pink and shiny. "Jesus Christ, what happened?" Yehsung asked, rising to his feet.
"The market is on fire," Donghae said tersely. "Lit up, burning, kaput.
"The fuck are you--"
"The market has been set alight," Donghae repeated. "I was down there, with Siwon, I saw it go up."
"Siwon?" The panic spread across Sungmin's face as he rose to his feet. Donghae waved him back down.
"We thought Yehsung would be in the surgery. He's gone down there."
"Is he hurt?" Yehsung and Sungmin asked at the same time.
"Bit singed around the edges?" Donghae was going for casual but it just came across as unsure. "We were trying to get people out and the fire kind of crept up on us." Sungmin jumped up and raced from the room to find out how bad Siwon's burns were. Yehsung decided to deal with Donghae as he could see him.
Jonghyun was looking horror struck. "But -- that's where we lived! That's where we all lived, what about Onew, and Minho, and fuck, Taemin? What's happened with Taemin? Key will--" Then he remembered that Key was hooked up to a machine monitering his heart beat and groaned. Donghae seemed to notice him for the first.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, confused. "We got the others out, but we were looking for you and Key when we got burnt."
Yehsung sighed as Jonghyun began to tell Donghae exactly how he had come to be in the house, soaking bandages in cold water. It was proving to be a very long week.